Please, I need to vent: bills lost in mail???

[karamel]

I am so upset and needing a good vent. I have to preface this story by saying I'm meticulous when it comes to paying bills - I'm very organized, and like to allow plenty of time for the check to get to where it needs to go. That said, I wrote checks for 3 different bills at the end of last month all at the same time, and put them in their respective envelopes - stamped, sealed, address showing through window, etc. Put them in my mailbox w/flag up. Done.
So last week - I get a late notice for one of the bills - huh? :confused: I check w/my bank, and it was never cashed.
Tonight I get my mortgage bill (another that was paid in that bunch) with a *&^%$# late fee on it. I checked w/my bank and it was never cashed. And now I'm probably going to have a ding on my credit. :mad:
I don't know what's going on - but I'm soooo upset - and I don't quite know how to remedy things. Please help!!!

[mbrogier]

Feel free to rant. The post office losing things makes me furious as well.

One "late fee" addition to a mortgage bill isn't going to even show up on your credit unless you've established a pattern. Based on the background you gave, that isn't the case. You really have to be delinquent for the company to go to all the trouble to file a report to the credit bureaus. (If it DID happen you can contest and win. I've done it before for bank stupidity.)

I guess what you'll have to do is call the companies and let them know what happened. You could send new checks. You could stop payment on the old checks, but if they did get cashed late, the companies would just use it for the next month's payment.

There have been cases where thieves stole checks out the mailbox and dissolved the ink off the checks and rewrote them to themselves. I'd just keep an eye on your bank account and watch for any weird activity or withdrawals.

The PO isn't going to do anything. All you'll do is want to strangle someone.

[HejazSunKat]

I'd call the companies and plead your case...I'm a prompt payer, yada, yada, yada. You can probably get the late fees reversed with a good sob story. Have you looked into an online bill paying service? I've been using one for a couple of years now and it's so easy and convenient: No more stamps, envelopes, putting things out for the postman etc and never had a problem with a payment not being made. I would warn you off of the Macy's website though (but it's only to pay your account with them if you have one), twice I had problems with them not applying payments I'd scheduled. Needless to say I stopped using it and now pay them through my regular online service like every other bill. Sorry this happened to you. I'm anal retentive about things like that too so to have the post office lose your mail is aggravating.

[Member10000]

I don't want to scare you, but when you leave bills in your mailbox to go out, you run the risk of thieves taking them. They may not be cashing those checks, but they get info on you to use at a later date, or they may create new checks to try to pass off later. I never leave my bills in my mailbox (the one or two I can't pay online). I hope this isn't the case in your situation though, but it may not be the post office who did you wrong this time.

[Robyn1007]

I was going to say the same thing as Member 10000, theives really do watch mailboxes, my aunt had a box of checks stolen and they had written $1500 in checks by the time she realized it. She now has those sent to the bank branch and picks the up there and the neighborhood has had locked mailboxes installed.

The only check I mail now is for my rent, everything else is paid online, its easy, convenient and because of it I only buy a box of checks every 2-3 years! Call the companies, they likely will forgive this case with a history like it sounds like you have.

Robyn

[AZLorena]

We have had checks stolen out of our mailbox before. We have the little not locked, flag goes up when something is in it kind too. My suggestion would be to go to the bank and get your account # changed as soon as possible, follow their advice for fraud protection......and do not ever place anything in an unlocked mailbox again. It took us about 2 months to get this all cleared up because it wasn't just 3 bills....it was a whole stack. (I write checks on the 1st and the 15th)

I still mail checks because I have not had great experiences with online bill pay.....but I know I am rare.

Lorena

[Blissful_in_TX]

Ditto to all the above...
- I would be worried that someone stole the checks.
- Plead your case to get the late fees removed. They'll often do this if you've never been late before.
- Look into on-line bill paying. Right now I actually have ALL of my bills (except the credit card) set up to pay automatically. My problem was that I wasn't even getting all my bills in the mail, and I couldn't keep track of when every bill was due in order to realize I was missing one. Anyway, it has been so easy, I love it! I just check my on-line account every couple days to make sure everything is balancing out correctly.

[lhall]

When we first moved in this house we had some problems with kids/thieves stealing bills out of mailboxes. We never had a check stolen, but I found the neighbor's car payment envelope (minuse the check) in my mailbox. I gave them the bill as soon as I found it.

I also recommend online bill pay. I rarely write checks anymore.

Leigh

[Grace]

Regarding your credit - credit reports only show things that are 30 days late or more. So for example if the check you wrote for the mortgage was for your September payment, as long as you pay in September you're not technically late (as far as the credit reporting agencies are concerned). Yes, you incur a late fee from the bank, but they start charging those after 15 days. So if your mortgage due September 1st is paid even as late as September 30th, you're still not more than 30 days late, and therefore it won't show on your credit. You can pay your mortgage on the last day of the month every month if you want (and don't mind paying the late fee) without anything ever showing up on your credit, as by law, they are not allowed to report you as late until it's been OVER 30 days. So my guess is you're not really late. The late fee is just a way for the bank to incent you to pay early and also as a way to make more money, and it's a completely separate issue from the credit reporting agencies.

If you would like to continue to write checks and don't want to set yourself up for online payments, I would suggest finding an actual mailbox in which to drop your mail as opposed to leaving it out for your mail carrier to take.

