A recent thread over on the blog got me to thinking. Are those of us who use checks to pay bills a dying breed?
Background: My wife has always paid the bills, She reviews each monthly bill with an eagle eye, and often spots errors (just this month, a bill from a medical provider, another from our gardener). She refuses to allow direct withdrawals from our checking account for any bill, period. She reviews each bill, personally, and then (if the amount is correct) writes a check. We have a grandfathered account for checks at our bank, and pay no service charge for the checks, just the cost to the printer.
Thoughts: Our kids pay all their bills by a method I think is essentially something which permits providers (from utilities to doctors to the credit card company) to just deduct money from their account. How does this work? Do you get a chance to review the bill?
Issues: What happens if you dispute a bill after the money has been withdrawn from your account? Do you get copies of the underlying bills? This is all very mysterious to me. As noted, my wife wants nothing to do with any of this, but I thought I could explain why others seem to like it.