[ale] [OT] Online Bill Pay

[Alexander Barton]

Jim Philips wrote:
> On Thursday 04 December 2003 09:27 pm, David Corbin wrote:
> 
>>I've seen some threads about this before, so I don't feel too bad about
>>bringing it up.  I recently started online bill pay with Wachovia +
>>Quicken.

You know, I never got the whole electronic bill pay thing.  And I used 
to work for CheckFree.

If I can, I usually set things up to pay via automatic withdrawal.  It's 
free.  It's convenient because it requires no action on my part.  Once a 
month I go through all my collected bills and enter their amounts into 
my spreadsheet, and I'm done.  Plus, I have a permanent copy of the 
transaction stored on very persistent media (if a bit old fashioned) 
that gets dropped into a Manilla Folder(tm) file(ing)system.

I haven't investigated CheckFree or other online payment services, but I 
imagine they must want a fee or something else in return for performing 
this service for me.  And, logging on to some web site somewhere and a 
few times a month to pay my bills doesn't sound a bit convenient.  I can 
imagine all kinds of headaches resulting from the online part partially 
from having to remember passwords, deal with network or server outage 
issues, worry about that stupid sqirrel that keeps nibbling on Comcast's 
co-ax, deal with browser incompatibility, worry about opening myself up 
to spam, advertisements, junk mail, loss of privacy via my 
"relationship" with this online provider, etc.

-Alexander