Your cellphone bill may now be another source of credit

Posted at 10:11 on Friday March 03, 2006 | Filed Under Miscellaneous
Mar. 3--In what is becoming a common practice among companies that issue monthly bills, Verizon has begun to furnish customer payment history, good or bad, to credit reporting agencies.

Read the entire story.

From a strictly financial perspective--not privacy, etc--this is good for people who pay on time, but bad for those who don't. By the way, when I teach my 1-hour class, I ask people who don't have a credit card why they don't. One of the most common answers is "I might forget to pay my bill."

Every credit card (and almost every bill, like your cellphone) now has AutoPay. Make it easy on yourself!

Update: Joe writes: "Well, you need to be careful with auto-pay. For example, I'd never do auto-pay with Comcast because they've overcharged me several times. And once that money's been paid to them it's that much harder to get back." He's right. I should have written this in the original post. ALWAYS check your statement before it gets paid, through AutoPay or anything else.

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Comments (5)

1.

Well, you need to be careful with auto-pay. For example, I'd never do auto-pay with Comcast because they've overcharged me several times. And once that money's been paid to them it's that much harder to get back.

Posted by Joe W. at March 3, 2006 10:42 AM
2.

Online Banking Bill Pay.


Instead of setting up auto pay for each bill, why not have a central location for outgoing money? For example, I pay all my bills using my primary bank's bill pay service. That way, I have control over when I should schedule or send payments and for what amount. Therefore, if there is a problem with my bill, I would get that fixed before i sent over the payments.


i.e. Cell Phone bill: Verizon.
I check the amount that Verizon is charging me. If everything is ok, I set up an auto payment through my bank's online bill pay service. Same goes for rent, insurance, etc.


I hope this helps.

Posted by HRP at March 3, 2006 01:02 PM
3.

does anyone know if Sprint is doing the same thing? I've forgotten to pay my bill at least 2x in the past 3 years. Would that affect my credit rating?

Posted by jimbo at March 3, 2006 10:35 PM
4.

I personally have never had a problem with Comcast's autopay. As a matter of fact they had been overcharging me for a few months, I called them about it and they immediately credited me the money.

Posted by Stephen Caldwell at March 7, 2006 09:27 AM
5.

...Always sign the checks yourself !


That's an age old piece of personal financial wisdom.


You must know where your money is going -- and it's unwise to completely trust another person or an 'automated' system with the authority to 'spend' your money.


Many people... rich and poor... have been severely burned by ignoring such financial basics.

Posted by Corwin at March 21, 2006 02:04 PM

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This is a blog on personal finance (banking, saving, budgeting, and investing) and personal entrepreneurship.

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Ramit Sethi

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