Tag Archives: postal strike

In Case Of A Postal Disruption

Here is a heads up that you should do each and every month. Whether it’s in the event of a Canada Post strike or not, you need to do a little check list of all your bills.

You know I really want you to do a budget, then you’ll have it anyway, but do a little list of all the bills you have to pay in a month. With no mail, or if you ever don’t get your mail, you still have to pay the monthly payment. I forgot, I didn’t get an invoice, or any of those excuses don’t get you off the hook.

The payment is yours to make and all the legal documents say that they’re due – whether you get a statement, reminder, invoice or not. A little check list will just be an easy way to see that you’ve made a payment to everybody during a strike, or in any month.

Make sure you add the annual bills such as house or car insurance, property tax, etc. on the list, too. If you don’t pay something like a utility bill, the service charge is around 2.5% for being a day late. On the other hand real debt such as your credit cards or line of credit, absolutely destroy your credit rating if you’re late. And that stays on your credit file for seven years. That’s a lot of damage for missing a payment, or not being pro-active during a postal strike, or any month.

George Boelcke – Money Tools & Rules book – yourmoneybook.com

Keeping Your Credit Alive During the Postal Strike

The postal strike starting Friday is the most common way vast numbers of people destroy their credit. You have to remember that every debt that you signed for has a clause that states that the company is not responsible for sending you bills or statements. It’s YOU that’s responsible for paying every month by the due date!

Yes, most do send statements, but they don’t have to. Yes, many of your bills may be automatic payment from your account. But you have to get a list together of the bills that are not auto pay.

That’ll include your credit cards, maybe your cell bill, utilities, etc. In fact, credit card issuers love a postal strike. It’ll have a massive impact on their profits because they’ll charge you $30 to $40 the day after you missed a payment.

Call the 800 number on your credit card to get the date your payment is due and the balance, or minimum payment amount.

Make sure your cell bill is paid. The report to the credit bureau and can destroy your credit over a $40 or $50 issue. You can pay it at your bank or pay it at one of their retail locations.

Pay your utility bills, property tax installments, or insurance at your financial institutions as well. You just need the account number and they’ll be able to process it that day.

If you manually pay your vehicle payment to Ford, Honda, or whoever, you can drop it off at a dealership. They have a courier going to Ford Credit, Honda Credit or whoever once a day. Just make sure you get a receipt that you did drop it off. If it doesn’t get to your loan, you need proof you did pay it or you’ll never get your late charges reversed or your credit rating restored!

It’ll take you five minutes to list the bills you need to pay. If you don’t, saving that five minutes can cost you five to seven years of problems with your credit ratings! You should have this list and a plan on how to pay your bills anyway. In the Money Tools book, it’s one of the top 20 things that actually make you a financial adult!

Easy Just Got Harder & A Heads Up

We’ve talked a couple of times about technology called NFC, or near field communication. It’s the technology that lets you hold your smartphone to a credit card reader to pay for something. It’s also what makes Esso key fobs work at most gas stations and worked as easyPay at Shell…until yesterday.

Shell has discontinued their easyPay at the same time as almost everyone else is rolling out this technology. Their media relations department didn’t get back to me, so you get my guess of why it’s a lot harder to stay loyal to Shell starting today.

When you wave your keyfob at the gas pump, the system is checking if they have your accurate credit card information. It’s not getting an authorization at that point, because they computer has no idea of how much you’re purchasing. So it’s a trust transaction for a few minutes until you have the full amount shown on the pump. At that point, the system is getting an actual authorization for a specific amount.

If, at that point, it’s declined, there’s a big problem. Best guess is that the big problem became a big problem for Shell. To the point where I’m guessing a ton of lost business is better than a ton of uncollected charges. It makes no sense that they wouldn’t fix it, instead of discontinuing it, but my business now goes to Esso.

Here is a heads up that you should do each and every month. Whether it’s in the event of a Canada Post strike or not, you need to do a little check list of all your bills.

You know I really want you to do a budget, then you’ll have it anyway, but do a little list of all the bills you have to pay in a month. With no mail, or if you ever don’t get your mail, you still have to pay the monthly payment. I forgot, I didn’t get an invoice, or any of those excuses don’t get you off the hook.

The payment is yours to make and all the legal documents say that they’re due – whether you get a statement, reminder, invoice or not. A little check list will just be an easy way to see that you’ve made a payment to everybody during a strike, or in any month.

Make sure you add the annual bills such as house or car insurance, property tax, etc. on the list, too. If you don’t pay something like a utility bill, the service charge is around 2.5% for being a day late. On the other hand real debt such as your credit cards or line of credit, absolutely destroy your credit rating if you’re late. And that stays on your credit file for seven years. That’s a lot of damage for missing a payment, or not being pro-active during a postal strike, or any month.