Never hesitate to ask ‘Is your payment method secure?’ with contractors
Contractors change payment methods at a snail’s pace
Ina tech-savvy world filled with smartphones — in the U.S. alone, 81% of people own a smartphone and 13 percent own a mobile phone that’s not a smartphone — you would think that companies would catch up to the technology times. But a conversation with contractors will slowly but surely show consumers that they just have not let up off of traditional payment methods — checks and cash. The idea of making payments through Zelle, which connects approximately 924 financial institutions; PayPal, which has more than 360 million active users worldwide; and other secure mobile apps like CashApp are not in their lineup.
Meanwhile CNBC reports that, in an average week, roughly three in 10 adults said they make no purchases using cash. As much as some people still want to see Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill, people simply do not carry cash on them. While Millennials write checks more than they would be likely to own video game consoles (42% versus 34%), they’re also 16 times more likely to use Apple Pay and Android Pay than Baby Boomers.
Writer’s note on August 6, 2025: If you have been a victim of stolen mail or repeated missing mail, Informed Delivery may be a useful way to digitally preview your incoming mail and manage your packages from a computer, tablet or mobile device. More than 67 million USPS customers have enrolled since Informed Delivery was launched in 2017.
So when homeowners get repair or maintenance work done, it may seem peculiar to hear a company insist on checks or cash. Or, even worse, “read your credit card number to me over the phone.”
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This happened to me recently while trying to discard a leftover mattress that someone left near our dumpster. Due to COVID-19 restrictions and general waste management restrictions, waste companies will never pick up mattresses without being sealed. The primary reason (before coronavirus showed its fatal head in December 2019) is due to the risk of bedbugs. There’s also the matter of contract negotiations. If your building contract is only set up to empty a dumpster and a couple of recycle bins, sneaking in massive-sized pieces of furniture just won’t make the cut.