After paying one of my utility bills through my bank's payment

[Ilsa]

system for years, the utility now refuses that method of payment. Even though they get paid with a digital transfer of funds with 48 hours, their "new and improved" accounting system can't correctly appropriate payments to the accounts. They want me to pay my bill online at their site. Theirs is the only bill I have requesting payment this way.

I don't want to use their site, even as a guest. So, I'm now mailing them a check every month, just because.

[Sherman A1]

1. Excellent method of response

I would continue to mail them a check every month and perhaps add a few pennies to the total, maybe rounding up to the next dollar, just to kinda screw with them.

[Ilsa]

5. I've considered mailing them two checks that total

to the bill, a few days apart, just so they have to handle more checks. As long as I get the full amount paid on time, it shouldn't be a problem.

[Bev54]

7. Good idea, they usually have to pay a fee for the amount of items on deposit

Also costs them for staff to prepare and deliver deposits. Idiots, I would do the same. I have my utility companies always trying for me to allow them just to debit my account each month for the amount of my bill. I refuse because I know if there is a problem on the bill it is difficult to work with them to get it corrected if it is already paid. I pay all my bills through my bank account on my own. I set up a post dated payment when I get the bill so I don't forget on the date and I always pay right on the due date.

[ZonkerHarris]

18. love that.

[XanaDUer2]

2. My idiot water company is the same way

They went from quarterly billing to monthly, which annoyed me.

Then, you pay directly on their site, or mail a check

Pisses me off and is RIDICULOUS

[Freddie]

8. My water and sewer bills are worse

They have no option to pay online at all. Write a check and mail it. I write 2 checks per quarter.

[mitch96]

3. Just be ware of some shenanigans afoot. I had the same problem with a credit card.

All of a sudden my bank transfers did not register.. they said pay thru their web site. I did not want to do that, so I sent a check.. Poof! the check was never cashed and I got hit with a late fee. This happened again so I sent the check registered mail and needed a signature. That made it. I sent it regular mail again and it never was cashed. They said they never got it..
Register mail? yup they got it.. I believe they just wanted me to "join their club". I told them about the problem and they were adamant about registering where they took the money out of my account.. Nope, no way.
I paid in full and cancelled the card. No other vendor had a problem.. uff..
the games they play. YMMV
m

[Ilsa]

6. Thanks for the warning. I'm

changing gas companies in a month when my contract runs out.

[lastlib]

14. I suspect I may be running into that...

Goldman Sachs is assuming my mother's GM credit card from CapitalOne. They seem to be trying to FORCE her to set up her account online, so that they can send statements by e-mail, and receive payments online.

My mother is 94 years old, blind, nearly totally deaf, with arthritis in her hands, ankles, and knees, and she doesn't OWN a computer, let alone know how to use the internet. NO. F*CKIN'. WAY. she is going to get online to receive statements or make payments! She will have to receive paper statements, and pay by check every month.

I may wind up like you, cancelling the card, and getting a new one. I will have damn little problem telling Goldman Sachs to proceed with self-fornication.

[ZonkerHarris]

19. My mom is 89 on Monday and hates that too. All older folks dont love the internet

some days I hate it too.

[CatWoman]

17. my water provider did the exact same to me when I paid by check

no matter how early i sent the payment.

[empedocles]

4. My utility couldn't keep the automatic bank payments straight.

So I now write out and mail a monthly check.

[Vaguely, i recall on DU, a report that most utilities do not have IT personnel on board.]

[usonian]

9. I trust nobody. Especially DeJoy express.

At the onset of covid, PG&E shut down their local office where you could pay bills.

However, you can pay at a number of local stores here, a TV store, a shipping store, and further away, a WalMart.
They say 575 places to pay. And you get a printed receipt.

Being a wise ass, I checked their online locator. A place about 55 miles away is listed as 2446.02 mi (yeah, that .02 matters!)

That was at the tail end of the data dump.

Stuff like this is why I won't set up an "online account". I have way too many already, just waiting for their I.T. staff to mess up big time.

And BY THE WAY, there's a surcharge for paying by credit card.

[TheBlackAdder]

10. I always pay using their portals, get the confirmation number, and confirmation email.

.

I never mail checks in as I have been working with mortgage, health and banking firms for decades.

The stories I heard at the lunch table how certain banks, mortgage, and insurance companies would sit on a mailed-in check for up to a week, hoping that it would force a late payment and kick the person into default interest rates it appalling. Once you get one late payment, other credit firms will jack up your rates and a snowball effect takes place. NEVER mail in a mortgage payment. If you phone it in, use a corded telephone as most wireless handsets can be easily hacked and a scanner with a 3' mast can pick up your base station over 1.5 miles away. That's a lot of ears that could be listening.

