Are You Forced To Pay Bills Online?

I went to my box today to pick up my rent statement, however,
what I found was a piece of paper with a fake email on saying that
we will no longer be mailing statements out, in order to pay your rent,
you must login to your portal, and pay there...

If the 20+ years of getting paper statements in the mail, never have i been
forced with such an act in all my life.

They say it is about saving the almighty "tree" which is not true, as corporate
america does not give a damn about that, It is about saving money, and
still charging you the "admin" fee that they charge every single month....

I realize that online ebill has been around for quite some time now, and for
the most part, they allow you to opt in if that is something you wish to do...
however, I have never seen a move to actually "force" ebill on a person....

Corporate America are nothing more then animals, and if they
could take your last $1 from your dead body, they would....

 

You work online and you're complaining about paying for stuff online? WTF? First world problems bro.

 

There is a difference between paying online and "forcing" people to pay online.
Imagine if you walked into the store one day and saw "we no longer accept cash..."
how would you feel about that? It does not matter if you dont carry that much
cash around with you, what does mater is they are forcing you into one option only.
mind you, most bills do not take cash, but you still have other "pay" options...
normally I pay rent with "check" I pay some bills online, while other bills get money orders.
It looks like this is the path corporate america is taking. I guess one day paying online
will not be good enough, next that may change to forced automatic payments, and
i only have 1 company setup for auto withdraw, and it is not rent or utilities...

 

Your landlord sent you a piece of paper about online payments with a fake email address on it???

 

And that's where it's all prolly going. I'd rather move into a different place than to allow a landlord rule and reign in my checking account.

 

Technically they still can. If you let them access your account electronically and then you have to break the lease, what will stop them from taking what they believe is fair? It will most likely cost $30-40 extra to put a stop to the automatic payments AND if the landlord thinks that you still owe them for, at least, the following month, the bank will probably take sides with the landlord (provided you have sufficient funds).

 

It would have been extremely relevant to the discussion if you stated from the beginning that you do not live in the states. Here in the states if you give ANYONE access to your banking account they can charge whatever they like whenever they like. Clearly your agenda lies with the entities that benefit from abusing the end user through deceptive and unfair business practices. I was FORCED by my bank to change my debit card THREE TIMES last year because of various data breaches with retailers that I shop with. My bank is NOT required to inform me of what retailer allowed my data to be stolen. My 3 digit IQ tells me that I should be careful of when and where I use my bank card. It is an absolute fool that relies on the internet for their every life need and literally BILLIONS of earthlings have a differing opinion a fool that blindly lives and e-life. I am sure that its all rainbows and unicorns in middle earth where the government protects its citizens from being abused by their landlords but here in the real world no one should be forced change their approach to life because some dirtbag in an office somewhere says so.

 

I read this thread, and I'm thinking... What? Do these people live in the western world at all? In Norway, almost nobody is using banks (actually going to the bank). Anybody younger than 60 uses online banking, nobody has seen a check since the 70s, and every recurring bill is automatically received in all the online banks you might have, and you can set up an automated payment in one, or go into any and do it manually (online, of course).
Hell, almost anything from authorities comes digitally as well - tax delivery, anything from the government goes to a digital mailbox, and so forth and so on.
You guys live in the frickin stone age.
But then you've only barely started using chip readers too...

 

WOW! What A pompous person you are. The ENTIRE population of your country is nearly as many people as the City I live in so your opinion on global finances is remarkably short sided and unwelcome. You may be ok with giving over your finances to a machine because that is the norm where you are from so I understand your total ignorance in the discussion. The topic is "are you forced to pay bills online?" Not "Are you an arrogant eurotrash jerk?"
Also, I see your Avatar is a symbol of American Capitalism that has always been delivered in analog form. Now that they have switched to digital only they are failing at an even more rapid rate than Olso. Enjoy your new Russain overlords and your non existent banking system.

 

Haha. Right. Because Norway, as one of the wealthiest countries in the world, do have a horrible track-record. Why am I not worried about "giving my finances to a machine"? Because there are safeguards. For one, no one can deduct money from your account without your approval. You can set limits on autopayments, so if suddenly the company tries to screw you by tripling your bill, it won't go through unless you okay it.
If you DO get swindled, there are government regulations to make sure you don't lose your money (bank will have to reimburse you unless you've done something ignorant or stupid (like handing over your card AND your pin)).
What the amount of people have to do with anything, I'm not really sure? And "global finances"? I thought we were talking about your aversion for modern technology and the fact that you want a paper statement in your mailbox. Unless your name is Obama, I hardly see that as having anything to do with global finances.

