On Paying Bills Online 283
sharv asks: "I'd like to hear what you all think of the relatively new online bill payment services offered by sites like OnMoney and Yahoo Bill Pay - they both seem to be powered by the same engine, from an outfit called PayTrust. I'm curious if anyone's using one of these services and what, if any, technical issues people are concerned about. Any privacy concerns? How about any problems arising from not having snail-mail copies of your statements immediately available? Any of the meatspace bureaucracies having problems dealing with this latest incarnation of paperless personal finance?"
Oh, don't make me go there. (Score:1)
Not only do you go with a more reliable company like Microsoft, which will be able to make deals with far more companies for online bill paying because of it's size, but you get to benefit from microsoft's experience and the superior security of it's operating system.
I love the double standards here, people ignore innovation by companies like Microsoft, but as soon as someone uses linux to wipe his ass for him, it's an amazing technological advancement.
I hate the hypocrisy here.
-lb
Citibank (Score:1)
Re:No Way! (Score:1)
But you lose ability to modify the check contract. (Score:1)
Not free, though... (Score:1)
However, I pay most of my bills online anyway.. If your credit card is through MBNA, like mine, you can pay your credit card bill online [mbnanetaccess.com] for free. And, that's just one example -- I'm sure that many (most?) other credit card companies also have similar facilities to pay online.
Then, there's also the other utilities. Where I'm living now, heat and water are included in the rent. But, I've arranged for my phone bill to be automatically paid from my bank account; your utlility/phone companies might have a similar service, but you'd have to ask them.
Alex Bischoff
---
The Computer Is Never Wrong (Score:1)
My only problem was that once I lost a receipt for $200 and some change. Coincidentally, my auto insurance bill for that month was two cents off of that. When I went to balance my account, Money told me I hadn't payed that bill yet, but I saw that unaccounted-for $200 and figured I must have payed it the old-fashioned way (which I did periodically).
My insurance coverage lapsed for a little while because of that screwup, and I wound up getting in an accident and having to pay a lot of stuff out of pocket and nearly lost my license.
That two-cent screwup cost me thousands in the end.
As for the question: If you're going paperless, remember: "the computer is never wrong."
--Threed
Browsing at +2, or else on my Cell Phone. I see no trolls.
Re:Bank??? (Score:1)
Re:Citibank DirectAccess is like this (Score:1)
>need any newfangled dot com site to do it, if you have a reasonably
>large bank. Most offer 90% of this functionality.
The only thing I'm missing out on is some idoit e-comerce company knowing who I get bills from. I can live with this. I can also live with not paying them some equally idoitic monthly service fee.
Re:Online Bills (Score:1)
>card in months.
More fool you.....
Why pay for this? (Score:1)
I use EasyWeb from CanadaTrust, and I can pay all of my bills every month, and not pay any extra fees (I do, however, pay a fee for EasyWeb, but it does a whole lot more than just let me pay bills!)
All this system seems to do is save the company who -issues- the bill some money, through the lack of postage and paper.
Of course, if you're the type to lose those paper bills and always seem to end up paying late fees because of it, this might be a great system.
online bills and pacbell (Score:1)
an automatic online system of their own yet.(least not htat I have noticed)
Pac Bell does have an automated phone service but you have to call them to get the number. And they charge you for this! lame! completly electronic system should be FREE
Was going to try Wellsfargo's auotmatic payment system but I never heard from them after I filled out their online form on two seperate occasions.
So it looks like the paytrust services are definatly usefull for these backwards companies.
-Super net pirate eh? So get rid of my bad credit
I use my bank's billpay (Score:1)
I'm a little wary about giving out bank acct. #'s
to other companies. Only my bank has to know about the payment info.
I'd check on the privacy policies. I wonder if they're a bit dubious.
SFNB's intro rate (Score:1)
Regarding passwords: I created a totally random gibberish password for my SFNB account and memorized it. I was quite upset when they forced me to change it.
So I changed it to something stupid then went in and changed it right back to the secure one. I'll probally do that again next time, and then come up with a new random gibberish password just from paranoia.
A little expensive, but very convenient (Score:1)
The service is mybills.com but it seems to be only available through banks since the obvious URL just gives you a server status page. Well, now I know they use Stronghold/Apache. I never bothered to check before this article. All transactions with my bank and mybills.com are handled via 128-bit SSL.
So far I only use it for my utility bills, two of which are setup with this service and get paid via transfer on the date I set. The other two get checks mailed from the service on that date. I also can get an e-mail notification of the upcoming due date for the two registered companies. The minimum date for payments tends to be about four days from the entry date. So last minute bill payments are out.
They of course offer the choice to have a certain amount sent out each month. With all the horror stories I have heard about automatic payments and the fact I would tend to forget about these and spend the money, I will never use this feature.
Overall, this is barely cost effective for me, but very convenient. If you are someone with a lot more bills than me then a service like this may really worth your while.