Secondly, secure SSL portal payment is the most secure. Many times, it's the same portal that the payment processors use to process your checks. Your check is prone to loss, late delivery, delayed processing, failed processing, and there is no guarantee they destroy the document, leading to dumpster diving. Here's the scary part, some firms and state entities farm out payment processing to prison convicts or shady firms that do not vet their employees properly. Who knows what happens to that check. One quick cell phone image and poof that have your banking info and signature.

If you are worried about having your checking account info hacked from a 3rd party site, use a second convenience checking account.

Now, some banks offer free checks, others have a fee for a additional checks as this is a profit center for the bank. Many of those banks prevent you from ordering checks outside of their closed network. These checks can be $0.50 - $0.75 cents each. Add a stamp and you are close to the same price as the fee some institutions charge for payment processing.

When paying in their portal, they often will post the payment on the date it is made, as long as it is before the cut-off time. You are alleviated form the worry that the check did not go through or it was lost or delayed. Many of these sites allow you to enlist in Auto-Pay. But, with most I like the paper bills for historical reference and I write the date, amount and confirmation number on that bill's payment stub area and also the date and amount of payment in the upper portion of the envelope. I then file the bills for that month in a Manila envelope.

To keep track of payments, I use a spiral notebook and on the right page, I write the month at top, and the company listed by the due date on the left of the page, on the right is the payment amount and a space to the right of that. When a payment is made, I draw an underline to the right of the amount. When the payment clears the bank, I draw a check mark on that underline.

When the next month is nearing, I transpose the company names to the next right hand page so I do not miss any firms I owe money. Every 5th company or so, or payroll date, I will leave a gap of 3-4 lines in case I need to insert a quarterly township bill, sewer bill, or other check.

.

[lastlib]

16. your record-keeping is too much paperwork....

...and just plain too much paper. I built databases for that--makes it very easy to record everything in a form: purchases, payments, other charges. It's all recorded with dates, all the other necessary info like check numbers. At any time I can see what I owe on each card, when it's due, and what check I paid with, and whether it cleared the bank. Easy peasy, and very little paper unless I want to print out any listings, which I can do any custom way I want it.

[TheBlackAdder]

22. Some sites only keep a year or two of online records, and this includes some banks.

.

Having the printed doc is good if you want to sell a home and have historical records for all your utilities.

Databases are great until they get corrupted or lost. Have it on your pc or server, when that drive goes and there isn't a recent backup, poof!

.

[lastlib]

23. Never a problem for me.

I have regular backups, including one held off-site.

And I will say I do keep some paper. Bank and investment statements back to 1988 are on the bookshelf. I have a couple storage totes with credit-card statements, tax records, and most utility bills handy.

I'm just not into repetitive writing and generating paper when I can make a machine do it. All I have to do is data entry, plug-n-chug, and see the results.

[Tetrachloride]

11. In a previous decade, i paid at the utility office.

Small town so why not.

One could ask the utility why …. in a formal setting.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

13. I don't really know, but I'd suspect that giving them...

... your bank information might make it easier for them to drain your accounts because of some "accounting error" on their part.

Your bank or credit union won't withdraw the money without your consent if you pay through them, but they're not likely going to verify withdrawals are approved by you if you give the utility company permission to make those transactions themselves.

Not to mention the greater security problems if more and more businesses are allowed to store your banking information.

[Tetrachloride]

15. Good points. I refuse to have Paypal, ebay, MS or ebay accounts

in addition to other security measures .

i did have automatic payment on phone dsl bill

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

12. Oh, dear lord.

For much of my adult life I paid such bills by checks. I entered the work force in 1966, and checks, or perhaps paying in person, were the only choices. As a child in the 1950s, I recall being in the car with my mother as she drove to various places, most likely utilities, to pay the bills. That was the norm then.

I will admit that I wasn't often as diligent as I should have been about paying my bills, and it wasn't uncommon for me to wind up with a late charge. Entirely my own fault. About a decade ago I discovered the joy of on line payment. Some of my bills are auto-pay from my checking account. Some others are billed to my Visa card. Several others I get a hard copy bill in the mail, and as soon as I get it I set up the payment from my checking account. The most important thing is that I am now NEVER late with a payment, which is wonderful.

I am not sure what I would do if one of my normal online payments were to be refused. I suppose I'd likewise send a check, but that's awful.

[progressoid]

20. I don't get it.

What's wrong with their site?

I pay nearly all of our utility bills through their sites. No prob.

[bringthePaine]

21. spot on! fuck the conniving shitbirds