No Bank Cards

[oceanlovin'ea]

Flint Michigan

My aunt lives in Flint Michigan...outside the city on the east side. There was a house across the street from her that was for sale. Her daughter was thinking about checking into it so she would be close to her mom. It was a foreclosure. Before she got a chance to call, it sold...........for $10,000. Can you believe that!!!!!

[taxmandan]

There are no areas rebounding. That's just an urban legend.

I think it's called a dead cat bounce. With another 1.2 million homes about to be foreclosed on and the banksters getting ready to dump the inventory of forecloseures into the housing market, I don't think we're very close to a rebound. But what a good time to buy!

[WhiteOleander]

There are no areas rebounding. That's just an urban legend.

[oceanlovin'ea]

In theory, I agree with you. My husband is making large payments on the car loan. It will be paid off when he retires. So that bill will be gone. Wish we had cash to pay but just middle class people.

I too agree about credit cards. This is not an easy world for young families with children to raise. Central Florida is difficult right now....unless you work at Disney or somewhere like that. Our unemployment rate is still unusually high. We are not rebounding like some other areas of the country yet.

Linda

[appelman]

Freeloader!

At the payment screen, it asks you for credit card information or echeck information.

Although I used my credit card, I would assume you could enter your bank RTN/DAN and the $64.25 would then be debited from your account, in the same manner as future estimated tax payments you can set up when you efile your annual tax return.

BTW: How do you ever rent a car without a credit card? Or make any online purchases and/or reservations???

I don't even know what cash is any more, and I wrote less than six checks last year....BUT I've never paid 1¢ in credit card interest/fees. (I'm sure the banks positively hate me! - but they still make their fees from the merchants.) It's all a matter of how you manage your personal finances.

FE

You and I and those like us are what the banks call "freeloaders!"

[veritas]

Respectfully disagree

We use credit cards but pay them off every month. Most everything is put on Discover and now we have started paying things like the cable bill on discover. It took a long time to convince my husband that it was easier to just have to write one check every month than the 10 at the grocery store during the month. Now he even pays discover online. Discover cashback paid for part of our cruise in December. YAA!!!!!!

Car loans are a necessity at times. My husband will retire in April and he wanted us to have 2 newer cars that would last for quite a while. So we have had car loans for the last 3 years probably. House is paid off. So when he retires, the only monthly bills we will have will be the necessities.

It is nice not to pay interest on credit cards. But for some young families that are struggling to get by, they have been a necessity, but still with draw backs.

Linda

On car loans. You should pay cash for what you can afford.

No one struggling should have a credit card. They will only struggle more.

[oceanlovin'ea]

We use credit cards but pay them off every month. Most everything is put on Discover and now we have started paying things like the cable bill on discover. It took a long time to convince my husband that it was easier to just have to write one check every month than the 10 at the grocery store during the month. Now he even pays discover online. Discover cashback paid for part of our cruise in December. YAA!!!!!!

Car loans are a necessity at times. My husband will retire in April and he wanted us to have 2 newer cars that would last for quite a while. So we have had car loans for the last 3 years probably. House is paid off. So when he retires, the only monthly bills we will have will be the necessities.

It is nice not to pay interest on credit cards. But for some young families that are struggling to get by, they have been a necessity, but still with draw backs.

Linda

[joanmcq]

I regularly use credit cards, and work them for the biggest cash/points I get...for example this last quarter, Discover has been the card of choice for gas since it paid 5% back. And I know of a cheap gas station that takes credit cards. I pay the bill off each month in full. The only accounts which have balances are those that have 0% interest for a certain period, and they are paid by the end of that period (like Home Depot for rental repair materials). I have a mortgage, and that is it. I can't wait until the mortgage is paid off!

I have had one car loan in my life. Never again.

[veritas]

My understanding is

Although admirable, I don't think it's very practical to not have any credit cards. Try renting a car without one, traveling, or buying anything online (including a PTIN!). As another poster pointed out, you can swing things to your advantage and have them pay you in reward points, etc, and never pay them a dime in interest or late fees. It's not that hard.

On a side-note, no one else seems to share my irritation of having to fork over $64.25 for a PTIN, especially after renewing my EA license for the increased fee of $125. Feel like the Service is starting to nickel and dime us. Just venting.

some car rental firms will take a debit card.

I would not use a debit card online tied to my main account but I would setup a second account for just that purpose.

[JCH]

Although admirable, I don't think it's very practical to not have any credit cards. Try renting a car without one, traveling, or buying anything online (including a PTIN!). As another poster pointed out, you can swing things to your advantage and have them pay you in reward points, etc, and never pay them a dime in interest or late fees. It's not that hard.

On a side-note, no one else seems to share my irritation of having to fork over $64.25 for a PTIN, especially after renewing my EA license for the increased fee of $125. Feel like the Service is starting to nickel and dime us. Just venting.

[FEDUKE404]

My 2¢ worth on e-checks

I can understand the aversion to "e-checks" but....for all intents and purposes every check is now an echeck.

