Debt Dumpers 2026

[ruadisneyfan2]

I’m 1 of the retired people that pays in person. But even when I was working, I still paid in person. Town Hall is 5 minutes away, I can stop on my way to other errands. Usually no wait, longest line I ever waited in was 4 people, with 3 clerks working. So minimal at worst. I don’t like leaving big checks sitting in our mailbox to get picked up. Town Hall is a minute away from the post office, the wait at the post office is always longer than at town hall. I also prefer to know it’s paid, not sitting in a mailbox somewhere, get my receipt immediately & be able to put that right in next years tax file. We have a 2.3% fee for any credit or debit card. So I pay by check, although I have paid by credit card when I wanted points. I just did that in February with my new SW card. The small fee amount is going a long way towards the companion pass that I’ll earn next month & we’ll use until December 2027.

It's not even safe to put small checks in you own mailbox waiting for pick up. There are people with bad intentions who look for checks in outgoing mail.
Once they have your account number, it makes it easier for them to commit fraudulent transactions to your checking account whether the check was $10 or $10,000. I've been through this twice with my dad.

 

[focusondisney]

It's not even safe to put small checks in you own mailbox waiting for pick up. There are people with bad intentions who look for checks in outgoing mail.
Once they have your account number, it makes it easier for them to commit fraudulent transactions to your checking account whether the check was $10 or $10,000. I've been through this twice with my dad.

Sorry you dealt with that for your dad. That’s very good advice & I agree it’s very risky thing to do now. It was a big news story here awhile ago. Some mail was getting stolen from individual home mail boxes randomly over the years. But, about 2 years ago, somehow a master key for the big blue collection mailboxes was stolen & a few of them were compromised as well. The PO was telling people to drop any outgoing directly at their local post office. Crazy times.

 

[barkley]

We have similar protection in the US.
Still, I prefer credit cards because when fraudulent charges occur from a debit card, it can temporarily lower your bank balance and make other legit expenses get returned as non sufficient funds. Eventually it all gets straightened out and fees refunded but it’s a headache.
When fraud occurs on a credit card, you just report it and doesn’t cost you anything unless for some reason they deny your case of fraud which has never happened to me.

it took about 2 weeks to get funds back into one of our household member's bank account after fraud occured with a debit card. fortunately we had other funds that could be used to cover their expenses but it would have been a mess if not. like you said-if a credit card had been compromised the issuer would have frozen the account, held the charges in a pending status and no harm/no foul to us during the investigation. we learned a lesson with this event though-if you have overdraft protection on an account PUT A DOLLAR LIMIT on the overdraft b/c in the case of fraud the main account will drain then the overdraft (and right down the line for any other associated accounts).

I don’t like leaving big checks sitting in our mailbox to get picked up.

It's not even safe to put small checks in you own mailbox waiting for pick up. There are people with bad intentions who look for checks in outgoing mail.
Once they have your account number, it makes it easier for them to commit fraudulent transactions to your checking account whether the check was $10 or $10,000. I've been through this twice with my dad.

had this happen to a friend. she was a victim of what was discovered to be an organized theft ring in our area where the thieves figured out the billing cycle of the local utilities/when people tended to pay them. thieves would drive around after people tended to leave for work/before mail pickup (we still have old school boxes at the end of our driveways) and purposely snag the outgoing utility payment. scan checks to make new checks to drain accounts. they focused on utility bills b/c they knew that a missed payment wouldn't trigger any notice to the customer until almost a month later (and how many people check their utilities to see if the check has cleared on a regular basis? next to none).

I don't put anything in my outgoing mail with a check or confidential information-it goes directly to a post office.

 

[SnowWhite09]

I'm curious what your average base pay is down there. Over $7/gal here would absolutely bankrupt most of my city because our average pay isn't high enoigh to sustain it.

I did some quick research (Google) and it is $1,400 to $1,500 AUD per week. In USD that is about $1000 per week.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Sorry you dealt with that for your dad. That’s very good advice & I agree it’s very risky thing to do now. It was a big news story here awhile ago. Some mail was getting stolen from individual home mail boxes randomly over the years. But, about 2 years ago, somehow a master key for the big blue collection mailboxes was stolen & a few of them were compromised as well. The PO was telling people to drop any outgoing directly at their local post office. Crazy times.

I heard about that too but don't recall where it happened, but basically left me thinking that mailing checks is risky. I use bill pay to pay all of his bills now. It's easy, reliable and no worries.