Paying Online

I just got my first social security money put onto my debit card and decided I should pay my utility bills online. Generally a simple process, at least for the phone bill which I have pain online a time or two in the past. I was not prepared for the nightmare... Both the Edison company and the Southern California Gas Company websites are a disaster. They are very hard to navigate for a first time user and more so for someone that simply wishes to pay their bill once with a credit card. You must register an account, set up passwords, etc. and then you still have to wander around the website trying to find the magical page that will allow you to pay the damned bill. After you find the magical doorway it gets even dumber. You cannot just pay those companies, they use an outside contractor for such things. meaning I then had to go off their site to another website and pay the bill I wanted to pay along with a "transaction fee". How kind. Not! I realize that all I paid out extra was a measley three dollars or so but three dollars to someone on a small fixed income can be a lot of money. The utility companies need to stop being anal retentive and come join the rest of the world in the online present. If Verizon can do it so can SCE and SoCal Gas!