Friday, July 8, 2011

Lost in the mail?

I freely admit that I'm a creature of habit and have always been a little fanatical when it came to paying bills. Maybe it was growing up poor, but I've always tried to pay things on time even before I had heard of a credit score. Plus, I really hate late charges. It's one thing to pay a late charge because you just didn't have the money available to pay on time. But, to pay a late charge because you forgot the bill? It's like throwing a pile of dollar bills in the floor and setting them on fire. It really irks me and I never really understood it until it happened to me.
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I don't remember what was going on in my life at the time, but I remember totally forgetting to make a payment on an installment loan. This was years ago before you could even get a free credit score. I ended up calling the company and they waived the late charge for me. I don't think companies are as understanding with their fees these days. But, it's always worth a try. I've had a few payments lost in the mail. No, really, they were lost in the mail. Of course, I didn't know until the next bill came in with a big fat late charge. Let that happen on a credit card these days and you'll end up with 24% or higher interest. It's just easier to pay the bill online.
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After years, and I do mean years, the due date changed on my electric bill. Before I even had a house of my own, I'd go with Mom to pay our bill. So, that due date has been in my head since I was a child. They changed it because they were going to centralized billing. Really? Couldn't the central computer use the same due date? So, here I am trying to remember if this is the week the bill comes in the mail. Hopefully it won't get lost in the mail.

2 comments:

Betsy Banks Adams said...

Isn't that just the case, Marge???? Seems like things like this happen ALOT these days. They don't care about the customer.. They JUST care about themselves...

Luckily, we pay most of our bills online these days --which helps SO much.

Hope you are doing okay. We just returned from a 3 week trip in June out west. It was awesome...

Hugs,
Betsy

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