Lately I have noticed that more businesses seem to be pushing against online payments. Our state department of motor vehicles wants to charge an extra “convenience” fee for registering a vehicle online and charge a separate transaction fee whether I pay with a credit card or an e-check.
Our trash service wants an extra $3.50 to pay online. The electric company wants a fee to pay online. The insurance company wants an extra fee to pay online, but does not charge a fee to pay over the telephone. Our cable company wants a fee to pay online.
Now here is my thinking. The DMV should charge less to register a car online because they do not have to have extra people in the offices to handle the transaction, nor do they need to expand office space or maintain it. The transaction with a credit card online is immediate and the money is in the state’s pocket in a split-second, rather than waiting for checks to clear.
The same logic applies to the other businesses I have listed above. So now instead of doing everything online as I have for the past few years, I am back to basics. I stop by the cable company office and pay there, no extra fee and I save money. Joyce pays the insurance over the phone, saves us money by using more of their office staff and their telephone time. I do mail the electric bill, for 48 cents, rather than spending several dollars extra to pay online. Now that I am closer to the DMV office, I shall wade in there and save on my cost to renew licenses, while at the same time costing them more to handle the transaction. My downside in this is I am writing checks to pay for things. In the past it was rare for me to write a check over months at a time, years in fact. It had been so long I had to concentrate on filling out the blanks properly.
In the effort to make more money, the places I mention here are losing money; so what is going on? Am I the only person who recognizes this flaw in the systems? Am I missing something?
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