Use caution with online payments & billing

Every day I get a new letter from one of my creditors or the bank requesting that I stop receiving paper bills and receive them online. I don't feel it's safe to stop receiving paper bills for everything. Why? Because i don't trust the credit card companies mostly and I don't trust any other possible errors. More than once my credit card has suddenly switched it's terms on me and I've had the paper to prove what my previous terms were.

There also are several manipulations that companies pull when you sign up to pay online. My mortgage company wont send statements now. There's a disclaimer when you pay online that you agree to stop receiving statements, period. They wont even send them online, I have to remember to log into their website and do it every month. They also charge me a user fee if I don't pay it 5 days before it's due. The user fee goes up for every period of time I pay late. It's $3 if I dont pay 5 days before due. It's more than that if I pay the day it's due and it's over $10 if I pay the bill late. That is on top of the late charges they charge me. I've resolved the issue by using my banks bill pay system. It's not the best system, but since I already pay for my checking account, it's at no additional charge.

Another thing to be aware of is sly user agreements. I was signing up to pay one of my credit cards online because it had been purchased by one of the gigantic card companies and I couldn't use the old online payment system any longer. I am signing up and the user agreement pops up. I read it carefully and it only contained the usual so I clicked on the 'accept' button. Then a second user agreement comes up. The second agreement contains a bunch of waivers. They don't say they are waivers, but if you know your consumer rights, they are a bunch of agreements that are asking you to waive all of your consumer rights. It stated things like, "I agree to binding arbitration from an arbitrator of the banks choosing. I agree to pay this bill under any and all circumstances even under bankruptcy and I agree to pay any and all charges made on this bill even if they are fraudulent." These are all things that go against our consumer rights. Some states don't allow these user agreements to be binding if they conflict with state law, but some do.

One more caution about using online billing is that you don't have a paper copy to prove your case. I enjoy watching the court shows and many times they have brought in a home print out of their bill, checking account or other account and the judge has stated, "how do I know this hasn't been tampered with?" It is almost impossible to get some companies to send you a paper copy and copies can cost you a lot in fees. Also, some companies may take MONTHS to send you the documentation and when you receive it, it may be illegible or in some strange format that only their accountants would be able to understand. If you need to go to court or prove something for your credit record or collections, you might find yourself in a pickle if you have nothing but self printed copies to show.

I hate Flickr

Alright this post is only for Yahoo who shut down their comments on the subject because there were too many. You forced me to move all my photos over to Flickr and flickr does not explain anything. It's all supposed to be intuitive, you click on things and then you figure out how it works. I find this annoying. I like instructions on my pages, unlike many other people, I can read just fine.

I also hate the fact that I cant figure out how to set my photos so that they are only viewable to who I want them to to be viewable to. And a lot of objects post everything publicly or at least to other flickr users. I dont want to allow all my personal information to be viewable to everyone. I have no interest in posting to the world my age or where I live or my email adress.

So thank you yahoo for removing yahoo photos, which was still a pain because you couldnt link to it via my-yahoo, to moving to flickr, I promise I'll download my photos soon and delete them off flickr and delete my account.

Bad Parenting Alert!

First I'm going to say that I know I'm not the worlds best parent. I really suck at it sometimes. However, I do teach my kid to be responsible for his behavior and that he has to pay the consequences of his actions.

This parent however, feels differently.

After having considerable difficulties with a group of 4 kids traveling unattended on the train, train officials decided to give the kids to the local police to attend to after they were accused of stealing an Ipod from another passenger. According to Amtrak, the Ipod was returned to the rightful owner, which to me, shows that they accused the correct people in the incident.

The father of the children is seeking suit against Amtrak. He feels like it was child endangerment to scare the children by pulling them off the train in the middle of the night and placing them in police custody. The children were not jailed. They were placed in a conference room. The parent also stated that he didn't think there was anything the kids could have done that would have been justifiable to kick them off the train. I guess petty theft doesn't count in his book.

I'm sure it will be much better for the children when they are locked up in Juvenile Detention as they get a bit older and carry on in the same fashion.

So my note to the parent: this is supposed to be a learning experience for the kids. You should be telling them how lucky they are not to be booked in Juvenile Hall. You should also tell them that it could be even worse. When adults cause problems on the train, they can be dropped off in the middle of nowhere. They should be forced to imagine how much fun that would be. This is your chance to nip this in the bud and get them on their way towards being responsible for their behavior. Give it a try. Otherwise it is likely to be you that is robbed and likely beaten as this kids grow into gangsters.

see the article at
http://newsdaily.com/
Quirks/UPI-1-20070724-12152700-bc-us-tossed-crn.xml

sorry about that link, i'm having problems getting blogger to show it all.
someone save us from those kids

are you asking the right questions?

Yesterday I read an article about a woman who was upset because her boyfriend hadn't yet bought her an engagement ring after 8 months of living together and what I guess is about 5 or 6 months of engagement because he works too much. The columnist told her that either she was feeling the loves man or not and a bauble wouldn't change things. Although I agree with the columnist that really it comes down to what she thinks this man feels, I thought the columnist left out a lot of questions that the woman should ask herself before continuing on in her path.

1. does she feel left out because he works too much?
2. did he promise to buy her a ring by a certain date?
3. had he made empty promises to buy the ring and hadn't yet?
4. had she asked him why he was waiting? was he just waiting for the perfect time that was never going to come because he was much too career oriented or was it now a game or power play between them?
5. had he proposed merely to keep her around?

These were the questions she should have been reminded to ask herself and search her soul for her answers.

The sad thing about living together is that things don't change once you get married. What ever you agree to when you move in, is generally how things go once you get married, that or the other person suddenly pushes you for change once you tie the knot. Either situation is profoundly difficult. When you move in with someone it's frequently with lowered expectations or the understanding that everything is 'temporary' until you get married. The problem is that habits are hard to undo.

Once you agree to date and move in with a work-aholic, good luck getting that person to change once you tie the knot. You've already agreed that it's OK to date the person, continue to date the person, move in and you've agreed to get married, so you must be OK with how things are. This is the important situation that the engaged woman should have been reminded of.

She should have been asked if she was happy with the way things were, and if not was she willing to get married if things remained the same.

I thought the reply by the columnist just wasn't very helpful for the circumstances and I always wonder why people don't ask themselves better questions when they are planning marriage.

Love old furniture

I have this huge old solid wood desk that I just love. My spouse however, has reservations about it. But I wont part with it. It's solid, sturdy, had wonderful proper sized drawers and a large work top. It's repairable and refinishable; you can't say that about todays particle board furniture.

In our never ending quest to make cheaper and cheaper furniture so that people can afford to always buy something new, we've lost the benefits of keeping a hold of good things. Keeping a hold of my nice old desk keeps another tree from being cut down, not buying a new desk prevents more engery, time and toxic waste from being generated by making a new one out of particle board.

Love your old furniture and have it repaired rather than dumping it. And should the time come that it is beyond your repair, give it away on craigslist.org.