Farmer H has been picking up the mail now that he's able to drive again. I have been declaring that we should have gotten a phone bill. We get one for the landline, and one for our cell phones. Since Sprint changed to T-Mobile, the billing has changed. It should have changed a while back, I guess, since we had to get new SIM cards in our phones. But we continued to get the re-usable Sprint envelopes and bill.
A couple months ago, we got notices that our bill would have a new look, so to be on the lookout for it. Yes. We got a T-Mobile bill, which I think I complained about here, due to the bazillion pages inside an oversized envelope, showing every call. Anyhoo... I mailed the check as normal. In fact, I looked back on Friday to see WHEN I mailed it. February 12, and it was processed on February 16.
When Farmer H came home unexpectedly midday, he said he put the mail on the kitchen counter.
"Oh, did we get the T-Mobile bill? I got a text this morning saying the payment is due on the 22nd. But we haven't gotten a bill!"
"Yeah. I think we got it."
Well. No. When I checked, it was the DISH bill. Sweet Gummi Mary! That meant I needed to get online to pay the T-Mobile bill with a one-time payment. I'm NOT signing up to have it automatically withdrawn from my account. What follows will explain why...
It was deceptively easy to make my one-time payment to T-Mobile. All I needed was my phone number, and my debit card and zip code. Easy peasy.
THEN I decided to go ahead and pay the DISH bill. I've been doing it with one-time payments for about a year. Maybe a little more. Because they are so sluggish with their billing. It's due on the 25th. But the bill kept coming later and later, although they send an email around the 10th saying it's due. Even by paying online, it takes three days to process! And their website is a major headache to navigate. But I do it, so as not to be late with the payment every month.
Anyhoo... I went to log into MyDISH, and a screen came up saying they were having problems with their system, BUT they had a new website to make a payment. Yeah, right. What could possibly go wrong? There was a list of FAQs, and all the answers referred to their many workers trying hard to get their website back on track. People wanted to know how to find their account number to make a payment, since they could not access their accounts online. The answer was that MAYBE it would be in a previous correspondence email.
The site also said that EVERY DISH CUSTOMER was sent a statement IN THE MAIL for March! Even the ones who have autopay!
Well! I closed down that page right quick! No way was I taking a chance on sending an online payment on a NEW site when the old one wasn't working at all! It even said customers should write down their transaction number, in case there was a problem, since they could not send out email confirmation!
Heh, heh. I put a check in the old-fashioned paper payment envelope and put it in the mail. If it's late, too bad so sad! They should thank their lucky stars that I'm paying! What about people like Genius, who don't use checks at all? Good thing he doesn't have DISH.
Sometimes, the old ways are the best...
I'm glad you closed down that website, it may have been genuine or the original site may have been hacked and the new site set up to get your money straight into the hackers bank accounts. I'm astonished it takes three days to process an online payment. Unless there is a weekend involved?
ReplyDeleteRiver,
ReplyDeleteBlog buddy Kathy said something about DISH being hacked. So that was on my mind. As for the 3 days, I was also astonished. That was NOT including weekends. They'd send a confirmation email within minutes, but as for the money actually being paid from my account, it took 3 days. So I had to make sure to allow for that time. Farmer H has always had the opinion that you should pay bills close to when they're due, not early, because then you allow big entities to draw interest off your money while they have it before the due date.
HeWho made fun of my written reservations, telling me I should do it on-line. I replied that paper does not frequently crash and lose the info. He smirked, but when I had to leave on occasion while my Dad was sick, I made two copies and took one with me so that I could text daily reminders to him. He didn't seem to think my way was so stupid then, since he lost connection several times with his computer. He does use the auto withdrawal to pay most bills, which does not make sense when Humana will put a hold on MY account, but not his and I only find this out when I am picking up my RX. Your way is easier to prove, since you can produce a cancelled check number .....
ReplyDeleteKathy,
ReplyDeleteWe never did get a T-Mobile bill. I'm pretty sure it's a conspiracy to make us do the automatic withdrawals. The thing I most hate about that is that it's so hard to STOP IT when you no longer want that service. I've been through it twice, and the bank made a big deal about the SERVICE needing to okay the stopping of the payments.
One of them had changed names several times, and I didn't have the contact info. I told the bank that surely they had it, since they were sending my payments there. They disagreed. It was a big hassle.
The other was a TV service that gave me the runaround for over an hour, transferring my call to assorted people, trying to bargain with me to keep their service, and not wanting to put a stop to my payments. There's always a small notice in the paperwork that says they can keep charging you indefinitely until you cancel their service (which they are skilled at making difficult).