#mobilligy

New Article has been published on http://computingondemand.com/manilla-closing-doors-now/

Manilla is Closing its Doors, What Now?

Having used Manilla’s service for quite some time now, I have become accustomed to the alerts and statement notifications provided by the service.  In a previous article, Simplify Your Financial Life With Mint.com & Manilla.com, we outlined the service and recommended it as one tool for simplifying your finances.  For a while now, Manilla has been slowly preparing us for something… their closure.

In an email today Manilla finally formalized the proverbial bomb and detailed their plans.

Dear Manilla User,

Manilla will be closing on July 1, 2014. This was a hard decision given that, over the past three years, Manilla has won many awards and has been well supported by its valued user base. However, we were unable to achieve the scale necessary to make the economics of the business viable.

What you need to know:

Existing users will have access to the Manilla service through June 30, 2014.

On July 1, 2014 the Manilla service will cease ongoing operation.

What actions you should take:

We urge you to download any documents you wish to retain and deactivate your Manilla account prior to July 1, 2014.

To deactivate your account, please click here and select “Delete your Manilla account” at the bottom of the page.

Manilla will retain user documents through September 30, 2014.  You will be able to retrieve your documents (no other aspect of the service will be operating) from the Manilla website through September 30, 2014.  After that date, any remaining documents will be destroyed.

Please refer to our FAQ for more details.

If you have any questions or concerns, please email us at [email protected].

We apologize if we are not able to respond to all emails.

We thank you for your support.

Sincerely,

The Manilla Team

For now, if you want the same functionality you had with Manilla, try these:

Finovera - Simplify Your Life For Free

You’ve got enough on your plate. Instead of letting bills, statements and documents pile up and cause clutter, stress and annoying late fees, let Finovera help you manage everything in one ultra-secure place. Simply link your accounts, and Finovera will download twelve months of past statements. When a new bill comes, we’ll automatically download it to your account. We’ll send an alert to your email if a bill is unusually high or if you need to transfer funds to cover it. Upload your important personal documents for safekeeping and easy access. And you’ll never have to remember another password again. How’s that for letting someone else do the work?

Mobilligy - All of your bills in one place.

Mobilligy puts all of your bills in one app that lets you review, manage and pay your bills for free – anytime, anywhere.

Mobilligy puts all of your bills in one app on your smartphone that lets you review, manage and pay your bills -€“ from anywhere at anytime.

Make paying all your bills incredibly easy with @mobilligy - http://t.co/eMZM6Qa1St #NettedFaves

Living with debt has become a necessary evil; car payments, mortgages, student loans, the list of bills goes on. But letting your debt get out of control can ruin your life; high or out-of-control debt stems from bad habits - habits bred from instant fulfillment, culture, and society. As much as we’d like to pretend this isn’t so, the numbers can’t be ignored: twenty years ago, the average American household debt was 83% of their income; ten years ago this jumped to 92%, and just five years ago skyrocketed to 130%.

So how do we stop debt from getting out of control? Go to the root: the bad habits. This week, in part one of a new series, Mobilligy examines the areas where these bad habits can be corrected.

  Letting Society Push You Around

Did your neighbor just wash his shiny new mid-life crisis on four wheels, or perhaps show off his new eighty-inch destroyer-of-worlds flat screen? Or maybe one of your co-workers won't put a sock in it about her recent acquisition of this season's hottest new Louis Vuitton? Are your palms getting sweaty yet?

Becoming envious of others in society can be a dangerous thing, especially when it comes to debt. Technologies like social media, the internet, and smartphones are giving us a closer look into the lives of others on a daily basis. We hear through Facebook that a friend is posting on his new iPhone 5.3Ultra, and we’re bombarded by endless advertisements, pushing us to buy this five minute’s hottest new something.

Whether it seems this way or not, buying an item that we can’t afford simply because others have is allowing society to push us into debt. We feel incomplete unless we have the newest and best that everyone around us may have. It's only natural to want the best things in life, but we have to remember there are limits.

Debt is ultimately not one hundred percent evil. After all, debt allows us to buy high priced items that we can't normally pay for on the spot. The trick to not letting debt get out of control, however, is deciding whether the time and risk spent paying an item off brings any true benefit to your life (or risk, for that matter).

Anytime we enter into debt, it’s a risk – a risk to our credit, our sleep, and ultimately to our livelihood. Using debt to buy a house or a (reasonably-priced) car you can’t afford can be justifiable, since, as you're paying these items off, you have a roof to live under, or a means to get to work. But is it worth damaging your credit score or paying a late fee because you couldn't make a payment on your new handbag? Probably not. But a ding in your credit score or a late payment is again justifiable if you have a place to sleep at night, or you know that you can get to work in the morning (to pay off your debt!).

Is there really any difference in using debt to purchase a necessity as opposed to buying a big screen TV? On the surface - no. Both in a sense involve living outside of your means. But using debt to purchase a home or a ride to work allows you to move forward in a financial sense. If you let yourself justify buying things that you can’t afford and won’t be beneficial to your future, this leads to out-of-control debt.

                                       Recently, John, a user of Mobilligy, noticed something odd while using Mobilligy to view his water bill. In looking at his month-to-month bills, John saw a large spike in his previous month's water bill. John, who had enrolled in auto-pay for his water bill, didn't normally go to the trouble to check his month-to-month bills.

