Account Numbers

Last night I logged on to my bank's website to pay my water bill.  For some reason I happened to notice that the account number on my bill didn't match the information on my bank's website (which I had entered several years ago when I added the water company as a payee after moving into my new townhouse).  Upon investigation I found the water company (New Jersey American Water) had changed my account number last November at the same time they changed the format of their bills.  An inconspicuous statement to that effect (advising that account numbers on bank bill payment systems should be updated) was included on the bill but I hadn't noticed.  The payments had been going through anyway but presumably would have started failing at some point.  So it seems that if you use bank bill payment systems you should check every so often that the payee information is up to date.

I also was a bit startled to see that my 2014 New Jersey tax refund had been electronically deposited earlier in the week.  I had filed a paper return and had been anticipating a paper check.  However upon checking I found TurboTax had included my bank account information on my return.  I don't remember telling it to do that but I was originally intending to file the New Jersey return electronically (like my federal return) but was then prevented from doing so for some reason I don't remember.  So I guess TurboTax didn't remove the bank account information when I switched to paper filing.  I suppose no harm was done and I did get the New Jersey refund a month earlier than last year.  Still very slow though, the federal refund took about a week.