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One man's journey into the depths of insanity. [language] Wireless scs

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  • #31
    Quoth Sapphire Silk View Post
    This is why my brother refuses to use any kind of online system for banking or paying bills. He's a computer programmer and says the Web is completely insecure. He pays his bills the old fashioned way: by check in the mail.
    Huh. My husband and my father and all of my husband's friends are all IT/computer guys and they all say paying bills online is MORE secure than check in the mail.
    Don't wanna; not gonna.

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    • #32
      Quoth icantbelievethesepeople View Post
      Sc: isn't the store supposed to be open?
      Me: well yes, but company policy dictates that I take the deposit every morning.
      Whoa! You've just told the customer 2 things:

      1) Employee leaving the store shortly before opening time is carrying the bank deposit (robbery risk).
      2) The bank deposit sits in the store all night until someone takes it to the bank in the morning (burglary risk).

      It would have been safer to have told the customer "One of my pre-opening tasks, which I have to do after I've done the others, involves going off-site".
      Any fool can piss on the floor. It takes a talented SC to shit on the ceiling.

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      • #33
        I pay all my bills through my bank's website. That way I have a clear list of what I've paid and when, no digging through paper files, no checks to sort. I love it. Most of the banks have already set up with many companies, especially credit card companies, to handle their payments, so when I get a new creditor or change one I already have, they are often on a list of creditors on file with the bank.

        My bank even gets copies of many of the bills directly and notifies me by email when they arrive.
        Labor boards have info on local laws for free
        HR believes the first person in the door
        Learn how to go over whackamole bosses' heads safely
        Document everything
        CS proves Dunning-Kruger effect

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        • #34
          Only 2 times I have found it worthwhile to pay a bill in person. Once is at the water company here in Smalltown Ar. Their website is broken half the time.

          The other time was when paying in cash for a minutes phone when leaving my abusive exH. I needed a phone he had no idea existed and could not trace, and he monitored and keylogged my home computer. Fortunately I was able to go to the grocery and college classes alone, and both places were near a phone store.

          But knowing idiot customers, that last likely does not apply to them and that's a good thing.

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          • #35
            As senseless as it may be to offer people the chance to pay their bill in person at your store, I think it's something that will never go away because the very few people who do do that will raise holy hell if you stop offering that service.
            Knowledge is power. Power corrupts. Study hard. Be evil.

            "I never said I wasn't a horrible person."--Me, almost daily

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            • #36
              Over here, we're very happy that Direct Debit applies to almost every company. So whenever we get a bill from a new company, if it isn't set up already we just pay the bill by online banking, check the box named "add to Direct Debit" and then it goes automatically from there.

              Having said that, I can understand that many elderly may be wary of it, especially those who don't have internet access or are just afraid of using the internet for financial transactions. We didn't manage to get Grandma Zel (my MIL) to sign up for Direct Debit until we reassured her that she could just go to the bank and ask a teller to set it all up, instead of bringing the bills to the post office and pay up a whopping 50 DKK (approx. 9 USD!) per invoice in administration fees.
              A theory states that if anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for, it will be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.

              Another theory states that this has already happened.

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              • #37
                Quoth 42_42_42 View Post
                Huh. My husband and my father and all of my husband's friends are all IT/computer guys and they all say paying bills online is MORE secure than check in the mail.
                Assuming the system you pay from is clean, the network is secure, and the company uses HTTPS for the transaction, in theory it's more secure. All of the data is encrypted in transit, and the encryption is complex enough that getting enough computing power to decrypt just your transaction would cost more than the return (barring a previously unknown weakness in RSA, a P=NP proof, or a breakthrough in quantum computing) even if they could capture the data in transit. Meanwhile, if someone steals your mail, washes the check, and forges your handwriting well enough to fool the bank teller, they could withdraw any amount from your account.

                The real danger is the phone companies servers. Those tend to be very secure, but they're also very high profile targets. Lots of hackers try to get in. 99.999999% don't access anything important. On very rare occasions though there are high profile breaches of security that can potentially lead to your information being stolen. It's worth noting that it's the same risk you incur when you use your credit/debit card anywhere though.

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                • #38
                  Quoth Ben_Who View Post
                  Just a simple observation of human behavior - people can rationalize ANYTHING, and comfort zones trump EVERYTHING.

