bills wot

[ceagle]

A weird thing has been happening with bills the last few years... I have touched on them in various entries, but this is a summary with some new info:

I pay bills on time, and yet they don't always get there on time... but due to the weirdness of this new day and age, I think. :/

A few years ago, the electric company lost TWO bills in a row that we mailed, so I went to the payment center and stood in line and paid in person for the 3rd one, and then just signed up to pay online to avoid the hassle.

Then last August, the post office somehow lost (or had stolen) all the bills I mailed that month. Luckily the missing ones never showed up, so I didn't get overdrawn.

And a few times now, the phone company has told me my payments were late, so I went down there and asked what was going on, because I place the payments right in the payment slot that has been there almost since the time Alexander Graham Bell founded the place! They casually told me that they rarely check that box... maybe once a week or so..! wot?

I do toy with the idea of doing more payments online, but I'm not too fond of the psychology it can breed... less involvement with what's going on with the bills, and more of a chance that mistakes and incorrect charges will slip through unnoticed.

*sigh* :/

Comments

[mortonfox.livejournal.com]

I have auto-pay set up on nearly everything but I still download and save billing statements for reference. I use electronic payments even for state taxes because I've found that they do lose checks sometimes too.

[archteryx.livejournal.com]

I tend to use a lot of electronic bill paying / online bill paying, but I *NEVER* do it automatically. That's handing over the keys to your checking account to whatever utility you are paying, and just asking to have it robbed sooner or later. When it comes to money, possession is 9/10ths of the game.

However, if you receive bills (electronic or paper) and pay them online each month as one-time payments, you still have a chance to audit the bill itself to make sure they aren't screwing up, and have a way of proving that yes, you indeed sent the money, and if they don't have it by X date it is their own damn fault.

[hastka.livejournal.com]

I broke down 5 years or so ago in similar circumstances to what you describe... also went through a phase several years prior where things would get sent to former residences and I would get dinged on credit reports. I contested the charge since they sent it somewhere obsolete, but it rarely was resolved in my favor -- and the bills were all like $20 or something idiotic.

Granted with autopay it does remove you from the loop which can be either good or bad. It requires effort (which I don't usually take) to verify nobody's cheating you, but on the other hand: 1) I've almost never found a case of improper billing, and 2) even if I did, they'd penalize me for "late payments" while the situation were being resolved otherwise.

So I guess in short, caving in isn't the moral high ground, but it may keep your finances in order better than otherwise.

[expandranon.livejournal.com]

I feel the same way about online bill paying. I worry I'll get screwed over somehow, that they'll overdraw me or something when I'm not looking.