Never Allow Direct Bill Pays

I've posted about this before. Never ever allow anyone direct payment access to any of your accounts.

L.A. Times:
Her DWP bill sent her to the emergency room"Bills from the LADWP usually run in the $500 range every two-month billing period But in July, she got one on steroids. It came to $12,836.31, and DWP included a notice along with the bill. If she didn’t pay up, her water service could be cut off.... In September, she got another surprise from DWP. This time the damage came to $16,988.62... nearly 12,000 gallons a day."

I've read another person wasn't aware her former wireless provider (she hadn't had for almost a year) continued to bill her credit card. The card was set up to auto pay. A few months ago a electric company was auto paid over $1,500 for a month's worth of electricity the family never used.

To make matters worse each of these incurred $30 fees for the overdrafts from the bank, another $30 by the companies plus assessed late penaltie$ because of the overdrafts they created. Some it took months, years. For others never at all to get things straightened out.

Ironically many of these same companies require extensive passwords to visit them luring people into believing this will somehow make them secure when it comes to viewing their own bills. I mean really, if someone wants to log into one of my bill providers to pay my bills for me go right ahead. It's another matter entirely for bill providers wanting to gain complete access to my private money funds. I remain dumbfounded why anyone would grant authorization to gain access to their accounts. Sounds an awful lot like a set of double standards to me.

I'd even go so far as to remind people of the well known phrase about a fool and their money. Only a dope would drop off a stack of signed blank checks putting them into someone else's hands. By authorizing auto pays it's doing the same dumb thing. Why anyone does this is beyond me.

To my way of thinking it's a money trap waiting to happen.