Online Rental Payment (gasp!)
It’s approaching the end of 2010, and I just paid my rent online for the first time.
This isn’t because I’ve eschewed the convenience of doing so for years out of an unwillingness to engage with the new technology. It’s because my building’s new owners are the first to offer the option. In the past I’ve paid by check. Mostly I’ve dropped the check off within the building, but at times I’ve had to physically mail it—and at those times I’ve had to shell out extra to cover registered mail and delivery confirmation, as the building owners at that point had a very shady reputation.
I thought I’d be back to mailing the physical check, which is of course an annoyance, but the building now supports paying via RentPayment, and I decided to try it out. I read their terms of service rather carefully, and I was reassured by the fact that they allow one-time payments as well as automatic recurring ones. The recurring ones would clearly be easier, but I don’t trust those, having read plenty of horror stories about the difficulties that consumers can have in halting them once they’re set up. So just a once-off payment for me, thanks, and I’ll deal with the hassle of doing that every month. That feels like a better plan than potentially having to deal with stopping the payments to the current owners of the building if it’s sold again.
Obviously, I’m really hoping this works without any problems, and that I can use it without anxiety instead of having to deal with physical checks each month. Incidentally, this development, coupled with the significant decline in my interest in MTG, will mark the end of any regular check usage, something I doubt I’ll miss.
20 Nov 2010 at 11:28
i don’t think most people realise the significance of this, no more stressing about travelling intercontinentally to deliver a fucking rent check, or arranging to have someone else deliver it for you. this is good. welcome to the 21st century.