While auto-pay comes with some benefits, such as not having to spend the time writing out and mailing checks every month, it's also fraught with dangers. One of these dangers comes from a key benefit -the convenience of never having to review your bill.

Many bill payers using auto-pay feel a sense that everything is taken care of, and, like John, often do not even look at their bills from month-to-month. Because of this tendency, those enrolled in auto-pay many times do not notice incorrect charges or spikes in their month-to-month billing. Luckily, John had Mobilligy.

While many use Mobilligy to actually pay their bills, users who have auto-pay set up can also use Mobilligy as a safeguard. Mobilligy will show users a list of their monthly bills and payments in an easy to view digital filling cabinet. Thus, any higher than normal bills can be caught, saving users otherwise wasted money.

In John's case, Mobilligy saved him a lot of money in the long run. Because Mobilligy allowed John to notice a spike in one of his monthly water bills enrolled in auto-pay (which he may never have noticed otherwise), he found he had a large, hidden water leak in his backyard.  He quickly fixed it, preventing his water bill from rising further.  It's because of unforeseen events like this that Mobilligy safeguards its users. 

There you have it - Mobilligy: saving you time, money...and water!

With Mobilligy, we work to safeguard you from fees when making a payment through us. But a recent legal ruling coming into effect this week may force you to be on guard when making credit card purchases.

Starting Sunday, January 27th, merchants are now able to charge anywhere from 1.5 to 4% of your total bill when you pay with a credit card.

Previous to this ruling, credit card companies charged merchants, and not customers, a surcharge for having navigated any sale paid with a credit card. This recent ruling, however, now allows merchants to charge this percentage to you, the customer. So what do you need to know?

First, know that if a merchant plans to charge you this surcharge, they must display a sign in their window stating this. Secondly, these merchants don't have to disclose how high this surcharge fee may be until the point of sale.

If you do plan on making a purchase at a store which charges you this surcharge, always make sure to ask how much this surcharge may be before completing the sale. You can always avoid this fee by paying with a debit card or cash - or by shopping at a different store altogether. 

In terms of online sales, the rules regarding this fee remain the same, but play out a little differently.

Just as a store with a sign in its window, an online merchant must display the fact that they are adding a surcharge to your total on their homepage. There are no rules, however, governing where on the page, or how large this message must be. Be careful to look for this notice before making your purchase.

Another potential pitfall of online sales is how much this surcharge fee will be. Just as in a store, the online merchant does not have to disclose how much of a surcharge fee they are charging until they ask for your payment type, which usually comes at the end of the checkout process. Be careful not to let your guard down at this point, or to accept the fee out of impatience.

Different cards also come with different fees. Rewards cards for instance, which cost more to process, may come with a higher surcharge than your normal credit card. And American Express - not named in the lawsuit - is not affected by this ruling.

Realistically, this will probably have little effect. Most major merchants already have the cost of dealing with credit card companies figured into their finances, as well as figured into the cost of items. These merchants are also unlikely to charge additional fees as the cost of losing customers. Smaller merchants, however, who are hit harder by credit card transaction fees, may start to charging customers this fee.

If you pay a merchant using Mobilligy, we will always alert you to any fees associated with using a specific payment type (such as a credit card in this case). Currently, ten states - California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Oklahoma, and Texas - have already passed laws against this surcharge fee when it comes to customers. 

Mobilligy has just launched our new Support site at support.mobilligy.com!

                   You now have everything you need to know about using Mobilligy on one convenient site, compiled into searchable sections:

  FAQs

Mobilligy has incorporated feedback received from users into new FAQ sections. Any question you may have is sure to be answered, along with uncommon and user-specific questions.

  App Overview

Detailed articles on every aspect of the app that address overall user experience. Using Mobilligy has never been easier!

  Security

Learn about the security behind Mobilligy, as well as ways to improve your security - both in Mobilligy and online.

  Device Specific Support

Now, Windows Phone users and Apple iOS users can learn how to get the most out of Mobilligy, with support sections dedicated to both operating systems.

  Connect With Us

Learn how to easily contact us, as well as ways to connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, and here at the Mobilligy blog.

1.   Three out of four people use at least two online bill payment methods to pay their bills. In doing so, they're more likely to lose track of bills and suffer a late fee. With Mobilligy, you can view all of your bills together in one easily accessible mobile app, with your bills organized by when they are due and reminders that ensure you'll never be late:

                                          2.   In a recent poll, half of consumers who pay their bills online say they do so to save time. No other service is faster at paying your bills than Mobilligy. When first using Mobilligy, you simply add your services and then add a credit card or bank account. With this information safely secured in the app, paying a bill is as fast as a tap of a screen each month.

3.   Twenty-five percent of people who pay their bills through the mail lose track of their bills and suffer a late fee. Compare this to seven percent of people who pay their bills online and lose track of their bills. Mobilligy hopes to make this number zero. Once your bill is ready each month, you are notified well before your bill is due, preventing you from missing the payment, and getting rid of those annoying (and expensive!) late fees.

There you have it: accessibility, ease, and peace of mind with Mobilligy! If you haven’t already, give us a try. Check us out at www.Mobilligy.com. You’ll love it!

Tyler Griffin, Mobilligy

“You should come to the accelerator because the mentorship and business model guidance you are going to get from meeting such incredibly smart, motivated, and interesting people.”