Pay the eight cents and quit being a dead-beat. J/K

YOU know and I know that 8¢ is silly. But it's all computerized. So any positive balance will flush out a balance due bill to you.

Related: When my parents got a loan for their shiny new (at the time) 1996 Dodge Caravan, they opted to have the loan payments automatically deducted from their bank account.

For several months, they received a bill for $0.02. For a while, they asked the dealership to fix the payments so either the $0.02 was discounted from the load, or taken from the account. Either way, it didn't matter much. It never happened. They contacted Dodge. Nope, still got the bill.

The bills stopped after my parents taped two pennies to the bill and sent it back in their postage-paid envelope. :-)

Try to pay by credit card in $0.01 increments. Surely the fees involved would make this worthy.

This seems to be in line with the Dell keeps calling story below, just to a lesser extreme. I'd ask retentions for an itemized bill, and to stop calling you.

Oh, and if there's another newspaper other than the Tennessean in the area, contact them and give 'em a scoop. I bet the rival newspaper would love to hear your story and have the opportunity to razz on the Tennessean. ;)

Once I got a credit card bill for $.02. I called my credit union and had a good laugh with the cs rep and they took it away.

Also, I live in Japan now, and since moving here I've had a phone bill that cost 5 yen and an internet bill that cost me 7 yen. Japanese companies are more lenient about billing (if you can't pay this one on time, it goes to the next, with no interest :)

Perhaps the author should call the billing dept and ask them to reverse the charge, I'm sure someone at The Tennessean would have a laugh with you!

The only that enters my mind is.. God bless America and the fourth estate!

If you go through with the eight individual checks for one cent, it may set you back $3.36 in postage, plus the original 8 cents, but you'll get back a load of satisfaction in knowing that it cost them a lot more in labor and logistics to cash each one of those checks individually than it was really worth to them.

Take that bill as a good sign. If anything, it suggests that they are respecting the fact that they no longer have the right to debit money straight out of your account. They are respecting the fact that you cancelled.

I would actually be cautious about paying this bill. I thought I read on here somewhere that people would get a random bill from somewhere they used to be signed up with and they would pay so as to get it out of the way and doing so would somehow get them back into a new contract with the company. This could be a slimy attempt to do just that. By paying this you are "agreeing" to a new 6 month contract or some such nonsense. I would call them and make them explain it before paying such a stupid bill.

Wow, based on some of the commenters, my 0.12 cent bill that cost the company 33 cents to mail seems large.

@mgy:
That is a great idea!

Dangit, mgy, that's what I came up here to comment myself... =)

'Dear Tennessean,

I received my bill for $0.08 and, unfortunately, I find myself on very hard times. I would like to pay this in a monthly plan, and, in interest, I would like to pay you $0.01 a month for the next year. I believe 50% interest is well more than enough to cover the fact that I am not able to remit the full amount immediately. I hope you find this agreement acceptable.'

@navstar: Uh,no. There are many computerized systems that are smart enough to (a) on an open account, roll over a trivial balance to the next bill and (b) on a closed account, discount the amount. As much as 10 years ago I got a letter from my phone company saying that I owed under 30c, with a corresponding credit and the description "Amount disregarded".

And on an annual basis I get an email from the UK Income Tax authorities telling me they owe me a refund of a couple of quid, but they aren't going to send it to me until it accumulates to an amount worth dealing with.

@ilikemoney:
Why would someone take satisfaction from wasting another person's time and effort for something that is obviously just an automated billing oddity?

Honestly, grow up and get with the real world.

I am not a lawyer, but can't you tell them to stop calling and then sue them in small claims court if they keep caling? That should get their attention.

@tcm22: Because it's funny.

$.08 is really too much for the Tennessean...you got ripped off...

It's called an automated system. It doesn't care what you owe.

@navstar: Of course, having the billing software compare the amount due to the cost it would take to print and mail the bill might be a good idea.

Send them $0.09 and make them issue you a $0.01 credit. Ask for the credit by check. See how they like sending a pointless check and paying for postage.

