this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2025
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Mildly Infuriating

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Power company recently outsourced their payment system and now have to pay a fuckin' fee to pay my goddamned bill. The only way to avoid that is autopay.

Further infuriating is I have to re-add my bank info to yet another third party system.

Fuck the modern world, man.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 22 hours ago

I never let any company know my card details, I use privacy.com to make a fake card and pay them and then put it on hold so if they try auto charging me when I don't want it, the card just gets denied.

[–] Euphorazine 12 points 1 day ago

So in my city, the water bill would charge a fee for paying online, the only way to avoid the fee was to write a check and they had no auto pay options at all.

I would just overpay and write a check for 6-months of service. I knew it was time to write a new check when my balance stopped being negative.

I guess what I'm saying is it would have been incredibly convenient and not at all infuriating to have a fee-less auto pay option.

[–] davidgro 159 points 2 days ago (5 children)

Use Bill Pay from your bank/credit union to mail them a check (without even paying postage yourself)

[–] toiletobserver 74 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I can't updoot this enough. Fuck everyone's fee ridden bullshit apps, websites, outsourced garbage services. I make almost everyone send me a paper bill or i just won't pay.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 2 days ago

It's fun arguing with companies that claim they can't send paper bills anymore.

[–] Styxia 15 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)
  • pay online fee: $2.50
  • Paper bill/pay by check fee: $5.00.

I made the numbers up as I don’t recall them offhand but my energy company effectively has this policy now. :/

[–] [email protected] 3 points 20 hours ago

They're required to have some method of payment that doesn't involve additional fees. Ironically, it's usually the method that involves the most work for their employees.

[–] Wxfisch 25 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I do exactly this. My bank will try to use ACH or a one time debit card automatically, but inevitably ends up sending a check each month. What's better is if I use the bill the water company sends and mail it back with a check there is a fee, but they don't charge it when my bank sends a check.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 2 days ago

They're not trying to fuck over the banks. They have better lawyers.

[–] wreckedcarzz 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That's step one. Step two is to get enough solar and whole-house battery storage so you can cut the grid and give them $0.

[–] davidgro 1 points 1 day ago

Would be nice, but where I live less than a fifth of days in the year are sunny on average.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 days ago (1 children)

That's the way to go! I pay all my bills through the bank. All they need is your services account number and a mailing address. It's much nicer when you can pay all your bills in one place instead of having to deal a bunch of different payment apps/websites.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 days ago

Yeah, I've been meaning to look into that. Especially so I can start unlinking my bank details from sites that will eventually expose them in a breach.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 day ago (2 children)

It's stuff like this that makes me amazed at how advanced Brazil is in some regards (or how backwards USA is). We can, from the comfort of a banking app (that can make instant money transfers to any other bank, free of charge), set up automatic payment of utilities like phone, electricity and water, no extra bank bullshit hidden charges applied.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Oh, we can do that too, at least to varying degrees. Depends on the bank and what services they offer.

My bank will at least do what's called "Bill Pay". It's (mostly) the equivalent of me telling the bank to write and mail a check to a company on my behalf. I don't currently have that setup, but it is something I'm looking into. It's been available for a long time, but years and years ago when I looked into it, only certain companies/utilities were supported by my bank.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 20 hours ago

the equivalent of me telling the bank to write and mail a check to a company on my behalf.

What the fuck? Why don't they just transfer the money electronically instead?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Are there banks that don't do this or charge? I just assumed these things were the absolute basics of banking and are free for everyone.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

So did I, but then there's OP's post, which made me think this isn't universal

[–] [email protected] 55 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Bill pay through your bank. Fuck their payment processor.

When an old landlord pulled some bullshit on me, I paid a month's rent with 31 paper checks, delivered once a day, direct from my bank.

[–] dohpaz42 19 points 2 days ago

That is some genuine malicious compliance. ❤️

[–] hedgehogging_the_bed 9 points 1 day ago (2 children)

My power company found a new and infuriating way to fuck with me. They send every e-bill with a required payment of $0 and then the regular balance but my bank auto-pay only reads it as $0 due today and ignores it.

So the bank says it's the power company's fault, the power company claims to have no control over it. Oh and they don't send paper bills any more (although they send me a paper report every month shaming me for stressing the grid by charging my electric car) So you have to remember to go online and look up the bill and pay it on their awful $5 transaction bill pay instead.

[–] RememberTheApollo_ 7 points 1 day ago

Sounds like late fee extraction. I wonder if calling the state AG about this would do anything.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

Gotta love these legal monopolies sanctioned by our govt, right?

Right?

[–] ef9357 23 points 2 days ago (1 children)

This is more than mildly infuriating.

[–] spongebue 9 points 1 day ago

The principle, yeah. The fact that it's 50 cents keeps it mild though

[–] [email protected] 33 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Pay by mailing in paper checks to maximize their costs.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 days ago (2 children)

That maximizes my costs as well (plus hassle). I don't even own a checkbook.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Your bank mails the checks for you for free, I haven't owned a checkbook in a decade.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 days ago (1 children)

If they’re going to cost me money being stupid, I’ll do it back to them.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Isn't First Energy that company that got busted for bribes but then the local politicians/courts basically let them bribe their way out of trouble with $20 million???

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago

Not sure if same but their scandal in Ohio put some GOP bigwigs in prison recently.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Householder

https://www.stateofficialtwo.com/

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 days ago

Canyou mail a check?

Some banks will do autopay. The bank obtains the bill and mails a check.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (4 children)

My landlord gave me the option of paying online. For an additional $10.00 fee.

edit =added the cost.

[–] PunnyName 13 points 2 days ago (1 children)

"I'll pay online without the additional fee."

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 days ago (3 children)

"We're not renewing your lease." Or better yet, "Please sign your new lease, at the additional $1200 market rate per month, or kindly vacate by the 1st."

Hope you can get time off work and have the friends and money to relocate so you can enjoy another 12 months of Freedom™ from living on the street!

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 days ago

Hence why every reasonable jurisdiction should have tenancy tenure and rent control laws

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Housing costs are such a racket.

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[–] grue 18 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Further infuriating is I have to re-add my bank info to yet another third party system.

"We don't NeEd STrONG coNSUmer PRoTEctiOn LAws bECauSe YOU Get to DECiDe WHO YOu Do bUsINesS wIth"

Edit: just to be clear, I'm not mocking OP.

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[–] RagingSnarkasm 17 points 2 days ago

If you have a good credit union, you should be able to set up an extra account and you only use that account to pay these extortion bills. Electronically transfer funds in from your main account, and never give anyone access to your primary.

[–] bighatchester 10 points 2 days ago (3 children)

My power company made me download an app to pay for a bill with cc . Now that I should be paying bills with a credit card but I was in a tight spot and needed to keep the lights on .

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 days ago

Gotta do what you gotta do 🤷‍♂️

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