Fortunately, not that far. I’ll set up recurring payments through my bank website, where I’m the one in charge. I won’t give, say, the power company permission to make withdrawals from my account.
I still think about that person a few years ago that was charged millions of dollars in an “accounting error”, and the electric utility initially tried to withdraw it from her account and then tried to convince her to pay it
For every newsworthy story like that, I bet there are a huge number of “mistakes” that are, coincidentally, always in the company’s favor. That, and the nightmare of getting it sorted out, are the two biggest reasons I won’t use automatic payments.
Not who you’re replying to but l use a credit card for all automatic bill payments. If they don’t accept credit cards or charge an outrageous fee I pay them through my online banking bill pay. Whether it gets to them via check or electronic funds transfer is their problem, not mine.
Building upon that… I use a virtual prepaid credit card. I know how much the bills should be, keep slightly more than that on the card, and I can block it with a single click from the bank’s mobile app when I expect no bills.
How far does that stubborness go? Like do you not write checks? Do you not use a credit/debit card? Cash only?
Fortunately, not that far. I’ll set up recurring payments through my bank website, where I’m the one in charge. I won’t give, say, the power company permission to make withdrawals from my account.
I still think about that person a few years ago that was charged millions of dollars in an “accounting error”, and the electric utility initially tried to withdraw it from her account and then tried to convince her to pay it
For every newsworthy story like that, I bet there are a huge number of “mistakes” that are, coincidentally, always in the company’s favor. That, and the nightmare of getting it sorted out, are the two biggest reasons I won’t use automatic payments.
Not who you’re replying to but l use a credit card for all automatic bill payments. If they don’t accept credit cards or charge an outrageous fee I pay them through my online banking bill pay. Whether it gets to them via check or electronic funds transfer is their problem, not mine.
Building upon that… I use a virtual prepaid credit card. I know how much the bills should be, keep slightly more than that on the card, and I can block it with a single click from the bank’s mobile app when I expect no bills.