Dangers of Automatic Bill Payments On Your Finances

Online Bill PayWe are all busy these days. There are new emails waiting to be checked, Netflix shows to binge watch, Instagram updates from friends of what they had for lunch, or The Donald’s latest tweets to read. With so many things vying for our attention, automatic bill payments can be really appealing. You spend five minutes setting it up, and you never have to see or manually pay another bill again!

With automatic bill pay, you can set up auto payment plans for all your bills. Your utilities, mortgage, phone, internet, cable, auto, or any other regular payments can be automatically deducted from your bank account at your scheduled date, freeing you from missed payments and late fees. But is it a smart idea?

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The Equifax Hacking and What You Need To Do Now

Equifax HackedLast week Equifax announced that up to 143 million people may have had their information compromised in a hack on their website due to an unpatched application. A security review found unauthorized access that occurred from mid May to the end of July, when the security breach was discovered.

Personal information that was accessed included everything from names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses, and even driver license numbers. Some 200,000 consumers also had credit card numbers stolen, and 182,000 had certain dispute documents with “personal identifying information” stolen.

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