[Bill14564]

Originally Posted by WiseSpender

I noticed on my City Of Leesburg Natural Gas bill that "utility payments made with a credit/debit card will incur a transaction fee of $3.50. ACH/Echeck payments will incur a $1.00 transaction fee."

How can I avoid these "add-on fees"? I have never had any business charge me extra for using automatic payment features (whether it was automatically billed on my credit card or taken out of my bank account)!

Even paying the bill with a personal check and sent by USPS mail each month (which would seem to avoid City Of Leesburg's nasty transaction fees) would cost 73 cents for the postage stamp!

Anybody know how to handle this at the least cost? Please chime in!

The Villages utility billing system incorporated similar charges about a year ago. I believe the options available to me are:

• - Write a check - cost of check, envelope, and stamp
• - automatic withdrawal from checking account - NO fee
• - ACH initiated by customer (Echeck) - fee
• - Credit card payment - fee
• - Bill pay through bank services - No fee (EDIT: can be manual or automatic)

I use automatic withdrawal from my account, others have talked about using a bank's bill pay services.

Again, this is for the Villages utility billing system used in Sumter County. The fees for the Leesburg system may be different.