So, I recently bought my first house and I'm trying to get the bills organised (were possible). npower currently provide our gas and electric and I can pay their bill online via a 3rd party website, BillPay. Does anyone else use this? Any reason why I shouldn't? (I was a bit surprised by the 3rd party site bit)
I always pay my bills over the phone to a person, so that way I have a time, date and a name if something goes wrong.
Seems rather common in the states. I held off for years, but it seems like every bank I deal with likes to do business on the web. They have anti-physhing stuff that makes it rather secure, even if you aren't really paying a lot of attention every time you log on.
My credit cards allow me to pay the bill online. HOWEVER, I do not completely trust this as I like to be in control of my payments. So I use my bank's web interface to pay my bills. Depending on the payee, an electronic payment is made, or a check is printed and sent out to them at no cost (I sent my mother a payment and she received a physical check). You can schedule it to pay a certain amount every month, or you can logon every month, select the payee (entries are saved), the amount, and the day you want the payment to be processed by the bank. I prefer to use HSBC. Although a bit annoying, they just set up a new logon requirement where I have to enter my Username and then my password on another page. Since I've started using their bill pay, it required a separate authorization. You have to use a mouse on a virtual keyboard to enter a password. This is to ensure that no keylogger can be used to steal your separate billpay password.
I use the web-banking website from my personal bank. I had to go to the bank to activate the online-option and then you get a 'digipass', wich is like a tiny calculator but you have to enter your code and then you get a login-code that only works 1 time. So when logging in on the webbanking website I have to fill in my web-accout number (not your bank account number), the serienumber from the digipass and a new login-code. For international transactions or other special stuff I have to fill in another type of code I can get from the digipass. I like to think this system is rather 'safe', so I do most/all of my transactions using this. So I pay my bills myself, but true the web interface of my bank, so I don't have to leave the house . I've been using this for several years and I'm very pleased with it. Very good system. L PS: I never heard of this BillPay and I don't think we have it..
