Electronic bill pay thoughts...

[AlmostThere]

As I had the struggle to get access my X's bank account, as his executor to his estate, the account lost over $3000 from deductions from automatic payments continuing to be paid out. I was wondering if any of you who use electronic bill pay have ever thought about if something happened to you, what would happen to your accounts?
It is a real hassle, as someone not named on an account, to stop these payments.

[Forestgal]

I don't use electronic bill pay, but I do use Wells Fargo's online banking feature where I can send the payments electronically. The difference is that I control when and how much is paid. I will never allow companies to take money from my accounts without me knowing in advance.

Laura

[BirdbyBird]

I experienced a little of that when my father died.....money coming out before I could officially close the account or get my Step mother to call and change the billing to her (i.e. the electric...) I do a mix of direct and bill paying I generate from the account that I handle now...... I am expecting to have a few similar issues when my step mother passes..... I need to call the lawyer for advice. I know that I have heard of individuals listed on join accounts (which I am) withdrawing funds on the day the other individual dies, thus protecting a chunk of funds but don't know if it is legal...... The amounts set to auto pay just aren't that big to make me do something questionable.....and I was able to stop some of withdrawals when my father passed.

[kdmac]

I believe the only time I ever had money withdrawn from my Boeing Employees Credit Union account was when I had an auto loan through them. They set that up so it is automatic but anything else I paid electronically was done at my own volition and at my choice of timing. Just prior to setting out into fulltime Rving I considered changing my banking to one that would be more easy to find ATMs for like Bank of America, since I would be traveling so much, but upon further investigation I chose to stay out of banks entirely and stick with the credit union. So, far credit unions are a different breed altogether than the banks...banks have become very dangerous, in my opinion. Possibly credit unioins will follow suit in the not too distant future but for now they are a better deal. Go online and just google "complaints about Bank of Amercia" it is astounding how many people are getting screwed by them. I also beleive they have very poor quality control within their procedures, they make continual mistakes. remeber the days when a bank never made mistakes...it's like so many things these days, air traffic controllers fall asleep, gas lines are blowing up under cities and banks can no longer be trusted with your accounts.

[retiredhappy]

I have several bills set up on autopay. I like that I don't have to remember to make the payment, just deduct it from my check book. However, my daughter is also on the account and I have told her that when I die she needs to get the money OUT as my automatic deposits will stop. She has a list of all my autopay accounts and their phone and acct numbers, etc. Other accounts that I want to decide how much to pay, I go to the acct site and pay from my checking account online. I couldn't fulltime if I couldn't pay bills on line.

As for credit unions vs banks, I have mixed feelings. Generally speaking I think credit unions are better. With that said my car loan is thru a local credit union and so far they have credited one payment to another person's account, lost one payment completely and ran a payment on a credit card (I was trying something new) as a "cash advance" thus incurring a $10 fee to me from the credit card. I am going in Monday morning to have a talk with the manager. I'm just about to see about getting a loan from my bank and paying off the credit union. It took me five days to convince the CU that my bank HAD sent them a check. They kept saying they hadn't received it. I finally went to my bank and got a copy of the cancelled check, took it to the CU and then found they had credited it to a another person's account. Someone had mistyped the account number. Then it took me more time to convince them they needed to back up the daily interest out of my account. I'm not too happy with this particular credit union.

[Liz]

I put several accounts on autopay when I went to AK, in case I could not get online at the time they needed to be paid. I had a little glitch recently when I tried to get the utility pmt for the house off autopay. At their office they assured me it was done; I paid the month's bill by check while there, and it was auto-deducted from my acct. as well, thus double-paid. They can't always get it stopped the day you ask...even if they say they did. All straightened out now, but see how that could mess up some people's budget.

[OregonLuvr]

As a Traveling RN I exclusively use Bill Pay. However, like Laura, I want complete control over my accounts. I have no auto deduct at all. I pay all my bills once a month. I don't always know the exact amount ie: electric bill, cell phones, etc. But I just pay around what I think they will be that month. Sometimes I have a small credit and others I owe a small amount, it all works out for me.

My neighbor sends my mail to me but it doesn't always get here in time for me to pay it on time so by sending it out once a month I know I am ahead of the game. I allow for that in my budget of course. I like paying everything at once, as then I am done with it for another month. Depending on my "retail therapy" for the month I often have to pay my Visa bill a couple times a month but can look at most of my accounts online to see what I am owing. I usually have a small credit on my Visa account as I refuse to pay them any interest....but love the airline miles to rack up.

karen

[JudyJB]

I use electronic bill pay, but because my paychecks come at different times of the month, and also because I am a control freak, I never set these up automatically.

What I do is have reminders set up for credit cards where they send me an email a week before the bill is due. I have my mortgage, car payment, line of credit loan, and one Visa card all with my credit union, so I just go online a couple of times per month and transfer the money from one account to another.

I dislike someone taking money from my account automatically because I am afraid I will forget it has been done and end up spending money I don't have.

I do have some dates that things are due set on my smartphone calendar so it rings an alarm and reminds me also. (The older I get the more alarms I need.)