Online banking can be unreliable (Score:1)
Netbank: Unbiased opinion/experience (Score:1)
Pros____
- 3% interest check (no fee)
- VERY picky about it's users
- no min balance
- free bill pay
- free checks / ATM usage
- free envelopes
Cons____
- VERY picky about it's users (read perfect credit)
- they used to have 6% interest on checking (no fee)
- very poor customer service reviews
- ranked like 7 in Gomez.com reviews of net banking
YMMV- I went with Wingspan but STILL want an account with these folks as well.
- OrbNobz
Ever have one of those feelings someone is reading your posts?
Re:Oh, don't make me go there. (Score:1)
ummmmm.... i don't see anywhere where it shows you your money bill like yahoo and [yahoo.com]paytrust [bfast.com] do! microsoft's expedia is very good though.
--
J Perry Fecteau
5-time Mr. Internet [nai.net]
PayTrust is doing what Quicken and banks should (Score:1)
--
J Perry Fecteau
5-time Mr. Internet [nai.net]
Re:PayTrust is doing what Quicken and banks should (Score:1)
then along came paytrust [bfast.com], who takes your bills in, allows you to view it online and approve the payment. but the best part is that they don't withdraw your money until the check clears which means they probably issue a check with your routing information for the ones they mail. but like i said for $7 its worth it. i can't stand sitting down writing checks licking envelops hoping i have enough stamps etc etc etc. like i said banks should have thought of this first. this girl tells me in spain, you get your bills sent to the bank... is that true?
--
J Perry Fecteau
5-time Mr. Internet [nai.net]
Who too trust... (Score:1)
Re:It seems just a matter of time. . . (Score:1)
As far as moderation problems, I can't help you there.
Online bills rules (Score:1)
And for almost a year, I also do online trading. Yeah, viva internet. But I have stopped sending my VISA-number over the net unless the company that receives the number promises that they don't save my VISA-number in a database.
I use PayTrust, and so far, so good. (Score:1)
Re:Highly questionable (Score:1)
Not to start a flame war or anything, but all distributions of Linux (all that I have worked with, YMMV) are just as insecure "Out of the Box" as NT is. Even OpenBSD, touted as the most secure OS, has sendmail and NFS running by default after the initial install (again, YMMV - This was my experience during my last install of the base OpenBSD 2.6 packages from CD.).
As Bruce Schneier has said, "security is a process". My servers must be constantly updated to protect against security compromises. Most security compromises don't come from that "'leet d00d" that the media is so quick to play up - most occur from internal employees. Protecting systems from them is a WORLD of difference than protecting them from J. Random Script Kiddie.
Re:But you lose ability to modify the check contra (Score:1)
How silly of us (Score:1)
Especially on the net. The Hotmail fiascos in the past, the security holes in IIS/NT.
And don't feed me this Windows Millenium crap. 65k+ bugs, try and tell me at least a couple hundred (if not more) aren't security flaws.
Re:Oh, don't make me go there. (Score:1)
Who said Linux in ANY of those posts? !M$ != Linux.
> No military on this planet would trust ships which cost hundreds of millions (if not billions) to an unproven operating system like Linux.
And NT has proven itself so well. *choke*
>You're running complicated, big applications on NT all day long to get your work done, and you're using Linux to play. Of course Linux isn't going to crash, you're not stressing the machine at all.
I use a Linux box to act as a firewall, quake3 server, web/ftp server, ad filtering web proxy, and X irc client. My uptime is around 45 days now cuz that's when I built it. Oh yeah, and I can recompile the kernel without crashing a single process, let alone the box itself.
My laptop on the other hand, (which work mandates must be running NT) runs like a piece of shit if I have more than a browser and email program open. And it's more pimped out in the hardware department than that "unproven" linux box I have running at home. NT is bloated, poorly designed, and a pain in the ass to manage. (try getting in to kill a process on an NT machine that's had it's GUI locked. Good luck.)
But I can see you're not one to be reasoned with anyway, as you must resort to bashing someone's typos. It is...too late for you, my poor lackey.
Pay by Credit Card? (Score:1)
SFNB is nice (Score:1)
Re:SFNB -- The Greatest Bank Ever (Score:1)
SFNB is great in that they have no (or very low, i am not sure) minimum balances, are more personal than any brick and mortar bank i have ever used, and pay better interest rates than almost anyone!
www.sfnb.com
But the minimum balance is $5000 (Score:1)
PayMyBills.com works... (Score:1)
Re:Oh, don't make me go there. (Score:1)
online banking (Score:1)
My $0.02.
Re:Bank??? (Score:1)
--Jason Bell
Security First Network Bank & PayTrust (Score:1)
Thanks,
Scott
Scott
C{E,F,O,T}O
sboss dot net
email: scott@sboss.net
I am 39.0% slashdot pure
Not too dangerous (Score:1)
On-line finances and bill payments are really quite convenient, and not too risky anymore. These places ensure privacy and use fairly serious encryption on transactions.
