Chacham's Journal: Verbiage: Automatic payments want to switch phone service

I've been using MetroPCS for some time now, due to their $25/mo no contract, unlimited calling plan. It used to be $40, and that was good too, but at $25 it's hard to beat.

I like simple phones that are actually phones. Maybe i'm old-fashioned, but these semi-trucks that people whip out of their pockets with menus that look like they're from outer space don't seem to me to be an ideal phone. I also have a computer that is a phone, but i leave my mac at home.

MetroPCS is really annoying though. First it was the text spam. When i finally got bothered enough, i googled and found that it was the metro apps. Disabling some option took care of that. The second issue, which gets me every month, is automatic payment. I almost always forget to pay bills. I sit down once a month to pay my credit cards (which requires a bit of planning), but almost everything else is automatic. Two things are not, my water bill and my phone bill.

I live in an apartment building managed by Hartman and Tyner. I pay for electric bills to Detroit Edison through the local utilities comp. Heating and water is grouped together, and they split the bills in between the tenants. (They used to do that, i believe, they might have individual metering now.) It used to be that water was free, but they decided to have us pay 1/3 of the bill. That is handled by Yes Energy Management which adds a customer fee or two. Bills can be paid via the mail. or together with the rent at Rent Payment.

Rent Payment works if everything is in order. If anything is not, such as a credit card expiry made a card unusable, they won't tell you about it, and you find out when you get charged a $25 late fee (which increases every few days) and warning from the local office. Payment can be set to automatic, and they have gotten a little better about knowing when your lease starts and ends and required amount to pay.

The water bill is different. The amount shows up if i log in, but there is no way to pay it automatically. When i asked the local office why it wasn't, the response was that since the amount changes per month, it isn't possible. That seems bogus to me, as my electric bill changes every month and DTE has no such issues. So, i usually forget to pay it until i get a warning from the local office.

MetroPCS is the other problem. They text me when it is time to pay. At that point, by the time i get home and remember to do it, my phone has been suspended. Because it is suspended, i couldn't login to my account on their website, meaning i had to make a payment by typing in all the information. Only after the account was active could i get back into the account.

One month i actually setup everything, or so i thought. Apparently, the payments are still not automatic, but at least i can login to my account now. I went through the motions to make a payment, though i completed it (maybe even twice), but my phone is still not working.

I am sick of MetroPCS. I realized that i don't actually want the cheapest service. I want the cheapest convenient service. I'm ready to switch, anyone got any ideas?