It seems like everything wants to go digital. Books. Banks. Businesses. But how trustworthy is the digital age?
What got me thinking was hearing how some businesses will charge now for sending a paper bill. What if I don’t have a computer? What if I don’t want to give out my e-mail? What if my e-mail (or computer) EATS the bill? (Our main computer went down and I lost all my saved e-mails, yes, that’s me you hear snarling.) It doesn’t seem fair that I would have to pay extra for a paper bill.
I don’t trust paying electronically, either. I only have one company take money out of my checking account – my local paper (and I only did it because it was CHEAPER). Now I can’t even trust them. When my newspaper wasn’t delivered, I called to complain and was told I hadn’t paid my bill. What?
The thing is, payment is made almost a month in advance. So why didn’t anyone call me to find out why it wasn’t paid or why the bank rejected it? I have been a customer of theirs for almost 20 years. Don’t you think they would have noticed something was WRONG? A week after I finally got the whole thing fixed, I THEN get a call asking me to re-subscribe. If I didn’t want the paper (I love my comics, what can I say), I would have told them what they could do with their subscription!
As if things couldn’t get worse, I get a letter in the mail explaining that they had an accounting glitch causing my October payment to be returned (Ha! No kidding!). So on November 5 they were going to post two payments, one for Oct and one for Nov. I received this letter on November 6. Talk about a warning!
I called them and sure enough two payments posted and now I’m paid up until January. I just better not see any payments show up in December (or they will hear from me again).
So how do you feel about the digital age? Do any of you pay your bills on line? Do you have payments taken out automatically? Do you think it’s fair that companies may start charging a fee for a paper bill? Or am I the only one fighting the digital age?
Computers – You can’t live with them and eventually won’t be able to survive without them. I’m not looking forward to that day.
3 comments:
It saves companies buttloads of $$ when you go paperless. There are smaller companies for whom I'm willing to help their bottom-line in such a way, others, not so much.
'Cause technology is grand...when it works.
I don't do anything online. Which sometimes sucks. But My identy has been stolen twice so I've been living in cash mode for a long time now.
Anne - Can't imagine my identity being stolen. We shred EVERYTHING with our name on it (maybe a little overboard, but it makes my husband happy).
And KAK, I understand it's cheaper for the companies to go electronic, so why do they sometimes pay more for that feature? I just don't understand!
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