This kind of thing, though, is subject to the same fear and hype surrounding electronic procurement via the WWW.
In reality, there are far more people who are capable of getting into your private "snail mail" (or wallet, for that matter) than who could succesfully hack a bank or steal info over the web.
Fully automated bill pay (Score:1)
What you can't do is schedule automatic variable payments. Do that, and they'll have my business.
PayMyBills.com Slashdotted :) (Score:1)
I wonder if PayMyBills.com will add a 'We've been Slashdotted' button to their site?
check out epost.ca.. (Score:1)
Re:Bank??? (Score:1)
FirstUnion billpay (Score:2)
----------------------------
I'm Using Yahoo Bill Pay (Score:2)
The Cure of the ills of Democracy is more Democracy.
online banking and bill paying (Score:2)
With the exception of rent, power (haven't gotten around to doing that one yet), and student loans, all my bills are taken care of through the respective company. no third party to worry about. I still get paper bills in the mail to tell me how much I owe, and when my bank account is going to be debited.
So now I write far fewer cheques than I used to, and spend a good deal less on stamps too.
Re:Mathematically Impossible (Score:2)
And, as an added bonus, sometimes you can find interesting coins in that spare change. Some of the ones I've found are here [netcom.com].
Re:eBills are Us (Score:2)
Highly questionable (Score:2)
I work as a security/encryption sysadmin. I have a very strong background in math and system security. I've developed several encryption protocols that are in process of peer review. I've been a sysadmin for 7 years, and have programmed fr 15.
First off:
[trog@pain trog]$ ros www.paytrust.com
Netcraft: [11]www.paytrust.com is running Microsoft-IIS/4.0 on [12]NT4 or
Windows 98
www.paytrust.com: Server: Microsoft-IIS/4.0
Not to Microsoft bash, but IIS is extremely insecure. Due to fundemental problems with IIS, it really cannot be secured.
Secondly, with a bill payment that does direct money transfers, you are dealing with actual money, not credit cards. You have less legal protection against fraud here than if you use a credit card. IANAL, but I've worked with them in systems design.
Thirdly, there are really no industry-wide standard security practices. Visa can audit these bill payment companies, but they can only make suggestions, and their recommendations can be(and I have seen businesses who do) completely ignored, with no vendor ramifications.
Forth: A secure system is INCREDIBLY difficult to implement. It requires a vast amount of knowledge and experience that most sysadmin's simply don't have. Not that it can't be learned; it just takes a great deal of time and desire to learn. Add to that the proliferation of paper-MCSE's calling themselves security experts, and all the Internet startups who get their website up and lock the system down later, and you have a definate recepe for disaster.
Fifth: As a consumer, you have absolutely NO WAY of knowing if a site is truly secure. The CdUniverse fiasco happened because they stored their credit card numbers in their database PLAINTEXT. How pathetic.
In fact, most customers compromise their security when they connect to a secure site; the default 40-bit encryption from exportable browsers is trivial to crack.
I would stick to the old "check in the mail" until sysadmins start taking security seriously.
Yes, those passwords! (Score:2)
And for a computer system, or a general purpose password, it may well make sense to change passwords often, but not for a bank account, because the only reason to break in is to steal money and get out. No one will break in and steal, say, $10 a month and hope to not be detected. They might break in and look around, and check back to get the big deposits, but only over a short period; not over several months.
A real annoying clueless policy.
--
Re:eBills are Us (Score:2)
Re:eBills are Us (Score:2)
By the way, posters should keep in mind that there is a lot more here than bill PAYING. The service pointed to by the article does BILL PRESENTING. So, they actually RECEIVE your bill from the electric company, phone co, visa co, SCAN it, and present it to you for payment, which you can then do. Talk about opportunities for things to go wrong! If they screw up your visa bill, there goes your credit rating.
The real problem with ALL these systems is that they are just bandaids over paper. Even Checkfree, the service used by most banks, sends paper checks to most of the recipients of its payments. Only a few recipients are set up for automatic funds transfer. Similarly, the only reason this bill pay thing exists is that people like your visa company or electric company don't have a standard way to GIVE you an electronic bill.
Checkfree works great (Score:2)
I have changed banks twice, with no difficulties, and migrated from the Quicken/MS centric dialup interface (compuserve) to the web interface, also with no difficulties.
If a payment goes astray, they will track it down for you (every time this has happened it has been an accounting error on the creditor's side - Ameritech and Commonwealth Eddison (typical old-school monopoly utility companies) were notorious for this, but the folks of checkfree did the legwork in getting the issues resolved.
The web login insists that you be 128-bit capable, which is reassuring (as there were a couple of times I would have unknowingly connected using 40-bit encryption).
All in all very nice, especially when you are travelling [jean.nu] for seven months strait (as I used to do), or have decided to take a month off and go on safari [jean.nu] with no possible contact to the western world. Even just residing in the States, one gets very used to the convenience of having those recurring payments (loan and mortgage, for example) queued up automatically each month.
