Yep effective July 13th Sprint has placed a 5GB Cap on ALL data plans both individual and corporate liable accounts(as in evdo broadband) and customers have x amount of days to bail without having to pay ETF's! Yep sprint is following Verizon with the cap. The only truee u8n limited plan now is Alltell which was just bought by Verizon so expect a cap there too no doubt. Bummer eh?;(
I don't schedule recurring payments. I pay my bills each month by electronic debit. I haven't written a paper check in many months. Using Chase Bank, the payee info is stored online and I merely enter the payment amount and a few clicks to complete. If the payee is not set up to accept electronic payments, the bank will mail a paper check, and they don't even charge me for postage.
In making payment, make sure to use the payment address from your paper monthly bill. Some companies have dozens of offices listed, and you want payment to go to the correct office. My cable bill goes to Pennsylvania, my auto insurance to Illinois, even though both have local offices.
We have two credit cards we use exclusively. Pay both in full each month
via internet. MH payment, Supplemental medical insurance is auto deducted
from checking account. All funds (income) are direct deposited. Sky miles on
one of our credit cards allows us to fly to Puerto Rico every year--free!!
Wife is a native!
For the "static" bills, those that are the same amount, we use automatic bill pay. Our Am. Ex. with Costco, I go in monthly and pay off monthly. Been very satisfied with that. We were able to get our bills down to just 5 or 6 that we have on a monthly basis.
Ron & Carolyn
Sadie the Irish Terrier
Happy the Lakeland Terrier
From sailing yacht to land yacht
KE7BZC
M/V Lothlorien GO HUSKIES
When this topic comes up, many of us have different opinions about what's the safest, or the handiest method to pay the bills. Bottom line is, most all these electronic transactions work pretty well. There's always the possibility of a screwup, and usually it's by "the other guy".
I did have an instance a year or so ago, after selling a house and moving to a different county. Property taxes were on "auto-pay" every 6 months. Worked well for years. But 5 months after the sale, all taxes having been settled at closing, sure enough they debited me the taxes at the usual date, even though I wasn't the owner any more, and even though their file showed the autodebit cancelled. It took them 2 weeks to process the refund, which really torqued me off. No apology, of course. So, you have to pay attention to your account - you never know when someone will mess it up.
Not that anyone needs another opinion, but here's mine.
I think using credit cards and "bill pay" type services of your bank are both excellent.
ATM is also excellent, but there is a an increased risk w/ ATM compared to cards and bill pay.
1. Credit card co.s have state of the art security and they really watch for fraud and usually catch it quick before it gets too big. If defrauded, usually you can get your $$ back or you can buy (in advance) some kind of fraud insurance.
2. Your bank also has great security and encryption for bill pay. Not likely to have a loss there.
3. ATM - if stolen, or given to a vendor w/ a bad employee, or someone hacks your info, altho it may be tough to use, when someone is ABLE to use it, they can get into the full balance of your acct. in one fell swoop, and there is no insurance or bank to put the $$ back. No way to reverse the charges.
So keep your ATM card (many banks need it for ID of you anyway) but use it carefully, and guard your pin religiously, and change it often, too.
2006 Duramax Chev dually.
2008 Mobile Suites TKSB Working toward "long timing".
We use ingDirect for all out banking needs on the road. We don't do the "automatic payments" from vendors or bills since, as has been noted, they can and usually do mess them up. We use the ingDirect autopay, so we're in control of the autopayments and can change or stop them when we want.
I have a Debit/ATM card from them but only use it to get cash from machines in thier network. I never use it for purchases because of the weakness sfprop refered to. We use a Visa for purchases, or cash when the Visa and cash price (often the case buying diesel) are different.
John Ewing
2007 Allegro Bus 42QRP ("TisIt")
2005 Sportster/HydraLift ("Dinky")
2002 Miata toad ("Mellow Yellow") www.jandse.com
FMCA 104106
What goes around comes around - always treat others the way you'd like them to treat you.
Dick&Judy wrote: Judy and just returned from spending a week with my daughter and her family, who live in McAllen TX. We left the 5er at home and drove the car. Upon our return home, we stopped at a motel in OK to spend the night. The desk clerk indicated that if I paid by cash, my bill would be $20 higher than if I paid by credit card. So I whipped out my Visa. I confronted my son-in-law as to why no one wants to accept cash in a high traffic area. He informed me that so much counterfit money is being brought in to the US through Mexico, that business' in his area are reluctant to accept cash anymore.
Here gas stations are giving you a discount for cash.
For bills that are the same each month (DirectTV, Verizon, etc) I like putting in on the credit card which we pay off each month, plus we get a rebate on everything charged on the card. While the rebate is not that great, every little bit helps. Plus, as has been mentioned, I have the credit card company on my side to dispute any charges.
Barb
Barb & Dave - full-timing Traveling catpanions Kit (age 18) and Shadow (age 11) Figment II (2002 Alpine 36 MDDS) Mischief (2004 Subaru Forester Toad) FMCA - F337834, SKP #90761 http://homepage.mac.com/barbaraok/ Our blog
The only truee u8n limited plan now is Alltell which was just bought by Verizon so expect a cap there too no doubt. Bummer eh?;(
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