Sorry this has happened to you, but I will say don't stress too much about it. You'll be fine credit wise. The only harm done is the late fees, which are annoying and expensive to be sure, but there aren't any other repercussions.

[karamel]

Thank you for the helpful replies everybody! You guys/gals are so great!! Your posts have made me feel a lot better. I will definitely look into online bill paying, and won't be using my personal mailbox for much anymore!
Thanks again! I really appreciate your help!

[Gecko]

I never put anything in my mail box to be sent - I only ever use it to receive. So far, in the past 3 months, the post office has managed to loose a cookbook I ordered on Ebay,three magazines, and a letter from my relatives. For some reason my bills never go missing :rolleyes: Ditto to what everyone else has said about these companies giving you a break - especially if this is a first and they can see a pattern of paying on time. I really like paying online as you can schedule in advance and forget about it. As soon as I open my mail I schedule a payment and print out a copy. I set a reminder in the tasks section of Outlook so that I can print out a receipt once it has been paid. It couldn't be any easier - no need to calculate how long the mail will take (esp. from Hawaii) and it won't be stolen or misplaced.

[mbrogier]

We've done automatic bill pay, but we had our bank take our mortgage payment out twice. :eek: You can imagine what that did to all our other bills. We did finally make the bank reverse the overdraft fees. We still do automatic bill pay on a few things, but right now a lot of the companies we send payments to don't allow it (doctor's offices, hospitals).

I love automatic bill pay because it is faster, easier and doesn't require you to remember stamps. Our new bank (Bank of America) gives it to clients for free.

[Melman]

In the past two months, my bank statements have not arrived on time. I knew the first one was missing immediately....I usually pull these things out of the mailbox, balance the checkbook, and write my monthly bills within about a 24-hour period. I called the bank and asked if they could send a copy. They sent the copy of the one online. I'm sorry, the one online is a list of transactions...it is NOT a monthly bank statement. I wrote that one off and figured I'd suffer with the next statement.

The right day of the second month rolled around and no statement. I called a friend who works at the bank. She checked and found my last two statements had been returned to the bank where I set up my account (8-10 years ago!!!) They were marked undeliverable. Very strange. I haven't moved in 17+ years. The name and address are all correct. I picked them up in person so I could balance TWO months of statements.

I called the post office to check on this problem. My postal delivery person was there. She knew that the rest of my mail has been coming through without any problem. That's true...other than my bank statements. I'm planning to take the envelopes by the post office to see if they can figure out the problem.

Meanwhile, I received my son's bank statement in the mail...from the same bank...to the same address. No problem receiving his.

Doesn't make sense to me. I hope to figure it out before the next statement is due.

Separate note: I rarely ever put envelopes in my envelope to mail. If I have to mail something, I'll usually drop it by the post office on the way to work...or at least find a mailbox. I don't trust people having easy access to whatever is in my mailbox.

[MISSINDI]

We've done automatic bill pay, but we had our bank take our mortgage payment out twice. :eek:

Yup, we had that happen end of last year. What a nightmare. I saw it show up before it actually went to the mortgage company and our bank couldn't stop it. I was REALLY annoyed and stopped all automatic bill paying (and that was ironically the first month I had done it). I do pay a lot of bills online, but definitely not automatically.

As far as the mailbox, we have one of these:

http://thumbs.ebaystatic.com/pict/60015232068080_0.jpg

which I love, because I always worried with the flag-up kind that people could steal our mail. As far as sending out mail, we have someone go from the office to the PO every day to mail the office's mail, so I just add my stuff to the pile there.

[Capucine]

As everyone has said, this one instance will not hurt your credit. Talking to the companies that didn't receive your payment can't hurt. If it ever does come up again, at least they know you were concerned. I had a utility check that somehow didn't make it to the bank about a year ago. A check that I had put in my mailbox. I simply sent them a new check. I still put my mail in the mailbox. A one time instance is not going to make me change my routine. Never had another problem. The post office shredded it or something I'm sure. I still write checks to pay my bills. No way am I giving someone else access to my account, which is what you do when you have automatic pay. Yes, they make those mistakes of taking out payments twice and if you ever what to stop it that is not an easy thing to do. I suppose just the regular online bill payment is fine. No doubt, one of these days the bank will start charging for check transactions and I suppose I'll do it then. Until then, I'll continue to let my cash sit in my interest bearing account as long as possible.

Actually, I pay as many bills as possible with my credit card. Since the credit card company is paying me to do so. :D And, that leaves the cash in my account for up to a month longer. So far the only "utility" type bills that will let me do that without a charge is the phone companies. If the company I'm paying charges a "convenience" charge for credit card use it's not worth it.

[Ruffles11]

One thing that happens to me fairly often, is that I get the wrong mail. My address is, say 1501 El Ranco, and I get the mail for 1501 El Pistol. I try to be good about re-directing the mail, but am not always.

[ChristieinMB]

My friend also had her checks (payments) stolen from her mailbox, the thieves used her check number to pay bills online. As mentioned your credit will not be affected.
When ordering my mortgage payment with my online bill paying, I typed an incorrect address, I then left the country for three weeks. I came home to lots of messages and late notice mail, I immediately called my mortgage company and explained my error. They removed the late charge, saying they allow that once a year. They clearly saw my past prompt payments, they were very nice. Try it yourself, it may work for you.
Christie