Power company recently outsourced their payment system and now have to pay a fuckin’ fee to pay my goddamned bill. The only way to avoid that is autopay.
Further infuriating is I have to re-add my bank info to yet another third party system.
Fuck the modern world, man.
Use Bill Pay from your bank/credit union to mail them a check (without even paying postage yourself)
I can’t updoot this enough. Fuck everyone’s fee ridden bullshit apps, websites, outsourced garbage services. I make almost everyone send me a paper bill or i just won’t pay.
It’s fun arguing with companies that claim they can’t send paper bills anymore.
- pay online fee: $2.50
- Paper bill/pay by check fee: $5.00.
I made the numbers up as I don’t recall them offhand but my energy company effectively has this policy now. :/
That’s the way to go! I pay all my bills through the bank. All they need is your services account number and a mailing address. It’s much nicer when you can pay all your bills in one place instead of having to deal a bunch of different payment apps/websites.
I do exactly this. My bank will try to use ACH or a one time debit card automatically, but inevitably ends up sending a check each month. What’s better is if I use the bill the water company sends and mail it back with a check there is a fee, but they don’t charge it when my bank sends a check.
They’re not trying to fuck over the banks. They have better lawyers.
Bill pay through your bank. Fuck their payment processor.
When an old landlord pulled some bullshit on me, I paid a month’s rent with 31 paper checks, delivered once a day, direct from my bank.
That is some genuine malicious compliance. ❤️
My landlord gave me the option of paying online. For an additional $10.00 fee.
edit =added the cost.
“I’ll pay online without the additional fee.”
“We’re not renewing your lease.” Or better yet, “Please sign your new lease, at the additional $1200 market rate per month, or kindly vacate by the 1st.”
Hope you can get time off work and have the friends and money to relocate so you can enjoy another 12 months of Freedom™ from living on the street!
Hence why every reasonable jurisdiction should have tenancy tenure and rent control laws
Well, yeah? It costs the landlord to take online payments. Should they spread that cost to other people who choose to pay differently?
Use your bank, or hopefully your credit union, to send a check. There. Neither of you are out a single dime, no hassle for either party.
Canyou mail a check?
Some banks will do autopay. The bank obtains the bill and mails a check.
Further infuriating is I have to re-add my bank info to yet another third party system.
“We don’t NeEd STrONG coNSUmer PRoTEctiOn LAws bECauSe YOU Get to DECiDe WHO YOu Do bUsINesS wIth”
Edit: just to be clear, I’m not mocking OP.
Yep, this is what peak fReEdoM looks like.
Annoying AF in principle but at least it’s only 50 cents. My fucking rent payments charge a % fee, so I mail them a check every week and make them do the legwork
In my country we have free ‘autopay’ on the banks end. You simply setup the details of the recurring transaction in your mobile app or on the website and it will automatically start paying.
Seems like you should say “fuck modern capitalism” instead.
The problem here is that your bill is based on usage so there’s no way to know exactly what your bill will be each month in order to set up an automatic bill pay.
This is more than mildly infuriating.
The principle, yeah. The fact that it’s 50 cents keeps it mild though
My power company found a new and infuriating way to fuck with me. They send every e-bill with a required payment of $0 and then the regular balance but my bank auto-pay only reads it as $0 due today and ignores it.
So the bank says it’s the power company’s fault, the power company claims to have no control over it. Oh and they don’t send paper bills any more (although they send me a paper report every month shaming me for stressing the grid by charging my electric car) So you have to remember to go online and look up the bill and pay it on their awful $5 transaction bill pay instead.
My power company made me download an app to pay for a bill with cc . Now that I should be paying bills with a credit card but I was in a tight spot and needed to keep the lights on .
Gotta do what you gotta do 🤷♂️
Pay by mailing in paper checks to maximize their costs.
That maximizes my costs as well (plus hassle). I don’t even own a checkbook.
Your bank mails the checks for you for free, I haven’t owned a checkbook in a decade.
If they’re going to cost me money being stupid, I’ll do it back to them.
Why would you not want automatic payment?
If you accidentally overdraft your account the bank charges you a bs $45 fee
For me, telecom companies just randomly jack the costs and hope you don’t look. I’ve caught them constantly adding $20 to my set rate and claim ‘oh this special promotion ended’ when I don’t even have promotions.
Never trust companies to just take your money without looking at the invoice.
They aren’t allowed to just do that. Being allowed to directly withdraw money from customers accounts who authorized it is a privilege, one that banks can withdraw if they find a company abuses it.
Isn’t First Energy that company that got busted for bribes but then the local politicians/courts basically let them bribe their way out of trouble with $20 million???
Not sure if same but their scandal in Ohio put some GOP bigwigs in prison recently.