Because they're convenient and I have self control (Score:2)
Unlike debit cards, the charges nicely integrate back into my checking account with one entry. Less security risk too.
Re:Bank??? (Score:2)
What interest me more are the online friend-to-friend payment services, like PayPal [paypal.com]...absolutely free, and you can send money to anyone anywhere--including many eBay auctioneers. And they even pay you for signing up...
Can't speak for PayTrust... (Score:2)
Of the 8 bills a months I get, only my credit card is done via electronic transfer - everything else is processed by an actual check (telephone, electric, gas, water, mortgage). There is no problem doing any of this except for one thing: lag time.
I talked to some folks at the bank about how all this stuff works, and it is quite amazing. All you do is tell the system who you want to pay, how much, and give them your account number and the address of the party you are sending the payment to. If they sign up with Quicken, in my case, then Quicken simply sends them a tape, otherwise, they send the payment as a real check just like it came from you. Say I want to pay my credit card bill - because it is done electronicly, I can schedule a payment to be made to them as soon as tomorrow. The other stuff that is sent out snail mail can be scheduled no less than 4 days ahead of time. Likewise I can also cancel payments as long as the cutoff time has not hit, which I do occassionally when I decide to shift around who gets what money.
And it does not need to be a business either. You can send a check to anyone. It makes it really easy when Christmas comes around... just hop on, make a payment and don't worry about it. Depending how far away they are from where the payments are sent from, they will get the check in a few days.
I think the nicest part of doing this stuff though is that I don't forget to make a payment. As soon as I get the bill, I enter the payment to be made to them and that is it. I also have things like my house payment scheduled for the next 6 months.
It may cost some money to do all this, but I still think it is wicked cool.
Wow. (Score:2)
They initially were going to charge $3/month for the service, but I believe it's now free.
Apparently, other banks up here are just the same.
As for refusing to use it.. well.. even for the $3 a month. That's $3 I don't have to spend on gas going to the bank to pay the bills. I can look at my balance before I head to the bar. I know if a cheque was deposited or not. I can check my visa balance whenever I want. All from my desk, from work, or from home.
And it is VERY convenient. for the first time in my life, I pay all my bills on time.
Re:USA - United Stone Ages (Score:2)
When I am in Canada, I bank online for C$4 per month and all my payments are instantaneous. When I am in the US I bank at a little trust company whose outsourced internet banking costs US$8 per month and which, amazingly, consists of them snail-mailing checks for me!!! Needless to say, I wasn't too impressed with that service, so in the USA I mail checks or use my Visa check card.
I pay all mine using online banking (Score:2)
When I had to go and mail the money more often than not I'd end up with the money spent before I mailed off the check, so my credit rating still suffers to this day because of that.
I don't think I'd use an outside service to do this though, you should be able to do it all via your bank, mine doesn't charge me extra to do so and in fact encourages its customers to use this method rather than bothering a teller.
As for problems, never seen one yet, soon as I hit the payment button I get a confirmation number that I can use later on if the payment doesn't make it to the company in question.
Originally my bank was using some proprietary software package, but quickly switched to web based banking once enough people bitched about their broken software and the fact that it required Windows didn't help them any.
Re:eBills are Us (Score:2)
Re:PayMyBills.com (Score:2)
In particular, two things about PMB are very appealing:
- they will help you expedite a bill quickly with a simple phone call
- they have third-pary insurance (from Traveler's) to cover up to $100,000 of inappropriate use of your checking account
-Jos
My experience with CheckFree (Score:2)
One thing that I love about the CheckFree system is their level of customer service - A+! On many occasions they have helped me to figure out when and where something has gone wrong (sometimes I got double billed, other times it was my fault). As long as those dial-up's work I should be ok...
Which brings me to a point I _hate_ about CheckFree - the software is Windows only! Even if I decided to chuck all of my Windows software today and move to Linux, I would have to keep a Windows box for the CheckFree software. Why? Because I track ALL of my transactions in the CheckFree software - from ATM withdrawals to checks I write (and I write VERY few checks, now). I balance everything in CheckFree, and it all works easily, with the features I want, when I want them.
I thought about going with the CheckFree web interface, but it only does the bill paying features - it doesn't allow you to run budget reports or balance your account - you have to do that on paper or in a spreadsheet or something external (and basically be doing double entry at that point, which can lead to errors). I have seriously given thought to creating some software for Linux to allow me to use the web interface, but do the balancing stuff on a spreadsheet, in an all-in-one package.
It's a real sticking point - I don't want to be able to only pay bills - I want to be able to track the cash flow as well, without two different interfaces (or double entry, or whatever you want to call it). I haven't found anything that allows this yet...
www.sfnb.com is the best (Score:2)
They don't do online bill presentation (ie, the bill goes there) but paying bills is simply as filling in the amount and clicking PAY. I have a credit card through them too, so I can schedule an amount to transfer on the exact day it's due and have it credited that day.
