[Mari]

HI,

Hubby has gradually taken over all the bills.

I've got one bill left and it is paperless that I pay by phone.
Every month or two I call the electric company and have a big hassle.
I try to avoid it. My strategy is to hope that the lights stay on.

So I called this morning and got a live person. He wanted to switch me over to the automated phone system. I begged him not to get off the line. I told him I have trouble doing the bill. I made clear that I have needs and that he was capable of helping me.
He and I figured out that my telephone number was wrong in the system so he corrected it. That should make things easier next month.



Then after that success, I paid AAA for the year. (Two tasks completed!)
So I am done with my work for today.

Now I can go to sleep.
I'll see you folks later.

M.

[bizi]

I hope you get a good days sleep!
good for you for getting the bills paid, wonder about the wrong phone number???????
bizi

[Jomar]

I really like using the automated payments for phone & electricity- I use to skip paying just because writing checks each & every month was a pain...
now it is all done for me and I just get a confirmation email.

I did pay online monthly for awhile but decided to try the automatic route & I like it!

I can not get my mother to even think about doing it though, she likes to have that schedule of paying bills I guess.

[befuddled2]

Sounds like a plan to me. thanks for the idea.

barbara

[Dmom3005]

I wish my husband would consider it too. But he wont. He seems to
think somehow they would take all the money.

Donna

[Mari]

Hi,

I tried on line bill paying for five years but messed it up in many different ways.
I do have my credit card bill payment semi-automatic. I set my bank to send the same amount of money every month. Every once in a while I notice in my email that the bank says that they made a payment. I don't pay any attention.

That's why hubby took over the bills. And he likes paying the old fashioned way with stamps and envelopes. I'm ok with that -- as long as I don't have to do it.


M.

[Dmom3005]

Mari

I'm okay with that too. My only problem with the way my husband
does it. He is way late most the time.

But he is laid off again. So maybe he will catch up again.

Donna

[waves]

good job getting those bills done. especially with sorting out the phone number thingie. i hope everything will go smoothly from here on out.

i don't do internet payment. i WILL not pull up account information of any sort (not even phone, banking??? forget THAT!!!) on a browser, not because i wouldn't be capable, but for security reasons.

it may seem paranoid to some of you, but... i'm in the software industry, for one thing, and i know there's a lot of stuff that can be done even when it "supposedly" can't. for another thing, identity theft is not a myth, it happens. lovely little spyware thingies of all different sorts are out there and new ones come out every minute. if your machine falls prey to one, it doesn't matter how "secure" (https, padlock shown on browser) the site you connect to is. and your anti-spyware program (provided you have one) is only as good as your last update, which is only as good as what the company making knew was in circulation AND had the time and resources to find a fix for. the fixes necessarily come out AFTER the little nasties do.

so... some things, things where security information is required OR displayed, i just won't do over the internet. period. no if ands or buts.

~ waves ~

[Dmom3005]

That is my husbands reason for not doing it on the internet too.

Which is just fine. But tell me, why not in person on the checkbook.

Procrastination I think. heehee.

If he gets my paper cancelled he will be sorry.

Donna

[Mari]

Originally Posted by waves

it may seem paranoid to some of you, but... i'm in the software industry, for one thing, and i know there's a lot of stuff that can be done even when it "supposedly" can't.

Dear Waves,

A student demonstrated with his laptop how easily one could access another computer. The other students were amazed.
(He did not fully show us bad stuff. He showed us enough to show that it could be done, not that he would ever do it.)


Hubby does not trust the internet and so sends his bills in the mail.
I do not trust the U.S. mail.
Hence we have a difference of opinion.
I have encouraged him to use his credit card rather than write checks when possible.

Four people close to me had bank accounts stolen and wiped out and other bank accounts opened in their name and money somehow taken from those banks.
My sis had her social security stolen years ago. That was a big mess that continues.
And I met a guy a few months ago who has to carry an extra ID card so that the police do not arrest him. A weirdo used his name and information and got in serious legal trouble.

About 6 years ago when I last opened a bank account, the person at the bank filling out my paper work told me that someone in her apartment complex had been stealing mail from residents for months -- got credit card numbers and so on. I have no idea if she was telling the truth, but her story was compelling.

So these messes happened the old fashioned way -- stolen checks out of mail boxes, stolen drivers license info, . . . .


-->> How about paying by telephone?
Is using the phone to make payments better than using the internet?

M.