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So confused. Can someone tell me how online bill pay works? I assume you do it through your checking account but can it be done through your credit cards?
I know I am behind the times but if someone would help guide me please.
As far as I know credit cards don't have "bill pay" but you can set up through your various bills to have them paid from your credit card if that is what you want. For the online bill pay through a checking account you set up your various companies that you have to pay each month (most places are in there, you just have to add them to your account). Then you chose if you want a recurring bill sent, for bills that are the same each month, or a "one time" pay where you go in each month and set it up to pay on whatever date for whatever amount. Then the rest is done automatically. It takes a little time to set everything up at first but after that, it's minutes to pay bills.
Location: Los Angeles>Little Rock>Houston>Little Rock
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I pay all my bills using the online bill pay system provided by my bank. I just set up the accounts I need to pay and every month I look at the bill and then a few clicks and I am done.
I don't have any set up to be automatically deducted from my account ever since I once got a $6000 electricity bill. It took me months to straighten that out and I can just imagine what would have happened had it been automatically deducted from my account. I like to briefly review the bill before I pay it.
Start by looking at your bank statement online.
On that web page will be a hyperlink or similar directing you how YOUR bank does it.
Follow their directions.
Do yourself a favor though and DO NOT sign up for **automatic** bill pay.
Keep the decision making of who, how much and when in YOUR hands.
So I should go in and add my bills through my bank account and have it paid once. After that I just click to redo the next month and so on and so forth?
Location: Los Angeles>Little Rock>Houston>Little Rock
6,489 posts, read 8,813,341 times
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No, you pay them individually. Go to the bank website, login, and click "pay bills". If it is your first time you will go through a setup process. Say you have a bill from ABC Water & Power. You will start typing in ABC and the website will normally find it without you having to do anything else. You will put in your account number with ABC and save it and then it will be there when you need to pay that bill every month. Then you just repeat the process with your other bill payees.
Every month when you get a new bill you login to your bank account and click pay bills and all those accounts you set up will be there. You just put in the amount to pay each one and you submit and you are done.
Start by looking at your bank statement online.
On that web page will be a hyperlink or similar directing you how YOUR bank does it.
Follow their directions.
Do yourself a favor though and DO NOT sign up for **automatic** bill pay.
Keep the decision making of who, how much and when in YOUR hands.
Well, by signing up for automatic bill pay you do make that decision--the decision is I don't want to have to worry about "paying" bills every month so all but 2 of our bills are set up on auto pay--the other two don't have that option otherwise they would be too. I order checks about every 5 years, a roll of stamps lasts me a year or more and I never have to worry about forgetting to pay a bill or a bill being late. I have been doing this for over 20 years and have never had a problem.
Depending on the payee, you can also pay with a credit card on their site.
Some allow for automatic payment although for the reasons given above, I'n not in favor of that.
Most will store your information if you want so paying is seldom more than a click or two.
It's more work (typing) but I also would rather do that than have my card information stored on any site since the supposedly most reputable sites still seem to be susceptable to getting hacked.
Do yourself a favor though and DO NOT sign up for **automatic** bill pay.
Keep the decision making of who, how much and when in YOUR hands.
I have ours set up to pay the minimum. so if I forget, at least there are no other fees. When I go to the account, I adjust the amount to what I wish to pay.
Once you get your on line service set up you will like it a lot. no more writing out checks, paying for checks, postage, envelopes, etc. I don't use automatic either. I like the be more in control of how much each time I pay. Sometimes I pay a cc bill in full and the next month i may decide only to pay a bit less than the full amount.
You do not need to go into the bank. You can do it all online.
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So confused. Can someone tell me how online bill pay works? I assume you do it through your checking account but can it be done through your credit cards?