Customer service is the best. I can deal with them totally through on-line forms and e-mail or call them if I have to.
I've never had a problem with bill paying. If someone I pay a bill won't take an electronic transfer, they will laser print a check and mail it to the person/firm FOR FREE. I don't even pay for the bloody stamp.
You also get regular checks to use the old fashioned way if you want to. The checking accounts are free and include about 20 e-pays a month if you get direct deposit to it or maintain some balance in there.
Overall, I am HIGHLY satisfied with them.
Who's check? (Score:2)
Example: I pay bills electronically over the web via my bank's site (Huntington). When I say "Pay So-n-So Co $100" the bank debits $100 from my checking account, credits it to their account, and then cuts the check to the So-n-So Co from their account. Normally no big deal, but...
Once I paid a lawn service twice, my mistake - the nice lady at the service mailed back the 2nd check she recieved from the bank. Now I can't just throw this check out because it wasn't written from my account, the funds it represents have already been taken from me. And I can't cash the thing because it's made out to someone else. So I had to explain things (slowly, and several times) to Real Live People at the bank, and eventually it worked out. But just something to keep in mind.
A crucial distinction to make! (Score:2)
Exactly! I simply have my bank do some (not all, not even most) of my bill paying. It was set up before my bank even had a website.
Now that they have one, I can log in, check my balance, shuffle funds around, etc, etc. It's all free, and it's all tracable since it's the actual bank.
Paying a third party electronically and then having them cut a paper cheque just sucks.
How things are done at Finland (Score:2)
I have paid my bills online for about 3 years now. And by online I mean by web browser, before that I used a modem and a terminal software.
All major banks in Finland offer online billing and it's actually cheaper to pay your bills online. Security is handled with SSL-encryption, user number, master password and one time transaction passwords.
Re:eBills are Us (Score:2)
gomi
A variant they might actually do... (Score:2)
From the second the money comes out of your account, Wells Fargo records the bill as paid. Of course, there is a 5 day delay before your creditor receives payment, and possibly a bit longer before they say that you have paid.
This means that Wells Fargo is claiming to have paid something long before it is actually paid. They need another possible entry for the status column "payment allocated and pending" or some such.
Perhaps they should change the status to "payment cleared" after the money has actually been transferred.
Then you'll know when the creditor should has the money - and the information that he has the money.
This way Wells won't need to sound like they're doing anything less for you than with the current version, while the change will look to them like they're improving the service to their customers at essentially no cost to them (since they already have the info online and only need to get it to the display).
It's also a closer match to their current paper-based terminology. That will make the advantage more obvious to the decision makers.
Re:Oh, don't make me go there. (Score:2)
I don't like the idea of keeping my financial records on a machine I don't even have actual access too. Think about this a second. A new market can now open up. This company can now sell data on peoples buying patterns based on criteria. If you pair this with other information available out there in cyber-space, you can get a make-up of a person and their sending habits or the spending habits of a group of people.
For example, they can group information on age, race, social background and/or sell this data to companies to increase the bottomline with a more accurate profile of peoples spending habits. This data can then be used to define more specific target groups with commercials. This would reduce some of the errors in existing methods to compile such data. I would not be surprised to find out that U.S. users give a SSN.
I don't plan on going to any type of thin client, and I don't plan on moving my financial records to somebody elses computer which I don't have physical access to. Talk about big brother watching you!
Re:Highly questionable (Score:2)
Lest any of us forget, while NT servers can be made reasonably stable and secure with work, MS software in its default configuration is generally not set up to be secure. It appears to be set up to provide easy access and a minimal level of security to keep users from walking right into each other's confidential data. There was a discussion of the consequences of the default MS configuration right here on Slashdot two months ago:
MSNBC: Stealing Credit Card Numbers Online is Easy [slashdot.org]
Re:Bank??? (Score:2)
1. Have your bills sent to us.
beautiful, I don't have to look at 40 bills in the mail each month, deal with the paperwork and record keeping, and remember to mail them.
2. Give us your banking information.
If you read Paytrust's privacy and security info, you'd see that they take this VERY VERY seriously
3. We'll pay the bills from your account
well, do you expect them to pay the bills with their own money?
4.
and it's not expensive at all. The take care of the postage, sending the checks (so you don't have to pay to get more from your bank also), keep all of your bill records for you and give you an easy search query and sort functionality (I'm referring to Paytrust), in addition to reminds to pay the bill or you can set a max amount and it will automatically pay the bill for you.
5. If there's a screwup, good luck.
Paytrust has great customer service, and will probably go to one of those live online customer service companies for additional round the clock service.
6. And until your account runs out of cash, you can keep paying your bills after you're dead!
Paytrust can syncronize with your checking account and give you all sorts of notifications and tie-ins if you so desire.