And it's a FACT that the US is behind most of the western world in how money is handled. Like still using checks. Not using chip card readers. Having mainly credit instead of debit cards (this was the case a few years back, this might have changed) and so forth.

As for my avatar, it's a playboy bunny. You might see it as American capitalism, I see it as the most prolific pornographic (okay, fine, "male entertainment") logo ever. Which of course has given their owners a lot of capital, by all means.

As for Russia and non-existing banking system, I really, really don't think you know jack about what you're taking about, but hey, just keep on being butthurt. It won't help, but it's entertaining for the rest of us.

 

Yes, let's turn it into another "bash America!" fest. You, Europeans love doing it. If the EU is so wonderful, how come the Brits want nothing to do with it?

But most importantly, if your whole country is the size of one of the US states, sure it's easy to do all sort of reforms in a short period of time. You fail to see that the US has 50 rather large states with each state having its own state government and, in some cases, acting like an independent country (even though all of them are under the US constitution and the US government). On some occasions, it's even all up to the local government how soon this or that document will be approved and the stuff in it implemented. If you travel in the northeastern or northwestern US, you may find that the things you're referring to are more up to date. The more down south you go the more backward the life down there seems to be. Again, not always the case. It can be up to date / cutting edge in a large city and totally backward somewhere out in the country.

Both my wife and I do all our banking online, but it's not because some socialist government crammed it down our throats and we have no choice but doing it that way. No, we chose to do it online. I don't see how that is a bad thing.

 

And there you go with "socialist government" like that is a bad thing (The rest of the world have understood that socialist != communism by now).

I'm sorry, but your arguments that the US is a lot of smaller states doesn't really hold water. The EU is also a lot of smaller states, completely autonomous pretty much the same way US states are. There is a governing electorate on top, issuing decrees and such that the countries more or less have to follow. However, Europe still manages to have chip readers and such available even in the most backwater village you can think of.

That, however, is not the point. (Why you drag the EU into this, I've no idea - we're not part of it).

Regardless, online banking is of course a choice here as well. If you WANT to do it manually, you can - it's just that almost noone does. My father is old-school, and prefers to pay his bills via mail (basically, you fill out a payment slip, send it to the bank via the normal postal system, and it gets processed by the bank - pretty much like you would fill out whatever info in an online bank, only on paper and much slower). Or, if you're REALLY old-school, you're of course free to bring all of your bills to the bank's office, and have a clerk do it for you. It will, however, cost you a pretty penny (about $10 for each bill).

BTW - the government have nothing to do with "forcing online banking" on us - all the banks are privately owned (well, as good as), and their choice have been to go to online banking. One of the most popular banks amongst youngsters is a purely online bank - they have no publicly available locations at all. Works perfectly (I'm using them myself, for my personal accounts) - no yearly costs, no payment for anything (no fees whatsoever) - only thing you pay for is to have VISA.

There are choices - however, none of the non-online ones are SMART - simply because they take a lot of time, effort and money to use.

 

LOL, this discussion has turned almost comical. Likewise, here in New England, my wife and I pay all of our bills online, have the vaunted chips in our credit cards (which ultimately do NOTHING for our personal security, it's all crap hype) and we are captivated by the grand benefits of socialism as evidenced by the exciting worker's paradise that has just been created in Venezuela by their socialist government.

 

Well the

Like I said Pompus. I bow to you and your frozen wonderland.

Confirmed! Pompous arrogant eurotrash. You know as soon as my government starts giving money to everyone just for existing then maybe we here will be as fantastic as you and your fellow countrymen. You know nothing of they way things work here so keep your childish uninformed opinion to your self. Checks will never go away you ignorant tool. Educate yourself. Every time you pay something online you are essentially using a check. Again the discussion topic remains " Are you forced to pay your bills online?" Not, "Tell us how your motherland is better than everyone else s."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheque#History
I worked for years supporting a software product called Connectirect that allows the secure transfer of funds in use by ALL banks globally. That's ALL, not some and not half but ALL. At the time I was with them and still to this day the security limitations posed by most financial markets forced prevented the implementation of 256 bit encryption. Until the global market catches up to our capabilities we will remain " behind the rest of the world" because we have to do business with everyone (except N. Korea, Syria, and Iran) you silly twitt. Pluck your head from your darling little poop pipe and look around. There is 7 billion of us and not all of us can be so blessed as to live in Norway.