posted on October 26, 2001 10:47:32 AM new
Something for you sellers to think about....and probably add to your aggravation for the holiday selling season:
Due to the insanity of the mail system right now, you can't depend on 1st class mail making it ANYWHERE in a 12-14 day period.....
Since MANY banks & CC companies thrive on those late fees....what is going to be their response if YOUR payment is technically late getting to them even though it was mailed & postmarked at least 10 days ahead???? I can see a whole lot of those $15-$25 "late charges" showing up on accounts!
Even though I pay off every card every month, at this point I have quit using them for the time being. Figure worst case scenario will be, that the ONLY call I will have to make would be over my ISP charge on ONE card....
Let enough people get HIT with a "late charge" this month and you may be seeing a LOT of people going back to checks instead of on-line pay by CC....
posted on October 26, 2001 10:49:52 AM new
I pay all my bill electronicly. There is no mail involved. Just about everybody can draft money out of you bank account. I have not mailed a payment for anything in over a year. It is very nice.
posted on October 26, 2001 10:50:59 AM new
Just call credit card company and tell them you sent payment 7 days before due date and all that I have dealt with will take late fees off.
posted on October 26, 2001 11:05:51 AM new
After having 2 credit card payments go astray in the past 2 weeks I registered to pay all of our cards online now. Some even offer the benefit of not having a paper statement sent to your home - I did that too!
As for the late fees. I've had one card for 10 years. Never had a late payment. One of my lost payments was to them and they slapped me with a $35 fee. I had to get pretty nasty with 3 different customer service reps to get it removed. I, of course had to make a payment over the phone 1st.
Evidentally customer calls on some cards just go into one big call center and the help could care less about keeping you as a credit card customer now. They handle several different bank's cards.
As I said in another thread I have a feeling personal mail is going to slow down to a crawl here in the next few weeks. If you do send payment to people put your complete return address on the envelope. Evidentally the post offices are getting paranoid now!
posted on October 26, 2001 11:06:48 AM new
I mainly use my Debit Visa or Debit Mastercard cards, so the money comes right out of my bank accounts. There are no monthly fees.
However, when I *do* use a credit card, I pay my bill online at the end of the month. I pay the majority of my bills online (all of the ones that I am able to).
Also, I don't think getting a "late fee" on a credit card bill is any different than having to pay a late fee on a gas & electric, or phone bill. If your bills are going to be late, they are going to be late. Not just the credit card bills.
I have also not noticed any delay in any of my mail. The few customers who do pay via snail-mail, I'm getting their payments in only a few days.
I had a customer who was blaming "slow mail" on an item I won & paid for in the beginning of October. It arrived today - and was postmarked 10/22. Yeah, slow mail, huh?
posted on October 26, 2001 11:21:02 AM new
Count me in as one who pays most of our bills online. I don't have to pay for so many stamps, and our bank is going to start charging for returning checks each month. I normally would write about 50 each month, but since using our Debit card for purchases, and paying bills online, I write perhaps 4-6 each month now.
The online info downloads directly in my Quicken 2000. Works like a dream.
posted on October 26, 2001 01:01:50 PM new
I will sing the praises of cc's also. I get points back on my cc's that I redeem for gift certificates. I put as many expenses as possible on my cards and pay them off every month. It's very nice! Also paper checks are expensive. Thankfully, I haven't bought any in about two years as I still have plenty in my current supply for certain bills that require checks.
