My company recently released a website to educate consumers about the benefits of using online bill payment to reduce the risks and hassles of paying your bills via snail mail (aka the US Postal Service). The new site is called eBill Place, and it's really just meant to inform, not necessarily sell the services of the many different financial services and banks in the US that offer online bill payment services. If you do not pay your bills online, and especially if you are afraid of eBills (hint hint, my wife!), then you should read up on the benefits of doing so at this site. I wouldn't work at this company if I didn't believe in what they are trying to do, which is primarily to make some money while helping people pay their bills faster, more safely, and more easily than ever before. (It also happens to reduce the financial hassles we go through with the companies that we all deal with, in my experience.)

Here are my core reasons for using online banking and bill pay:

• Security - mail fraud is actually more likely to occur and there is nothing you can do about it than online account fraud as long as you follow the same kinds of online "smarts" that you would in the real world: don't give info to just anyone, be careful where you go, and never give out passwords because someone solicited you to do so. Would you give your keys to whoever asked for them in the parking lot?
• Ease of use - It is sooooo much easier to schedule payments for bills and to know they'll get paid on time, than to try and time when you send out mail to maximize your money.
• Problem resolution - It is ten times easier to have your bank deal with lost payment issues or data transmission problems than it is to try and fight your way through phone hell with the postal service and your merchant who is missing your payment.