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three bills are on auto pay....because they remain the same each month. The downside to this is....when I had my account frozen due to fraud , no one got paid and I got stuck with late fees and mandated to be removed from their auto pay til I could show three months of solid payments.
The bills couldn't have been paid another way? Out of another account?
(presuming you had the money, of course)
I know it's a conundrum, isn't it?
I've never had any issues either. But we all know a screw up could happen. Happens to some poor chap every day.
I'm not complaining. Thank God I am blessed enough that at least I could pay the 6 month premium if I wanted to.
It's $870, with a current EFT discount of 2-3 % don't know which -- let's say 2%. So without the autopay discount it would be it let's say about 900.00
Soooo with a full payment premium payment discount of 7% -- that would be...$835.
So the savings difference between the autopay discounted premium of $870 -- and the full pay discounted premium of $835 is ......$35?? Really? That's it? One one hand: big whoop. On the other...$35.00 IS $35.00.
I'm fortunate enough to have the dilemma of deciding if saving $35 bucks is worth giving up the autopay that allows me to keep my money longer. And like I say, it's not like that money is EARNING interest. I just don't want to give it up!
Maybe I need to think of it NOT as $35 every 6 months -- but $70 a year! At least that sounds better!
I use bill pay combined with ebills through my bank. I do not use the service available through creditors or credit cards.
I have to approve the amount and actually enter it usually. The way it works varies among vendors. I also have scheduled bills such as car payments and the mortgage when the vendor does not do ebills.
I didn't get it either till I worked as a bank manager. Not a single week went past without some customer having some sort of drama with a payment when they were allowing someone to access their bank account to withdraw the money. And this was just a few years ago.
Yeah, but I'll bet the drama was that these people had no savings. If you live paycheck to paycheck and a glitch happens, it's catastrophic.
Pretty much my whole life auto-pays. I watch for glitches the same way I watch for identity theft and my credit cards being cloned. Changing my household checking account number would be less inconvenient for me than dealing with a changed credit card. I have 3 utility bills and 4 credit cards that auto-pay. I'd have to update direct deposit. I can fix all that online in 15 minutes. I can push money to a new household checking account in one business day. No drama. Just a bit of inconvenience.
Yeah, but I'll bet the drama was that these people had no savings. If you live paycheck to paycheck and a glitch happens, it's catastrophic.
Pretty much my whole life auto-pays. I watch for glitches the same way I watch for identity theft and my credit cards being cloned. Changing my household checking account number would be less inconvenient for me than dealing with a changed credit card. I have 3 utility bills and 4 credit cards that auto-pay. I'd have to update direct deposit. I can fix all that online in 15 minutes. I can push money to a new household checking account in one business day. No drama. Just a bit of inconvenience.
If a glitch happens, it's still very troublesome even if you have thousands of dollars of savings.
Like I've said, if you want to choose to give other people access to pull money out of your checking account when they think you owe it - rather than taking a few minutes tops to send THEM the money you believe you owe them - that's your business.
I do have a 'pad' in there in case an error is made -- up to a certain amount. Sure if $598.30 comes out -- instead of $59.83 I've got that covered. No other bills would jeopardized. I could wait for the money to be put back with not much of an issue.
If a glitch happens, it's still very troublesome even if you have thousands of dollars of savings.
Like I've said, if you want to choose to give other people access to pull money out of your checking account when they think you owe it - rather than taking a few minutes tops to send THEM the money you believe you owe them - that's your business.
But some of us have used automated bill pay for years and have never, ever, ever, ever, ever had a glitch. Ever. Not one. So it's hard to imagine people having problems month in, month out, without assuming that the problem is with the individual and not the system.
I don't know that the point was that the same people have problems from time to time.
But instead, that of hundreds and thousands of customers that a given branch might have....someone (some few) among them will have a problem. So it's more like, on any given day some person has a problem. And the even one glitch (depending on what it is) has the potential to be everything from a minor aggravation .....to a major screw up (even if it is eventually rectified.) And in the meantime you don't have your money.
But some of us have used automated bill pay for years and have never, ever, ever, ever, ever had a glitch. Ever. Not one. So it's hard to imagine people having problems month in, month out, without assuming that the problem is with the individual and not the system.
I didn't say or imply that some people have trouble month in and month out with automated bill pay (not online banking - the type of bill pay where you allow another person or entity or company to access your bank account for funds). What I said is that as a banker, I saw problems nearly every day - within a wide pool of customers. Most customers of mine had no problems. But it is like that old poem - when it was good, it was very very good - but when it was bad, it was horrid.
Bill pay that we push from our own accounts online is simply so incredibly easy to do. It takes seconds - a few minutes MAX to set up and literally seconds a month or whatever afterwards. It's still all online - it's just that we, the account owner, determine when and how much we pay and we push it forward rather than allowing someone else into our bank accounts.
But please - carry on - it's your money and your accounts. I'm just giving a professional opinion based on my training and experience as a banker. YMMV.
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