[AlmostThere]

I do what both Karens do. I pay most of my bills electronically from my computer after receiving an email and/or a paper statement that it's due. No automatically deducts for me! I also have my daughter's name on all my accounts to ensure she can continue with the accounts without a hitch. I did just open an account at a CU yesterday as it was paying 2.75% annually as compared to .01% from Chase . I forgot to ask if there is a TOD (transfer on death), with the account and emailed then this AM to ask.

[Acadianmom]

We have had problems twice with automatic payments. Years ago we couldn't get AOL to stop charging a monthly fee to the credit card. I kept calling them and told the credit card not to let them charge but it didn't do any good. I finally closed the account with the outstanding balance that was in dispute. I guess the credit card company finally got straight with AOL because I never heard from them.

The second one was with something that was being deducted from my son's checking account. Same thing, the company wouldn't stop deducting and the bank kept letting it go through. The bank would reverse the charge but I had to go talk to them every month. We closed that account too. It really ticked me off that the bank couldn't do better than that.

The only thing we have now is the phone bill. I need to change that to another account and it will probably be a pain to get that done since I can never get to a real person at the phone company.

Martha

[Colliemom]

I pay my utility and credit card bills on line, but they are sent to me via "snail mail". I did have my bills coming electronically, and paying them myself when they notified me of the amount. But quit that after my cousin had a computer breakdown and a hasssle notifying all the places that sent them electronic bills to change it and mail them the bills instead. The only bill that is paid automatically is my truck loan at my credit union. Tha is automatically deducted from a special checking accont I set up for that purpose, every month. All I need to do is keep the account padded.

As to banks vs. credit unions. I like the credit union I am doing business with. When I went I got the loan for my truck via the dealers financing, the bank was charging me 5.3 percent , so my ypayments would have been $650 a month. So I thought to myself, I can do better than that. After checking with my bank, it was pretty much the same, so off t othe credit union. No problem. We can give you the loan for 3.5% and if I open up a checking account and have my pay and other checkes depostied in them, the rate would be 2.99. Done. So they issued me a check for the amount I owed the bank, I added the money I had saved toward a deposit and promptly paid of the bank Who of course weren't too happy about it. Probably saw all that interest going out the window. Tough.

But the thing of electronic billing has been on my mind if I head south for the winter. If I do, I plan to stop my cable service (TV, Phone, and Internet), so the only bills I would have coming in each month would be my gas and electric, which can be electronically billed as well as my credit card. But, we pay property taxes twice a year here, the second one being billed in December and of course not on line. My monthly medical lnsurance is also not billed on line from what I can see, so those two bills especially the medical one, is going to create some issues as to how to get them paid if I'm off down south. Blue Cross can take out automatic payments and I might have to do that. Will have to check about the tax bill, maybe I can get it a bit early or something. I always pay it in December, before the end of the year, so I can file it with my income tax. Mail can be forwarded, but Blue Cross is critical, as if I miss a payment, they can cancel the insurance. So will be checking into that down the line later one here. I either have to have my mail forwarrded to a post office somewhere down south, or the campground if I stay for a period of time, or get somebody up here to accept my mail and forward me the bills and whatever else seems important. Being I get my annual physical done in October usually, there will be those co pay bill trickling in from the labs etc.

[AlmostThere]

Sue, with my BC/BS health insurance all I need is to send the monthly check to them with your group/ID#s on the check. The slip that comes with the bill isn't necessarily important as long as you put the necessary info on the check. My mailperson is a ditz and has lost or missplaced allot of our mail this past year and I knew I should be getting a statement from my BC, so I called BC and they said just to send a check witht the info on it. No problems. I'd call BC and confirm beforehand, but don't see why you couldn't pay them that way.

Now the property taxes???? No suggestions there. Sorry...

[Colliemom]

Thanks for the suggestion Lenora. I pay my BC/BS bill on line from my bank checking account when I get the bil. I probably could just continue to do that, but I can see where the ID#s. would be necessary. Next time I go back over to Traverse City, there is a Blue Cross office over there and I am going to stop in and talk with them about it.

[AlmostThere]

Thanks for the suggestion Lenora. I pay my BC/BS bill on line from my bank checking account when I get the bil. I probably could just continue to do that, but I can see where the ID#s. would be necessary. Next time I go back over to Traverse City, there is a Blue Cross office over there and I am going to stop in and talk with them about it.

Wonder why I can't pay mine online like that? Is that new? I'm going to look into that.

[Bethers]

When a friend died, their bank accounts were "frozen". Nothing could go out of an account without approval of the executor. That would include any autopays. I use some autopays and others I pay myself. My credit cards are paid-in-full every month by what I set up with the credit card companies. But I check my accounts constantly. Banks do make mistakes. I had a bank take my mortgage money and credit it to the wrong account, then tell me they were taking me to collections and could foreclose - even tho the subsequent months were paid and credited correctly. It took months to get that straightened out - and it was all their error. The vice-president actually came to my house at one point to apologize - and gave me a $100 gift certificate to Lands End - told him he should have paid my mortgage off So no matter how you pay - keep track of all your accounts.