Billing Solutions 2000 Conference (Score:2)
Beside their blatant abuse of the letter 'e', I should also point out that the image that appeared on every single page was a shot of Netscape Navigator 4, obviously caught in the act of paying bills online.
What worries me is that the address shown in the location bar is a plain 'http' address - no https, no nothing.
If these market leaders who are teaching business how to perform commercial transactions using the internet use straight plain HTTP sans encryption, I am seriously worried.
eBills are Us (Score:2)
yeah, That's Smart! Note Sarcasm. (Score:2)
Re:BillPay works nicely (Score:2)
You really know how to live, you wildman you.
Re:Oh, don't make me go there. (Score:2)
Its more like this:
Windows is ok on security. Everything is easy
and anybody could probably set it up and get it
almost as secure as anyone else...however...its
security is not "the best"
A unix system has the potential to be ALOT more
secure, and more stable. However, it requires
a competent admin. Too many places just install
and leave it. Hell, even where I work we are
"a few patch kits behind".
A system is only as good as the admins that run
it. If the admins are not security consious, then
any system it subject to fall, especially a Unix
box, even more so than an NT box because unix
systems tend to run alot more services.
(just how many NT machines sit around running
telnetd, sshd, portmapper, a host of RPC services
and whatnot....along with a webserver etc?)
Re:Oh, don't make me go there. (Score:2)
> argument.
Did he? All he said seems to boil down to
"Microsoft rocks and is secure, you are all
jealous"
>erybody jumps on his ass and moderates him to 0
Nothing of the sort happend, AC posts start at
score 0. It just menas his flame bait wasn't
moderated up.
> I'm just sick of the Microsoft bashing, its
> getting old, and you have no real reason to be
> bitter except for jealousy
Having both used and supported microsoft products
I feel quite justified in calling them a steaming
pile of shit.
They have earned everything thats been said.
Re:No Liability (Score:2)
I do my banking online (a swedish bank). The service is OK and they don't charge me extra for doing their work (like some others).
At one time I needed proof that I had paid a bill some months back. (tax reasons). It was an impossible task for the clerk to produce some sort of proof that the bill was actually paid. Finally, after half an hour of discussion, I got a transcript of my transactions for that period, with irrelevant lines whited out. Hardly anything that would hold in court, but luckily there was no complaint from the tax office.
Wells Fargo Here (Score:2)
Re:Who's check? (Score:2)
Cheaper bill payment option (Score:2)
A Note on EFT (Eletronic Funds Transfer) (Score:2)
Credit Cards offer a degree of protection either via laws or Credit Card Company policies.
EFT does not. In fact in most cases you have no recourse. For example, for a credit card companies require serious credit checks to even obtain a merchant account. Payment are delayed in case of fraud, and a minium ammount of money must be left in the transfer account to cover refunds. With EFT there is no credit check. No special equiptment. In fact I can go down to Office Depot, pick up blank check stock, and print out checks if I have your routing and account numbers.
And you know what? You don't have any recourse. Sure, you can ask the police to track down the person for Check Fraud. If they have any assets maybe a few months later you can get a lean against thier bank. But for the most part once it's gone it's gone.
Credit cards and (in most states) debit cards have liability limits of 50 bucks. There will be some hassle but you know you're entire account won't get cleaned out.
But what about "honest" companies? Got a charged slammed on the phone bill? Guess what it's already been paid before you can dispute it. If they don't want to help you dispute it your only recourse is court.
People should get in the habbit of protecting check just like they protect the SSN or a credit card number.
The best solution is to have one of these companies pay your bills via a credit card. You just keep track of one single bill to pay each month.
Onmoney is... off (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Paying Bills has worked for me so far (Score:2)
www.badassmofo.com [badassmofo.com]
Re:eBills are Us (Score:2)
Disclaimer:
I do not work for any financial institution
Take a look at the demo of the online banking features of my particular institution: Canada Trust [canadatrust.com]
Re:Bank??? (Score:2)
The software runs on Win3.1 (or higher) and requires a 386 with 4mb ram. I've seen it, and it stunk.
I'm about to switch banks anyway, since they wouldn't let my 8 months pregnant wife use their restroom. They made her go across the road to McDonald's. Wonderful customer service they have, like there aren't at least 15 different banks in our small town of 56,000.
USA - United Stone Ages (Score:3)
Down here, I do have online banking now, but all I can do is view my balances and account history, and transfer money between accounts. They don't have a proper debig card system in the States either. My bank does have VISA check cards now, which are like debit cards but can be used anywhere VISA can be used. That's ok, and a lot of people are using that now, but it's even less secure than regular VISA, which makes me pretty uneasy. If someone gets my card, they can just start spending and the money comes directly out of my account. Meanwhile, I can't even remember the last time I actually made a cash purchase in Canada - it's a lot easier to pay for everything by Interac. In the US, I constantly see people walking around with their little check-books (with ID on front). It's pretty common to see people paying by cheque at supermarkets. It's very weird, because I think it's been about 10 years since I saw anyone pay for their groceries by chque in Canada. I've even seen people pay by check at my company's cafeteria. It's pretty bizarre.
