I want to see more research on this topic. If this is true, I'm happy to do it. I pay every month online via credit card, which was a PitA as it was...this is flat out silly.
Where is this a reality? I pay cash all the time. Most of the services I pay for have a local presence. Paying online is just a convenience for me, but entirely optional.
It's not, because this conversation is specifically about how much worse it would be to pay all your bills in cash, while you seem to be talking about a digital payment.
i actually pay all my fees (rent,internet/phone,energy,gas,mobile ...) via automated wiring (in germany you call it "lastschrift"). i can't imagine the hassle of doing this manually each month.
Manually pay bills every month, or whatever period, so that it's easier to switch account? Even if you're switching every year that doesn't sound like a good deal.
I do pay most of my bills online. (Including my TWC Internet bill, actually.)
However there are some bills that _require_ me to use a checkbook, primarily my rent and housing related expenses [water, sewage, garbage, maintenance].
I could pay in cash, but a check provides additional security and convenience anyways. -- They won't accept debit or credit cards though.
My last apartment complex was the same way. They looked at allowing people to pay electronically; but, that would mean passing on the credit card charge to residents. The first apartment complex I lived in, which allowed you to pay by credit card, charged 3.3% to do so.
If I save $40 by writing a check, I'll write a check.
I think the challenge with these online services now is that their barrier to entry is minimal.
You can sign up to these services at the click of a button and they're also heavily promoted next to payment providers such as Visa. As opposed to them being a separate service you would sign up for, they're integrated into the checkout process as easily as PayPal.
I even saw a service similar to this here in Australia called "My pay now", where they say you can access a portion of your pay early. When in reality you're just borrowing an amount that is a portion of your upcoming pay, with the expectation that you will pay it back when you get paid. The way it was marketed I thought it was a government scheme where you would actually access a portion of your pay early, but no.
I don't have any method of paying online, well, there is, but it takes too much of effort doing the paperwork in bank that it's not even worth it. I don't live in first world country.
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