Do they have an 800 number? Call it, and ask them to remove it, if not, tell them you'd like to charge it to your card. Given that they are paying for the call, and it will probably cost them more for the card fee than the 8 cents, it will just be amusing for you. And don't forget to ask for a final statement showing you're all paid up, so that way they can't send you to collections later ;)

Back in 1958 I overpaid by a penny on some electronics I ordered from a supplier. For some unfathomable reason the company mailed me a cashier's check for $0.01...

For years that framed check was kept on the wall of my office. I don't know why, but the utter absurdity of a cashier's check for $0.01 kept amusing me. :o)

Many years ago, we ended up owing $1 for our state taxes. I'm sure it cost the state more than $1 to process our return and cash our check.

@Phas3Sh1ft:

Dude your getting ripped off, i'm in china (right accross the water) and my phone bill was 26 fen. I gave them 1 yen (chinese) and she said "thank you" i said "thank you money back pls". Apparently they cant give me change back on phone bills that are under 2 cents american, so i'm letting the bill build upto about 7 cents before i pay it.

Keep a list of how many times and when they call. Every time they call, tell them the answer is still no and recite back the list of calls to them that you've tracked.

It took the Delaware News Journal only about three months to catch on that I didn't want their dang newspaper.

How about this answer? Since we all know the newspaper industry is dying, the $0.08 bill is simply a way to keep you on the books as a "paid" subscriber. They don't care if it costs them $0.50 each time they send a bill out, their ad revenue more than offsets that amount. I know several people who have canceled their paper and still get it for free. Why? Same reason: to keep their subscriber numbers up. My two cents.

This reminds me of something that happened to me last year. As part of a class action settlement, a GM credit card that I had closed years ago credited my account with .04 cents.

After getting 3 monthly statements showing this .04 cent credit on a card I no longer even had, I called the customer service number. I asked for the amount to be refunded to me.

The CSR said, "but its for 4 cents."

I said "yeah, and apparently your company owes it to me so I want it."

I wonder tho, how many people didn't bother, and if GM got to keep that money.

What is the average charge to the merchant for a credit card payment? I say do it electronicly on their website in 4 payments of .02 If it's on average 1.00 each charge, that's 4.33 cents it cost them to collect .08 cents.

I can see the problem potentially being that the balance isn't a full dollar. I worked at a company that frequently took credit and debit card payments by phone, and our processing company would automatically reject anything under a dollar. Not worth the transaction fees, I suppose.

Additionally, I would recommend against the spiteful "tape pennies to the bill" method. Working for that same company, we had a few customers that got the same idea into their heads. The payment processing company charged an $8 cash handling fee, and the customer agreement flat out stated that we would pass on that fee to any customer that triggered it. For what it's worth, the unwritten policy was that we waived it the first time and sent you a letter asking you not to do that again. That didn't stop a few customers, though. And those arguements were always fun. "What do you mean I owe eight dollars because I paid my bill?!"

i think Carey totally should've been given the day off. That's my $ .08.

Been there. Back in 2004 I briefly had an AT&T Go Phone. I paid for the service using a credit card. I wasn't too keen, and dropped them after only about six months. About two months later, they sent me a letter from their collections department demanding I pay something like -$0.58.

That's negative fifty-eight cents. I called the number on the bill, and asked how I could resolve this issue. The guy on the other end told me it'd be safe to ignore the notice. When pressed, he told me that AT&T would not be cutting me a check so I could count the bill as paid. I've been cleaning lately, and have been finding quite a few bills from back then. If I come across it, I'll have to scan it and send it in to the Consumerist.

@linoth: Yes, taping pennies is best saved as a last line of defense. I think we probably would have just gone to small claims court if Dodge had charged us $8 for that after we had tried several other methods to fix the issue. Because after about 1 year of nothing but stupidity from everyone we dealt with, it's best for someone who really is in charge to deal with it properly. ie: A judge. ;-)

@tcm22:
You do it because the idiots that run the company & the people they hired that programmed the system should have thought of not mailing bills for under a dollar as it costs more than that to collect it. And you get great personal satisfaction from fucking the giant company over, even if it's just a few cents.
For example: Illinois doesn't collect income tax payments under a dollar, but it also doesn't refund the same amount.

