It may come as no great surprise that Mrs. Hillbilly Mom is back to complain again about modern technology and how it interferes with her bill-paying.
First of all, update on my previous problem with my automatic payments on the disability insurance. I called the automated line for my bank account (the only technology that I look favorably upon) today. It said that TWO stop payment fees of $35 were taken out of my account on the date I called the bank last week, and only ONE was credited back.
Sweet Gummi Mary! How hard is it to not screw up a simple request?
Anyhoo...I decided to check back on that $24.75 fee that was pending from the AD&D insurance, back when I originally called to see why my stop payment from November hadn't been honored. Well. There was NO AUTOMATIC PAYMENT of $24.75 taken out! Not since back in October.
When I had called the AD&D offices (twice, since I had to round up Farmer H to speak to them) last week, they had told us both that we couldn't stop their service this time. That it was too late. Ha ha! I guess the joke's on them, because that payment actually WAS stopped, while it was pending. Even though it cost me $35 to stop a $24.75 payment, that's what I had originally set out to do in November. So right now, everything seems fine.
I'm not holding my breath until April, though. That quarterly payment may rear its head again, and I'll have to renew my efforts.
NOW...today I got my DISH bill. It powers my internet too, you know. It's not just TV. So I'm very careful about it, since I don't want to go without internet. Or TV, of course. DISH has a habit of dragging their feet on the crediting of the payments. Mine is due on the 24th of the month. That's when my internet allotment resets. So I'm quite cognizant of the date. I always check to make sure my payment has been credited. It usually shows up the day before. Maybe two days before, if I'm lucky.
Here's the thing. That bill is mailed out on the 10th. As soon as I get it, I write the check, and put it in the mail the next day, before the mail pickup deadline. At the main branch post office. Last month, I got the bill on the 15th, and sent it right back. Surely it doesn't take 9 days to get there. The Pony Express was faster than that. So obviously, it's gotta be the DISH people taking their own sweet time with paper payments.
No way can I mail that bill tomorrow, the 19th, and expect it to get there and be credited by the 24th. It's possible for a regular letter to make it by then. But not the way DISH does business. I think it's a conspiracy to switch people to automatic withdrawal payments. I'm not doing it! I'll go online and pay by credit card or however I've done it on other such occasions. No way am I calling a real person to make a one-time payment, and let them "mistakenly" switch my billing, like has also happened before.
I just don't have good luck with this automatic payment crap.
5 comments:
I get the invoice for my internet online, a week before the money is taken from my account, on the 26th. it's been running smoothly with no problems at all since I set that up when I first got the modem. I did have problems before I got the wifi, when I was buying only 30Gb per month and constantly running out because of surfing the real estate sites, then I'd have to go to the website and top up via my credit card. Now it's just bye-bye $xxx each month for all the time I can use. Peace of mind for me.
Well, it's a good thing you have all day and all night--7 days a week--to deal with it.
River,
I went online last night and paid through my checking account. So it's done for this month, but I still prefer to mail a check to them. I made a printout of the page showing my payment was credited. It had a CONTINUE button at the bottom, which was a major trick to get you to send payment again, or to set it up that way permanently, rather than the ONE TIME payment I'd just done. Lucky I'm too smart for them to outsmart me, and I have the printout and confirmation email saying it was paid. They make it confusing on purpose, to trap people into automatic payments!
The good news is, I pay my SiriusXM radio by the year, and also my Amazon Prime, and I see that both of them just raised their MONTHLY payments! So I'm locked in for a while at the old rate.
***
Sioux,
Yes, there's that.
Except for the two hours I spent last night filling out The Pony's FAFSA. One hour of which was devoted to LOGGING IN. I hate technology.
Take heart, even with the on-line bill paying, they still take their own sweet time crediting your account. I think the whole thing is a way to get more money from people who don't scrutinize their accounts. Small amounts add up, you know.
Kathy,
I'm sure they do that on purpose. That's why the PAID page was so ambiguous. It made you think there was another step, and on the next page, it looked like your payment hadn't gone through.
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