Grrrrr

[annathepiper]

So week before last, on the morning of the 6th, I left some bills in the mailbox on my way down to the bus stop. solarbird later expressed some concern that as she had been heading out that same morning, she had noticed that the flag was up on the mailbox, but there was no actual mail in it. But by the time spazzkat and I came home, incoming mail had been dropped off, and the flag was down.

This raised a yellow flag for Dara, who worried that perhaps our outgoing mail had been swiped. Turns out she was right.

I had paid five bills to go out in that batch, and three of the next rounds of those bills have come through. And they have late charges on them for the amounts of the checks that were supposed to have gone out that morning. To wit, grrrr.

So now I get to call the bank tomorrow to report the stolen checks, and I also have to call Puget Sound Energy and Cingular and tell them, "Okay, y'know the last round of bills? We actually paid those and sent 'em out, but they got stolen. So what do we do about this?" And Dara's going to have to call the cops. And we're going to have to get a secure mailbox, and until then, I'm going to have to go out of my way to mail bills at a post office or stick them into a secure post office box.

Grrrrr.

Comments

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Bastages.

I use a credit union with electronic bill pay. In most cases there's no check to be swiped.

But still. Like to take a two-by-heavy to the cretins what stole your checks.

[annathepiper]

I'm about to switch over to paying as many of my bills online as possible, yeah. I need to make a comprehensive list and figure out how many of these I can do. And I'll be shifting immediately over to using the other account Dara and I already had with Bank of America, so that once all the pending transactions on the current account clear, we can shut it down.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

You may wish to reconsider Bank of America (http://www.clarkhoward.com).

[annathepiper]

*sigh* I have repeatedly heard people tell me to change banks for one reason or another. But honestly, can you suggest a bank that doesn't suck, that has never ever ever done anything annoying as a corporate entity ever, and who has local, reliable service that isn't going to require me to go on a cross-country trek every time I want to find an ATM to withdraw money? Changing banks is a pain in the ass, and I'm not going to do it unless I have a sterling recommendation for where else to go.

[firni.livejournal.com]

yeah, that happened to us a few years ago, only they were ripping off incoming mail... that's why we got a PO box and simply removed the mailbox up on the street.

In addition to mail getting ripped off, the little teenage bastards around here decided sticking eggs, rocks, whatever into the box was hilarious fun. So now they can just use the neighbor's box instead.

[firni.livejournal.com]

Oh, the best part? One of the things they ripped off a few years ago was an UNEMPLOYMENT CHECK. You know, those things that the state stupidly puts your SSN on for double-fun when they disappear.

Nice. Even the social security administration and/or most insurance companies don't put your entire SSN on statements/checks anymore.

[annathepiper]

@whee! In that "GUH" kind of way!

I take marginal consolation in the knowledge that the bills that got swiped are some of our most trivial bills. The last rounds of payments I made on the most critical ones have gone through okay.

[rosepurr.livejournal.com]

Grrr. That's horrible! I'm angry for you.

[annathepiper]

I take small consolation in the knowledge that it wasn't our most critical bills. And I've started taking steps to get that checking account phased out of use. I can't just shut it down--it's got pending bills out on it, so I can't shut it down until those clear.

[kirbyk.livejournal.com]

I recommend putting bees in there. Then, when they open it up, *WHAM* *BEES*!

Um, I hope you really don't like your mailman. If that's not the case, yeah, online bill pay is the way to go.

Or, start dropping off outgoing mail at work, where it's generally more secure, or in one of the blue boxes indubitably near work. Doesn't help with incoming mail, but at least solves half the problem.

[annathepiper]

Of course, putting bees in the mailbox requires getting bees. ;)

I'm definitely switching to online bill paying, and meanwhile, we're going to look into a secure mailbox to help protect incoming mail, anyway. We've already been advised that this won't help for outgoing mail purposes. But Paul and I do go by a blue box on the way to work. Alternately, I can just make sure to take any checks or similarly critical mail down to the nearby post office branch on Saturday morning.

[smeehrrr.livejournal.com]

When our mail got stolen a couple of years ago, they got some of those credit card "courtesy" checks. And used them. And researched me, because when the cops busted the woman who did it, they found paperwork that had a whole bunch of my personal (but net mineable) information on it. Oh, and they also had my signature, because King County thoughtfully puts all of the paperwork from a house purchase right online for anyone to get.

Get a lock on your credit report right away, if you haven't already. Once they figure out you're worth something (which they probably already know from your bills), they'll try to get more, or sell your info to someone who will.

[annathepiper]

Well, there's some question, I suppose, about how much info they could have gotten off these particular bills. They were for our natural gas at MurkSouth (all very trivial amounts under $20), our utilities here at MurkNorth, and our cell phone bills. Other way more critical bills, like our mortgages and credit cards, haven't been swiped; the last ones of those I paid went through as expected and I will be switching immediately to paying bills online.

And we'll be getting a secure mailbox this weekend which should hopefully at least make our incoming mail more secure.

However, I don't know how to actually put a lock on our credit report. How does one go about doing that?

[smeehrrr.livejournal.com]

Check Experian's web site, they have instructions.

This link may or may not work: https://www.experian.com/consumer/cac/InvalidateSession.do?code=SECURITYALERT

[annathepiper]

Thank you!

[ceallaighgirl.livejournal.com]

My parents have a secure mailbox, but it's not actually secure for outgoing mail (the mailman doesn't have a key for secure mailboxes -- he just drops the mail in . . . like a lobster trap, things can go in but can't go back out). My dad and I just take outgoing mail to work where it is actually secure (or drop it in a blue secure mailbox.

That stinks (and it's the same reason my parents switched to the secure mailbox), though. Hopefully the companies won't give you any trouble about it. You may consider switching to paying online. I do that for pretty much all my bills. I know that Bank of America has ridiculously easy online bill paying, but I don't know about other banks.

[annathepiper]

Yeah, we've been learning about what sorts of mailbox options there are, and the thing about outgoing mail is something we've heard about via other sources. spazzkat and I go by a blue postbox on our way to work, so I'll just have to do that for mailing out things, or else mail all my bills on the weekend when I can walk them down to the nearest post office myself.

And I'm definitely going to switch paying bills online. I need to make a list of all the bills we pay, and how many of them can be paid via Bank of America's Online Bill Payer.

[ceallaighgirl.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it is definitely less convenient to have to take the bills elsewhere.

I really like using BoA's online bill payer because they have just about everything. I was surprised to find that I could even pay my Virginia Mason medical bills on there! And it's great, you just log in and go to the bill-paying section and just go down the list entering however much for each bill and click the button to pay, and voila! You're finished. It's like magic! (It would be more magical if it was someone else's money, though, hahahaha.)

[annathepiper]

It'll be interesting to see how many of them I'll be able to do. It'd be nice to do them all on one web page.