I was once billed 31¢ for a long distance dial around call from AT&T [added to my regular monthly phone bill] which never went through.
I called the 800 number & was told to mail a protest, when I said that was stupid, they gave me a 800 fax number to send the protest. I faxed them & a month later got a two page letter back stating I still owed the 31¢ & 35¢ postage to send it. So I protested again & the same thing happened, another two page letter with stating I still owed it & another 35¢ postage. I did it once more, but by then the postage rates went up & it cost them another 37¢ on the envelope.
So I cost AT&T $1.07 in postage & they got 31¢ through Ameritech, undoubtedly had to pay a fee to Ameritech to collect it.

Giant corporations are so stupid in their collection policies!

When I was a starving college student, I once received a paycheck for $0.05 (they took taxes out of a $0.08 check). It was an error, and thankfully my employer resolved the error quickly for me, but I never did cash that check, it was woth at least $0.10 in comedic value :-)

Once I kept a NetZero CSR on the line for 10 hours(surely she was paid at least $6.00 hr or more)so I could get refunded by Net Zero on principal. They refused the refund to account so I refunded myself. She realized what I was doing, and we had a very lengthy game of is there anything else I can do for you. the phone call made her well over $14.95 and paid me satisfaction.

@ilikemoney:
I think the postage on this 8¢ bill already accomplished that. They spent 40 cents in order to possibly get 8 cents.

Net Zero once owed me $14.95 for a free trial they immediately charged on my credit card and refused to refund it back to my account. I called the NetZero csr and had a ten hour game of tag called "Is there anything else I can do for you?"
She caught on and she recieved an easy day's pay and I got my charge refunded in the day's wage they paid her to stay on the phone with no one but me and through satisfaction.

a bill for 8 cents is rediculous! Wonder if they will send it in to collections? LOL!

I checked my state's unclaimed property website & discovered they were holding a whopping 46 cents for me. Pointless for me to even attempt to claim it as the idiotic hoops you have to jump thru are a serious pain in the ass!

My family once got a hospital bill for 3 cents. On top of that it came with a offer for a 15% off if we start making payments now. So my father went ahead and wrote a note thanking them graciously for the 15% offer and proceeded to tape 2 1/2 pennies to the letter. (He cut one penny in half.) We never heard back from them.

I'm getting bills from a credit card company saying I owe them .01. Yes, *one* cent. I have no intention of paying, too. It would cost me well more than that to send a check, they charge $9 to make payments online, and they charge $12 for payments over the phone. If they want to take me to collections for a penny, they can be my guest.

@nursetim: Taxes are different. You wound up owing $1 after accounting for all other payments previously made to the state and declaring what you should owe. Their processing costs come out of that $1 plus whatever it is they already had held onto.

To the 8 cent bill... maybe it's a prorated charge for an extra day of delivery? That leap year day's a killer. :)

@Michael Belisle:

Very tough to sue, since there's a prior business relationship, which generally gives them the right to call.

it's all automated. it does seem like companies should put a filter on those things though. maybe any bills with less than $.75 due get filtered out to have the balance cleared?

Send them a check for $0.16. After they cash it, call and ask them to send you a check for $0.08. I've done this to both AT&T and Nextel after they sent final bills for less than the cost of a stamp. Petty, but amusing.

so i got a check for $.02 and the accompanying 1098 form to file taxes on it. my dad gave it to me and we just LAUGHED and laughed.. oh man it was funny.. it was like a joke check.

Send them back 9 cents in the mail.

Then it'll cost them even more money just to send you your refund.

Simple solution. Contact the Tennessean and tell them that you'd like to pay your bill via a credit card. Instead of the customer wasting a pricey stamp on an asinine $0.08 bill, let the vendor take a financial hit by having to pay to process a credit card transaction for it. Maybe then they'll realize just how idiotic this whole situation is.

Thanks for the reminder to cancel my paper that also doesn't get read.