When I receive a check and deposit it at my ATM - the bank scans the check (I can get an image of the check on my receipt), uses the RTN/DAN numbers to get their money - and the check is shredded within 24 hours. (The physical check never reaches the account owner's bank.)

When I worked with a tax firm, we had a check scanner. It "read" the RTN/DAN numbers and the money was immediately taken from the account using those two numbers. The paper check was immediately marked "VOID" and returned to the customer. In reality, no "check" ever existed but it was rather an "authorized debit."

On line bill payments accomplish the same thing. You authorize a certain dollar debit on a certain date, and the company debits the amount. (Actually I generally use my credit card numbers for such payments versus a bank account.) Online bank payment follows a similar procedure, generally with electronic fund transfers from the bank to the vendor. This is most frequent for utilities, cable, etc. I do, however, avoid at all costs any AUTOMATIC (recurring) debits as these can be problematic for any number of reasons.

A side benefit of online bill pay is that even if I do authorize a check to Joe Smith for the payment of a plumbing bill, the check he receives does not even have my signature/personal information on it ("signature on file" or something similar). One less thing to worry about, so far as I'm concerned. Folks who routinely have their home address/telephone number/drivers license number on their paper checks should even be more worried! Several of my business clients also pay me using the same bank-generated check procedure.

I have absolutely no problem providing account information to a reliable vendor. Actually, I feel FAR safer doing that than dealing with checks in the mail issues. (In this area people have been known to "look in" mailboxes for incoming/outgoing mail that is "likely" to contain a check.) Helpful hint: NEVER put a bill payment, containing a check, in your street-side mailbox and "raise the flag." Instead, drop that letter in a secure postal mail box. But for the last several years I have paid all of my federal/state balances due, extension payments, and most estimated tax payments using that debit method. The debit plainly shows up on my monthly bank statement in a format such as "IRS tax payment" or similar.

To clarify: I use electronic online bill pay services (via my bank) for most payments. I "give my account info" to very few. There IS a difference.

And finally, if you feel you just cannot sleep at night without writing/mailing a paper check, here is a very simple solution: Open a separate checking account, keep the minimum balance there to allow it to be active, and when necessary electronically transfer some funds into that account to cover "debits" you infrequently authorize. No one would ever have info on your main checking account. It's the same principle as having a dummy email account for all those "registrations" while keeping your "real" email account a closely held secret.

Time now for a very late lunch.....apologies for the extended rambling....

FE

[Jesse]

I like to use the credit card because I have recourse to dispute charges. I don't feel comfortable with the risk of echecks.

I have two cards, an American Express and Visa. The Am Ex has a cash back reward of 1% to 2% but is not accepted everywhere so the Visa is for back up. My Visa is a Shopko rewards so I receive 1 point for every dollar spent, 3 points if used at Shopko, so basically 1%+ back to spend at Shopko.

There is no service fees so I am a "deadbeat" in their eyes as they do not like the fact that I pay my bill in full each month, therefore they do not make any money off me directly, but they do from the merchants of course.

[Gary2]

There are two problems with the pre-paid cards. One is that they charge an exorbitant fee. The other is that not all online retailers will accept them. In one case that I know, an online service was using processing companies in both the US and UK, and depending on where the transaction was routed, and depending on the vendor of the pre-paid card, a fair number of people were seeing their transactions denied. Also, I recently received a $70 manufacturer's rebate in the form of a pre-paid debit card, with big warnings saying that a) it wouldn't work at gas pumps; and b) it had to be processed as a credit card in spite of clearly saying "debit" on the card.

This is not to say that the IRS processor would necessarily reject one of the common pre-paid debit cards. Just be aware of the risk.

My personal suggestion: I consider the e-check even riskier than a credit card. Shop around for a no-fee credit card at a bank other than the bank where you keep your account. (Discover Card has been getting good press recently.) Use it for this transaction, and maybe one or two more a year, so that it's trivial to track but they don't cancel you for non-use. The rest of the time, keep it locked up at home so that it's not used for anything else.

[geekgirldany]

You could go to CVS, Riteaid, Kroger, etc. where they sell gift cards and alot of times you will find Prepaid credit cards like Visa. You could get one of these to process the payment.

[Snaggletooth]

FedDuke

You have some good points, and helpful instructions as well.

I DO have 30-day accounts, which are paid promptly in similar fashion as an accounts payable function. They are certainly not very voluminous, but seems like there are a couple of them to pay at the end of every month. This saves the inconvenience of dribbling out cash here and there at every nook and cranny.

I have personally never rented a car on my own, and if I had to, don't really know what I would do. I have worked through a travel agency and paid them at the end of the month. An alternate question might be to ask the Rent-A-Car companies what they did before credit cards existed.

Online purchases are always done with a company who has a street address. I don't buy from a company in cyberspace who has no physical location. Never yet had a problem calling them and sending them a check. Most of them insist on receiving a check prior to shipment.

Couple years ago, TaxSlayer charged an extra $50 if you didn't purchase their software online and even went so far as to remove their "remit to" address from their website. How did I handle this? Simple. I switched to Drake.

Part of my reluctance is giving ANYONE access to my bank account.