I remember when I first entered the adult world paying my bills online was super easy.
These days, I feel like half the time I log onto some doctors office or mechanics website to pay a bill the site is like “yeahhhh, idk why but I’m just not going to accept your credit card. Also the button to the ‘finalize payment’ screen is grayed out even though you filled out everything.”
And they you email tech support and they’re like “idk delete your cookies I guess? That didn’t work? Guess you gotta mail us a money order.”
My rent payment portal has a “convenience” fee for every form of payment, even e-checks.
The fact that they waste my time with 2FA when I try to pay a bill is very funny. Like, damn, do they really think someone else is going to “illicitly” pay my bill? Lmao
Issue is if they get access to the portal for paying your bills they can usually access other information to, like if you have any payment methods on file.
When I click “pay bill” it only gives me access to the bill-payment system. I have to go elsewhere for medical stuff.
Then they could put that part behind 2FA is the thing idk. Too much effort I guess.
Segregating those systems isn’t always as easy as it sounds. Sometimes having those processes interact requires you put them on the same security level.
They don’t take credit cards because it costs them 2.5-2.9%. That’s actually reasonable to me because credit cards are basically a tax on the poor. When the same price is charged for credit as debit/checks, people with credit get 2% or more back as rewards points and people on debit get nothing.
The one that kills me is when government payment sites are run by a private company that gets to squeeze a fee indefinitely for setting up a really basic website.
Booz Allen Hamilton(the defense contractor) runs the reservation system for federal parks. It’s a pretty basic website and in exchange they get to keep 100% of the charge for reserving a campsite, cabin, or park pass.
vibe coders don’t care
Everything’s shittier, world is a fuck, eat bitcoin
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Make website so that you can layoff all the people who answer phones to save money
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Stop maintaining website to save even more money
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If people can’t pay you, it’s not your problem and you can sick the authority of the state on them
I know there has to be way more to it, but in my head this is what happened
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We have a utility bill that we set up for auto pay every month that never actually works. It’s great, I love paying for essential things on faulty systems
i avoid payment portals whenever i can. my credit union has an online bill pay using ACH services and sometimes its a little clunky to find the biller but i eventually find them all and get them added. usually everything is available on any paper bill (account number, address, etc)
it bypasses all the bullshit convenience fee nonsense and keeps me from allowing like a dozen screwball companies to have access to my financial info.
and i keep that bank account with those billers specifically at a low balance. it is only for paying known bills and won’t overdraft.
my family acts like im paranoid, a nerd, and a cheapskate, but all those convenience fees add up. and fuck the risk. i also like having all my payment records in a single transaction list.