Re:Or the other way around... (Score:3)
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It seems just a matter of time. . . (Score:3)
How it works for me (Score:3)
I chose this bank over the brick and mortars about 3 years ago, because the brick and mortars use custom software, which not only does not work under Linux, but also has to be installed on a computer. SFNB works from any web browser. Perhaps things have changed since then.
There's a button on their site for "Pay Bills". It brings up a table of payees you have set up. You fill in the amount for the ones you want to pay, and change the pay date if you want, or leave it at the default earliest possible Then click SUBMIT and it sets up the transactions. I find it incredibly easy compared to writing checks, adding stamps, and mailing the payments.
Setting up a new payee is a minor nuisance. They need name, address, phone number, and account id. From then on it's very easy to deal with. You can set up regular payments, with various intervals (weekly, monthly, semi-monthly, etc). I collect my credit card, utility, etc bills once every week or two and do them all at once.
They supply an ATM card. No extra charge at grocery stores, most gas stations, etc. Brick and mortar banks will nick you for actually using their ATMs, so I just get cash back from the grocery stores.
I dump the "register" of transactions periodically in case they try to do something incredibly stupid such as change things. You can annotate transactions. They include GIFs of the front and back (I think both
The only drawback in this case is having to mail in deposits; it can be a couple of weeks before you see the funds
I don't like their password policy; it has to be changed every few months, and if you forget the new one, you have to call them up and they snail mail a new password, so there go several days at least with no access. I have tried sending email about how this does not improve security. If someone wants to clean out my account, changing the password twice a year won't do squat to prevent it. It will only stop someone taking small amounts once in a while, and then only when the password changes. In that case, it's my own fault for not monitoring my account. But they persist.
And even more minor, the data entry field checking is very anal about the exact format of phone numbers and such.
But I will keep the account, as it makes most transactions much easier, and I don't deposit a lot of checks, and don't live paycheck to paycheck anyway. And electronic deposit of paychecks happens overnight anyway.
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Electronic Bill pay problem. (Score:3)
However now that he's applying for a home loan he needs to prove his credit and sources of income. And that card is causing some major problems. His mother who's the main cardholder has been paying it with a direct deposit from her bank account. And the morgtage company won't accept the card as being paid for unless they can see the actuall payments. But all his mom gets is her bank statement showing the money being transfered. And since that's from her main savings account she is not willing to provide them with the entire statement.
The lending company won't even accept the bank statements with everything but the payments they're interested in whited out. He tried sending copies of the Card bill showing no balance and showing that previous payments had been received but they won't accept that. They only know how to deal with cancled checks....and there simply aren't any.
Of course this is more complicated than normal since he's just an extra card holder and not the main person on the account. But it is something to watch for.
No Liability (Score:3)
That's a good point. But one thing that I haven't seen addressed at all yet is liability. When I was given CheckFree software as a gift one year, I looked into the agreement carefully. I threw the software away when I got to the part that released CheckFree from any liability whatsoever should a bill not be paid on time.
Now I can understand there are many ways the liability would fall on me. But if I am relying on another service to pay my bills, and they introduce a delay, or send payment to the wrong party, or [god forbid] get cracked, I don't want to be the one that gets stung.
So... sorry, but no thanks. It only takes me an hour or so each month to manage my finances, so until a time comes that a bill paying service will stand behind their service and admit their fault when they screw up, I'd rather just do it myself. I retain all liability, but then, I'm the one in control.
Re:eBills are Us (Score:3)
I use Bank of America, which use to really good bank until about early '90's when they started buying out people and I think bought out themselves. Anyways, they wanted to charge me to pay bills through them in the same matter as the topic discusses. I don't get it. They have my money, and who I do business with is also at BofA, and they want to charge me money so I can be a happy customer!?!
However, I think in the near future this will stop. Banks will relize that if someone like Yahoo can provide services like a bank, they will stop charging money. These kinds of services will simply become no cost additions to your account.
Online bill payment (Score:3)
Hmmm... I suppose we should just ignore MSoft's... (Score:3)
No, thanks.
BillPay works nicely (Score:3)
It does require an additional password beyond one's regular Yahoo! password, so that's a slightly extra level of security...but, I've come to realize nothing is truely secure
BillPay was simple to implement...we still recieve our bills, we just use it to pay them.
I can even get in through my Palm/OmniSky combo, so I can pay bills while I'm on vacation in Hawaii!
Re:Mathematically Impossible (Score:3)
When I get home, all the coins in my pocket just get tossed into my Klein bottle.
No Way! (Score:4)
I'm further surprised that people who are ostensibly concerned about privacy, abuse of information, and tracking via banner ad cookies are all so willing to give complete strangers the right to take money from thier account.
