Deedee13

infact i am so poor : ) i am baking bread!! It didnt rise tho before i put it in the oven christ knows what i did with it .. but shoved it in the oven anyway. sod em.

I save all the envelopes they send with the bills and give them my daughter who writes to her friends back home all the time. I might as well get something for nothing. (christ i sound like some tight witch now dont i?)

loopylorns

yeah but you have made us laugh!

I needed that just dropped daughter at airport, another 8 weeks till I see her again.

danfan

I was complaining about the same thing last week. I hadn't even got last months checks in the mail when the next round came in.

Bob

We've got most bills paid online, but only the car insurance, and student loans that are automatically paid for, everything else we do manually, once set up, just do and hit pay button as there's sod all DD protection over here if something goes wrong, or you cancel a service. etc

Some bills have to be done by cheque, the oil bill...thank christ that'll be going back to quarterly, and smaller now that the brunt of winter is over with...wouldn't think it though...and then the rent cheque.

y2b4sure

Maybe I'm in a bad mood today but yeah move back to the UK where there are no bills and life is a box of chocolates. What a load of rubbish.

Guess what folks, use stuff and you pay for it...wow...how unusual.

Pay your bills by direct deposit and stop fussing about it.

AmerLisa

So you never use a debit card?

AmerLisa

And with hardly any protection, at all??? Oh you do like to live dangerously, Elvira!!

AmerLisa

Elvira

Did I say that? I was talking about Direct Debit - giving a company the authority to help themselves from $$$ from someone's bank account.

In the UK, this is a well-oiled system which is very tightly regulated; it is impossible to be fleaced.

Here in the US, there are very few safeguards. Basically you are relying on the other party to stop taking your money if you want to stop.

I think there may be a better explanation in Fatbrit's famous article.

AmerLisa

Geez Elvira, I only asked if you'd ever use your debit card, which of course lets someone take money from your bank. And I don't have anything DD here, I prefer to pay my own bills (monthly or when they're due.) However, while convenient, I must admit it was a bit annoying that anything we bought in the UK came with the knowledge that you would be paying by DD...... And of course nothing is infallible.

snowbunny

Yes and no.... though to be simplistic, yes there are more safeguards in the UK system.

However, I was horrified to see recently that if someone commits fraud using a chip-and-pin credit card in the UK, the bank will automatically assume that it cannot be fraud since chip-and-pin's "unbreakable" and will deny any fraud claim. This despite some uni students demonstrating a couple of ways to fraudulently obtain the information!

It would be nice to use the best of both systems and consumers in all countries should stand up for themselves against Big Banking.

Elvira

Lisa - Direct Debit and paying with a Debit Card are two completely different things!

In the former you are giving a company carte blanche to help themselves to money from your bank account.

In the second, you are signing a slip authorising a specific amount - which in any event is backed by the Visa or Mastercard guarantee.

TouristTrap

I learned the no DD very early in my being here, thankfully. I can't believe that it is not the client but the company that has to stop the DD. What kind of archaic system is that??

BritGuyTN

I know this flies in the face of accepted protocol here, but I do actually have direct debit equivilent sent up for my landline with bell south and my water bill

the way I look at it - bellsouth don;t seem to mess the bills up and if the water company does then the amount they typically withdraw is so little anyway

comcast however, regularly mess things up, as do cingular, no DD for them!

I would like to use my amex, but lots of companies have an issue taking it due to the higher charges

loopylorns

Maybe its the bad mood thats has stopped you from reading the thread correctly!

i can not find any where in the posts about the UK not having any bills.

If you read it again you will find its a comment about the frequency of bills dropping through the door not the fact that they do. (if only they didnt).

Nor was I fussing about how to pay them, just a convo on how often they come, (that and the begging phone calls).

Gosh take a chill pill!