though there may be anxiety among those used to traditional bill paying methods regarding the safety and reliability of paying bills online, it may surprise you that online payments are safer than traditional payment methods and offer many advantages, including security, reliability, and transparency. they can be even more secure if you take a few steps to protect yourself. here are a few reasons why paying your bills online is a secure way to manage your finances. 1. you'll have a record of bills paid online: whenever you pay bills over the internet, a record is created of how much you paid, when you made the payment, and to whom the payment was made to. these records are usually available for access at any time. aside from the convenience of having records available, if there is ever a fraudulent charge made to one of your accounts, you'll know it. 2. you're less likely get hacked than experience mail tampering: research shows that identity thieves are actually more likely to obtain your sensitive financial information by tampering with your mail than hacking into your online email or bank accounts. this is another reason why online bill paying is more secure than use of traditional methods. recent advancements have also made it possible to access your sensitive information through secure connections. to make sure you're benefiting from them, look for "https" rather than "http" at the beginning of the url of your web page. 3. you can easily report fraud or theft: because you have records of all the payments you've made online, it's easy to detect fraud when it occurs. once it happens, you can easily report it to your card company or financial institution, and you'll have all the necessary information to do so. family paying bills aside from common-sense practices like remembering never to give your card or account numbers to anyone, there are a couple of ways you can protect yourself from online fraud and identity theft to make your online bill paying even more se