Although I have credit cards, I refuse to allow any automated withdrawals from my accounts, and I refuse to ever have a debit card for the same reason. If you're going to do this, think seriously about it first, and decide if your freedom, privacy, and possibly your assets are a good exchange for a little convenience. C'mon, how long does it take to pay bills with a checkbook for cryin' out loud? At least by looking at them, I'm less likely to get ripped off - like the extra $78 one company tried to take just recently. Also, as someone pointed out elsewhere, I *have* my cancelled checks - this comes in handy when Postal Service employees steal checks out of the envelope and cash them, as happened last year. I had a paper trail that helped put the bastards away for a long time. If someone swipes cash from me electronically, it's just plain gone - heck they can't even audit legitimate transactions, how well do you think they'll find fraud?
Anything that is a direct vacuum hose into your account is a real and significant risk! Just ask my brother, who shortly after graduating from college had over $5000 stolen on a debit card with no recourse. (I understand this was such aproblem that there is some recourse now, but we all pay for that fraud protection in higher prices.) The theives spent his account dry, automatic overdraft protection from the Visa kicked in, and then they exhausted his remaining credit limit. All in less than twelve hours and without physical possesion of his card.
As an IT professional, I realize that the technology, processes, and laws for performing these kinds of transactions safely and securely are years, if not decades away. Even less intrusive/automatic things like Quicken are not so innocuous: A friend recently had a very tough time in an IRS audit after his computer crashed - he paid his bills electronically and had no records of his expenditures. He figures that mistake cost him maybe $15,000. You can buy a lot of stamps for that.
I suppose the people who use online bill paying are signed up for their local grocery store's affliate card program and have debit cards. (There's a particularly insidious affiliate card program run by Randall's grocery stores here in Texas: in order to avoid exorbitant prices and have the privilege of cashing or writing a check, you have to have their "Remarkable (Ripoff)" card, which identifies you and your purchases with every use.) Where do you think that data goes? If you think they're not building a dtabase of your particular buying habits in their data warehouse, you're incredibly naive. It's none of Randall's business what I in particular buy (although my purchases are not particularly interesting) - the only thing they need to know is what everyone has bought *in aggregate* from the store, but that's not nearly so valuable for marketing purposes. You can't have privacy and that sort of data collection, which is one reason I'll never carry a smart card, like the new blue card AMEX is pushing so hard.
Bottom Line: you either care about privacy or you don't. If you do, act on it, and refuse to give up your rights (because that is exactly what you're doing if you sign up for these services.
Re:Can't speak for PayTrust... (Score:4)
The one problem I have had is that creditors will sometimes change your account number without telling you. If you don't notice the new number on the stub, the automatic service will happily pay to the old account. It usually takes a month or so to straighten that out.
The other issue I had was that I get my insurance and credit card from the same company, but from two different divisions. For a while, all my credit card payments were going to my insurance account. I was simultaneously getting "deadbeat" notices and "why are you sending us all this extra cash" notices from the same company.
Bank??? (Score:5)
I personally have never used any of these services. I do, however, do 100% of my bill paying online through my bank. This bill paying is free, instantanious, and convienent. Also, I have neever had a problem with security, an unauthorized payment, or any of that nonsense.
While i live in Canada, I fid it hard, nay possible to believe that none of the larger US banks offer free online bill payment. It would only make sense for them to do so, fo rthe simple reason that it helps the customer AND cuts their costs at the same time.
I would reccomend online bill payment to anyone, but I wouldnt go through a seperate company and pay for it. Check out other banks, there must be one that has the options you need./p.These services are way beyond Quicken/Wells Fargo (Score:5)
I evaluated Paytrust, Statusfactory and Paymybills and went with Paymybills. They seemed to have things the most together, and on top of it they had a free promotion.
These services receive your paper bills for you, scan them, OCR them and shred them. For me, this is the huge win, not just writing the checks. They can thus automate even variable bills while still giving you manual intervention, soemthing you can't do with EFT bills arranged with the phone or power company.
I got tired of filing all that paper, let alone writing all the checks. paymybills is going to send me a CD with all my bills at year's end for a $25 fee, and that is all I'll file.
Paytrust was seriously lacking in some areas. It doesn't even offer you an archive. Statusfactory wants $50 for the CD.
All of them need to offer instead an ability to download (or have mailed to you) archives of the actual GIFs of your bills. They might go out of business and then you wouldn't get the CD.
It would be nice if they also could handle statements like airline frequent flyer mile statements, health insurance payment notices and other things that clutter my mailbox.
They need to learn how to use encrypted e-mail and just mail me the bill plus ready-to-use URLs.
But this is a huge step forward. Though they plan it to be a temporary one. As more and more people use this, their plan is to get all the billers to just send electronic bills to the bill handlers, and that's fine with me.
One positive feature about the Wells Fargo bill-pay however -- if you use it to send an ordinary check to somebody, they get a check drawn not on your account but on Wells Fargo Bank. That's almost as good as a certified check, and it's free.