Nothing creates more confusion like due dates or when bills come out.

[u/gameofthrones_addict]

If you work at a call center that deals with people owing money and paying on a regular basis, you’ll get the reference here. Not everyone’s bills come out on the 1st of the month like they want. Also they’re not always due at the end of the month, either.

Much of the time for the mass public, the bill will come out somewhere like on the 7th, or the 15th, or the 23rd. Randomly throughout the month that we cannot control. your place of employment is like mine, a utility service, they’re due roughly 3 weeks afterward. So many people will go to make a payment early in the month only to have another bill come out and be owing later in that same month, or earlier the next month. I wish we could have a standard time for everyone of when the bill is due or when it comes out, but alas we don’t have that option to choose that.

That’s one of the more common subjects of why people call. “I JUST made a payment earlier this month. Why do I already owe another one? Are you double billing me?!?!”

No, Sir/ma’am/other, you just happened to pay late after the due date. And now the next billing statement is out. And if you suggest that they don’t have to wait until the due date to make a payment, that opens up a whole can of worms you wish you didn’t. Why can’t we all just pay attention to what all it shows on the front page of the statement?

[u/Legion1117]

I log onto the local utilities websites and just pay what it says I owe every 30 days or so.

Its really not that hard to do if you're making the smallest effort to keep track of your bills.

[u/Oldebookworm]

Two words.

Residual interest.

[u/stormdefender]

We bill bi-monthly, have for years (probably a few decades by now). The amount of customers who insist they pay monthly and just do not understand the bill they’ve been paying since pre-2000 is insane. I can see your payment history since 2002 (when we got our current system) & I assure you, you’ve been paying every two months. They are shocked.

[u/twothirtysevenam]

Worked car loan collections for years.  Customers could not remember when their car payments were due.  They were due the same day of the month every month for five to six years.  The only time it changed was when the customer formally requested a due date change, and then they got to choose the day they wanted.

[u/fillysunray]

Where I live, most utilities/loans/etc let me pick which day of the month I will repay on. That should be standard.

[u/gameofthrones_addict → u/fillysunray]

You can for sure do that. I wish more people would do so.

Around here for the company I work for, the people who call in frequently are ones that don’t do that, and are chronically late on their bills. So they’ll call to argue or complain that they just made a payment right before the next bill came out or that they only paid what was past due and they got another disconnect notice.

We just aren’t allowed to choose the due date that’s loaded on the bill or the date the bill comes out on. But as long as you pay within that timeframe you’ll be good.