Thursday, February 10, 2011

Putting things off

I have a task this month that I am SOOOOOO not looking forward to doing.

My bank card expires this month.

Do you know how many things are paid through that card?

Neither. Do. I.

A couple places have been nice, proactive, and sent me notices reminding me the card they have on file is about to expire.

I’ve even kept some of those notices.

One of them was the auto insurance & I can only say “THANK GOD” because I thought they were auto debiting us with the account number, not the card and I would never have contacted them with the new card number until I started getting “OH MY GOD YOU HAVEN’T PAID US” notices and I would have been all indignant because they HAVE my information or how else have they been getting paid all these years?

I’m a set it & forget it bill payer in case you haven’t noticed. I’ve got my life arranged so the only bill that fluctuates even the slightest is the phone bill & I auto send them $2 over so if I don’t look at the bill for a few months I don’t come up too far short if the rates change due to the credit balance I usually carry.

Yes, I know I should look at all my bills every time but I hate the phone company & opening their bills ruins my whole day even if there is nothing but the regular charges in it

There are bills I have set to send out auto payments & there are bills that auto debit me & there is the electric bill which I pay in cash in person because the electric company & my bank are engaged in acts of mutual hostility & I always seem to get caught in the crossfire. I no longer trust either one of them to send or receive payment unless in my presence.

I can see easily what I am sending out. But it’s much harder to sort out how people are taking money out. The bank statements just say “Insurance company – $98” not, ‘via card’ or ‘via direct withdrawal’. And even if it did, it could be DH’s card & not mine that they have on file. His cards don’t expire anytime soon.

Any new debt contracted in the past 3 years would have my bank card number because I haven’t owned a check book in that time & have no clue what my account number might be to give to people.

But I  haven’t added any new debiting debtors. New people are all me sending out auto pays.

So I have to call everyone who regularly appears on my bank statement & ask them if they have my card number. They’ll probably ask me if I have an account number and I’ll be all “Dude, I don’t even know how I am paying you! Do you really think I have an account number handy? Do I sound at all like that sort of organized person?” and we’ll have to play guessing games about security questions, which could have been set up by DH and I have no idea what the name of his favorite childhood pet was. Not to mention my hated of voice controlled automated systems that never understand half the numbers I say & I end up screaming OPERATOR and AGENT into the phone until a live human being answers. They always point out I could have made the changes with the automated system.

And there are always those, like life insurance policies, who only charge me once or twice a year who I won’t see unless they have charged me in the past few months. I suppose I’ll hear from them when the payment fails.

oh..BTW.. They are coming to take my internet providing blight on the landscape tomorrow. Probably. I’m hoping for snow & high winds so they can’t. I’m guessing they will also be erecting the pole to replace it. No one said anything about that though.

So if you hear of a ‘tense standoff’ and ‘hostage situation’ in the Mid Atlantic area tomorrow you know they tried to drive off and leave me with no internet & I just couldn’t allow that to happen.

20 comments:

Kai said...

Stacey, you just crack me up every time! :) I hope you get your bills sorted out soon, and that the internet switchover goes without lapse or hostage situations. :)

SciFi Dad said...

Meh... if they need your money, they'll call you. At least that's my approach to the new card number game. (Like you, everything is either auto-charged to my VISA - that I pay off every month but use mercilessly because I get money back - or auto-debited from my chequing account.)

Rinda1961 said...

Oh no - hope you don't disappear on us for too long. I would miss the giggles you always provide me from your writing.
Rinda

Beth Zimmerman said...

Oh. I can totally relate! My debit card got cloned or something last month and used to rack up hundreds of dollars in charges (which were graciously refunded, thank goodness) so the card had to cancelled and I've been wondering just what will go unpaid because I have autopay set to charge to that card! This could get ugly!

Beth Zimmerman said...

PS - Love your new blog design! :)

LosingBrownies said...

My bank automatically sends me a new card, but contacting all the places that have it on file is a pain in the butt.

Lizziemade said...

Sympathy in waves ~~~~~~~ I try not to set up anything from my debit card, because it does expire and also the bank seem to think it's fun to change their debit card provider from time to time... In UK we have a system called "direct debit" which you attach to your bank account (yes I need to know my account number, but I have internet banking so I can look it up - yippee!). It also means I can look up a list of direct debits online, to see what is set up. Otherwise, I'm reduced to poring over bank statements, playing "spot the transaction"! Perhaps you could get your bank details and write them down (big!), then when you are contacting these companies about your expired card, could you ask them to transfer the payments so they come straight from the bank? Would that help for the future?
There are soooo many regular bills these days. Once there was just the electricity, the gas (if you had it), the phone, the water bill, life insurance, rent or mortgage and rates (local taxes). That was about it... what happened?!

Lori, Martha Points said...

Ok, nothing on the news so far.

So everything must be ok.

Right?

RIGHT???

LBDDiaries said...

OK, this was just hysterical. LOVED it. And I have a debit card expiring soon, too - yikes. I do know they send polite letters, "We seem to be having trouble accessing payment" so I know they had the card info and can update it. I *try* to keep track but I feel SO much better knowing you're out there having a hostage situation so no one will notice if I can't pay a bill!

LBDDiaries said...

Oh yeah, forgot to say "visiting from SITS" so you know how I found you. It was the title of your post that caught my eye - it didn't have "my beautiful baby" or "my amazing kids" in it so I grabbed the chance to check it - glad I did!

Andrea @ The Creative Junkie said...

I got your comment today so I'm assuming you did not yet fall off the map? As for the expired card, I will be you in a couple of months and I dread it too. UGH.

humel said...

I'm now wondering how many bills have gone unpaid because I didn't even think of this when my old bank card expired. They'd have called me to chase up the payments, right?

Comfy Mom said...

so far they have failed to come for the tower. Possibly they read this post & too scared to do so. :)

Comfy Mom said...

Yeha, that is more or less what I am thinking too. Only it means, for awhile, I have to answer all the 800# calls that I usually ignore.

Comfy Mom said...

thanks!

Comfy Mom said...

I'm hoping to get it set that way but there are a few that won't take the routing number

Comfy Mom said...

so far God has decided I should keep the tower. but Divine will could change at any moment

Comfy Mom said...

Thank you for stopping by!

Comfy Mom said...

i'm hoping they'll come looking for me promptly

Carole said...

Oh yeah. I was nodding all the way through this one. All my bills are set up to just look after themselves. Until the bank goes and messes with my cards. Sigh. But, if anyone wants paying badly enough, they'll ask. Right?
And it sounds as if so far there's no sign of that hostage situation. Had to LOL at that :)