Normally I pay and mail my bills right before the end of each month.
But with the possibilty of some computer glitches, I am debating whether ot not it will be worth my while to wait until the coast is clear until 1/3 and mail out my bills then (the only two I am worried about getting on time I can overnight).
On one hand, I fear that my bill will arrive to said utility/ credit card compny 1/31, they will register it, y2K will wipe out the record, and I will have a big mess when I get a “not paid” notice in a few weeks.
On the other hand, what if Y2k hits, I send the bill out, and the company STILL can’t properly record the bill when it gets there on the 7th or 8th? I should have sent it before 1/1 when I KNEW that systems were still go.
Any thoughts? I know I know, I can send my bills now, and document, but I really have a million other things to do.
Reason: If they don’t have any problems, you lose nothing. But if they do have Y2K problems, you want to give them as much time as possible to fix it, prior to sending them any money.
In the OP’s scenario, there is a possiblity that payments in 99 will be recorded ok, but not payments received after New Years. I would not put much weight in that eventuality, because: If 1/15/00 rolls around and the bug makes it so that they don’t believe you paid them on 1/05/00, then I really don’t think they’ll precess the 12/28/99 payment correctly either. It’s more likely that they’ll waive all late-payment fines until they sort out all the bugs.
Not to be one of those lame people who just says “I agree” but that’s correct.
If you are worried that the bill payment will not be registered because of Y2K problems aren’t you worried that EVERY bill record and every payment you ever sent will also be wiped out? After all, unless you made payments prior to 1900, every bill you ever paid is WAY OVERDUE and if the computer does think you sent in a payment, it may think you wrote a postdated check for several decades into the future. In other words, send the bills when you want to, it should make no difference. I sent all my bills. The only preparation I am taking is to make sure I keep all my December statements from all my investments just in case. I’m really not worried about whether some random service agency doesn’t think I paid my bill on time. They’ll figure it out pretty quick, and I assure you that they won’t be screwing you for THEIR mistake.
If any significant data processing problems do show up, the various consumer credit companies and utilities are probably not going to get very hard-nosed about what went on in January, so go ahead and play it to your best advantage;
I noticed OP mentioned overnighting a couple of payments. FYI, although they haven’t made a lot of noise about it, several credit card companies now take electronic payments over the phone from your checking account - some charge (~$2) but others (including my holder of the most accounts - Chase) do not. For the no charge companies in my life there’s no more stamps, no more checks, no more timing USPS - just call’em up (toll free) the day it’s due and make a payment.
No really, there is something others didn’t mention that may be relevant. Lets assume your utility does have a Y2K glitch that makes only payments recieved and recorded after the Y2K show up as unpaid. They will probably know this very quickly (January 3rd) because all their reporting will be screwed up (and they will be running extra reports just in case). As long as your payment is not one of the ones that they try to process on the 3rd - it will be processed after they repair their software or design their work-around solution. So if you are actually concerned, send it on the third.
If the due date is before 12/31/99, then you need to pay in 1999 so as not to be late. I can’t imagine a computer glitch that would not record a 1999 payment made in 1999 as being on time.
If the due date is (say) Janary 5, 2000, and your payment is received in December 1999, then there is the possible error that a payment recorded on 12/31/99 will be viewed
as 99 years late (since it thinks that 1/5/00 is the year 1900.) It will therefore think you are in default. It is unlikely that the system would send you a nasty note if if it considered that you had paid 99 years EARLY.
Thus, I’d go by due date, and try to get the payment in the same year as the due date.
But frankly, I don’t think it will matter. Whatever may get screwed up in a company’s billing system (like mortgages and credit cards and so forth), they will surely be able to straighten it out fairly quickly afterwards – like when you get a threatening notice about your payment being 99 years late, and you call them up and say something polite. Frankly, I don’t believe there will be much billing screw-up, except possibly small local stores, and they’ll be easiest to issue corrections because they’ll have human beings working on it (rather than punch 1 if you want to make extra payments).