                  The lady paying $30 to post a $47 payment on a wireless bill? She found something she's comfortable with. She knows it's inconvenient (and cleverly justifies her annoyance by implying it's the store's fault for not planting a shop closer to her personal position) but it's more comfortable for her than any other system of bill payment. If she could rationalize using a carrier pigeon as being the safest and easiest method, she would.
                  And this is why people have money problems; when they waste money doing inefficient things that cost them extra fees month after month. That's why I won't pay a "convenience fee" to pay a late bill. I'll send a check in the mail if I can't pay it online.

                  I had a bill collector for the hospital try to get me to pay my bill using their check by phone system. It had a fee, of course. I adamantly refused, and told her I'd send a check in the mail. She got really pushy, and I ended up hanging up on her. I refuse to pay these fees. They're excessive. I can't afford it.

                  Quoth 42_42_42 View Post
                  Huh. My husband and my father and all of my husband's friends are all IT/computer guys and they all say paying bills online is MORE secure than check in the mail.
                  Once I left my checkbook in the car. Dad found it and got really angry. "This is money!" he told me. He had a point. Beyond the simple issue of check forgery, the account number is on every check. There's nothing to keep a scammer from writing it down, and using it to empty my account by phone. For awhile, my checks had my name, address, phone number, and social security number printed on it (back in the day a lot of retailers insisted on your SSN to process a check, in case it bounced). Everything an identity thief needed, which is why this practice is discouraged today.
                  They say that God only gives us what we can handle. Apparently, God thinks I'm a bad ass.

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                  • #39
                    I asked my car insurance company about direct debit and this is a quote from their email response:

                    We do offer a monthly instalment payment option that occurs by direct debit, but the premium works out to be approximately 15% more expensive over the course of the year. If you would like to convert your policy from annual to monthly instalments, please call us on 13 22 44 anytime 24/7. We will need to take your payment details during the call.

                    I find that incredibly behind-the-times of them!
                    "Bring me knitting!" (The Doctor - not the one you were expecting)

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                    • #40
                      Quoth KatherineB View Post
                      I asked my car insurance company about direct debit and this is a quote from their email response:

                      We do offer a monthly instalment payment option that occurs by direct debit, but the premium works out to be approximately 15% more expensive over the course of the year. If you would like to convert your policy from annual to monthly instalments, please call us on 13 22 44 anytime 24/7. We will need to take your payment details during the call.

                      I find that incredibly behind-the-times of them!
                      I pay my car insurance (GEICO) every six months, and they offer direct debit for the premiums on the six month schedule. Your insurance company is indeed behind the times.
                      "I don't have to be petty. The Universe does that for me."

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                      • #41
                        Quoth KatherineB View Post
                        I asked my car insurance company about direct debit and this is a quote from their email response:

                        We do offer a monthly instalment payment option that occurs by direct debit, but the premium works out to be approximately 15% more expensive over the course of the year. If you would like to convert your policy from annual to monthly instalments, please call us on 13 22 44 anytime 24/7. We will need to take your payment details during the call.

                        I find that incredibly behind-the-times of them!
                        Not really. I just got my renewal yesterday and it's pretty much the same thing. It's a $30 difference if I pay it off in full (NC is every 6 months) vs paying monthly. Personally, I'm just going to eat the $30 difference and not pay in full. I've been with this group since 2007 and it's always been this way with them.

                        I guess what they're doing is passing on the 3% + $.50 transaction fee onto us. Plus a little overhead for their book keepers to deal with. Plus a little lost time in investment.
                        But the paint on me is beginning to dry
                        And it's not what I wanted to be
                        The weight on me
                        Is Hanging on to a weary angel - Sister Hazel

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                        • #42
                          Anything I can't pay online, I pay though my banks bill pay. I only have my mortgage on auto pay., the rest are manual.

                          The ONLY times I've had fraudulent activity on my debit card, it originated at the bank - an employee was stealing. Since then I just rely on the safeguards already in place on debit and credit cards, and check my accounts regularly. Because the other option is not using a bank...

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                          • #43
                            Pretty much all my bills are paid via my bank's online method manually. Not a fan of direct debit, especially more than one or two, as it's harder (for me) to keep track of where my money is going

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