snoopyboy
Antarctica
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Besides receiving a Friday evening paycheck , paying my bills is the most relieving sensation, it’s like coming to term with the fact that I’m now broke but I owe no one : ) ..yes! . Ok not until next month ( sad trombone sound ) :/
I’m much aware of the vulnerabilities that financial transactions can court, such as, unauthorized withdrawals that can leave your with a negative figure as balance (you think being broke is miserable, there’s nothing worse than owing on a negative sum : ), and lastly but the worst :Identity theft!. You can always replace the money that you’ve been robbed of but cleaning up your name after being a victim of I.D. theft can be an enormous hurdle. Despite all of those potential threats I side with Jason on this debate, I take the leap of faith by opting to pay virtually all of my bills online :). But why? Because online bills payment has more perks than downsides if you take the appropriate measures of safety.
I like paying for my bills electronically because it’s very convenient .So far none of the companies I deal with have ever charged me for online service fee, I just pay the amount that’s due nothing added or deducted, and I don’t have to sweat about postage fees and I can skip the train dances at the bank with my fellow bill payers:). I understand that some people like to hoard a lot of bill statements inked with the corresponding check numbers to validate their payments, but I don’t. I could use that space in my cabinet to stash my sugar cookies instead of collecting termite treats. I don’t know about you, but when I pay a bill electronically I get a confirmation page that has my transaction number, the date of my payment, the amount I paid and the remaining balance, the card number. It even displays when my next payment is due. What I do is that I use an application on my computer called Snipping Tool to capture that screen with all those information and save it as a picture, name it and route it to a file that I keep on my external hard drive. For future reference I can just print it out. Simple!
Also, I like the new ecological trends some institutions are embracing to reduce the paper use in order to keep our planet leafy :). Sometimes I would receive email notifications from those companies I dish out my hard-earned money to every month, inviting me to sign up for online bill statements and payments, so they can stop swamping me with letters at home. I’m very supportive of that” green” ideology for one, and two, I don’t like the prospect of having all my sensitive information floating around town on a mail truck, get missorted, and possibly land on the doorsteps of a psychopath, so I never hesitate to enroll in any paperless billing correspondence that I’m offered : )
Earlier, I mentioned that there were measures of safety that one can take against online catastrophes like the ones I cited. First thing to do if you’re considering on paying for your bills electronically is to make sure the financial institution that holds your debit card account, which you intend to make your payments with, doesn’t allow overdrafts to be made on the account under any circumstance, or per your request. (I would not suggest using a credit card. Your credit limit isn’t money that you own; it’s just a restriction on the amount of money that you’re allowed to owe).Anyway, Once you made sure of that, keep the funds on that account to a minimum (let’s say, enough to cover for your bills for the month) and if possible use it strictly for bill payments. That way, should your account get hacked, those lowly thieves can only get away with so much money that they can only use on a brand new headset :)
Have I ever forgotten to pay a bill? Yes, I have and ironically it happened back when I used to snail mail my checks to pay for my bills. One time, it took a letter more than 4 days to reach its destination which resulted in me being charged extra for a late fee. I spent an afternoon on the phone arguing with a representative of that billing company, at the end I was told that I should take my issues to the post office and cry them a river : ). That was it for me; never again did I try to mail my bills. I stay on top of my bills way better when I account of those transactions online, the money is instantly withdrawn from my account and goes straight to the company.
Sometimes companies take forever to process the checks they receive, which I hate, that kind of puts my spending binges in limbo. Sometimes : ).
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