eBills vs Autopay, via bank or direct with vendor: Which is better?
 

I am looking to make a change. For the past several years, I have used BillPay via my Truist (and prior to that, Wells Fargo) accounts. Lately, Truist is screwing things up. I send payments on Aug 1, and they don't arrive at the creditor until Aug 18!! Not to mention that in the intervening 17 days, my account balance online shows falsely inflated since the money has not been delivered to the creditor yet, although my hand-kept register shows the money removed the day I send it.

In a world of instantaneous digital communication and secure transactions, I find this more and more frequent and lengthening delay unacceptable.

I am seeking options. I am considering either having the bank auto pay the eBills themselves, continuing to act as the aggregator, or actually setting up some type of auto-deduct with the vendors themselves (utilities, cell bills, mortgage, car payments, boat payments, etc.).

What do you suggest is the better method?

Caveat: I am hesitant to give various creditors my account info for auto-deducting because of a bad experience many years ago. My wife, before we were married, belonged to a women-only gym for a time. They reached into her account every month to take their monthly fee. However, this continued for a long time after they went out of business. Attempts to contact them to halt this were unsuccessful. According to the bank, at the time, we had to close out the account completely and open up an entirely different account to halt this. I am hesitant to trust creditors with my account information for this reason.

We use autopay putting as much on a credit card as we can and then autopay the credit card payment.

I understand you don't like this and why. Fortunately, we haven't had those problems yet.

Utility bills are deducted from my bank account in order to avoid a service charge. There might be some regulation that says the utility must collect the full amount and therefore must add the service charge if there is a fee to them (like with a credit card).

My credit card provides for virtual numbers. I create one of these for each vendor. If there is any problem I can cancel the virtual number without affecting the actual account number. So far this has been unnecessary but it feels like a good safety measure.

I don't like autopay either. I use Truist billpay, but only if the vender has an electronic account where the money is transferred electronically. If they don't, the bank needs to actually mail a paper check to the vender. This can often take 2 weeks or more. In that case, I will call the vender and make a credit card payment over the phone. That seems to work fine for most medical and similar bills.

I push all funds to the biller.

For reoccurring bills, utilities, I take the highest annual bill amount and push it, then set up payments at the high amount on the due date so, I have one extra payment already in the account as a credit balance. I also gain slightly most months by paying the highest annual bill amount.

In this way I have constant, steady payments. It will be years before my bills require attention. The amount of interest I lose by overpaying is insignificant. The piece of mind is priceless.

We pay through our online banking. Only individual accounts bank will send a paper check, which I don’t use. It just snail mail that no one has control over. I don’t allow autopay. Never trust a company to have their fingers in my finance.

TM, if you have an opportunity, please expand on this. How do you "push?" Is that an automated process or do you have to actively do it each month? You figure out your highest average monthly bill amount for a particular creditor and then send that. In doing so, a small balance is generally gained over time that allows for a fudge factor should things not work as planned?

I do the same thing. Splitting our time between two homes makes paying bills a major hassle, so everything possible is on autopay. I prefer to have everything possible paid from our JetBlue credit cart so we can get points towards free flights between our homes, but use direct pay from the bank account when the service fee eats up the benefits. Never had a problem using autopay, it just sucks when the credit card company sends you a new card and you have to change the card information with multiple vendors.

I do the same process. Yes, there is a small negative balance each month of overpayment, and i pay in advance of the invoice being generated so the amount of each invoice is less than zero. . . We use Citizen's and Bank of America. At each, I can set up recurring payments of any amount monthly to the vendor. . how it gets there, up to them. .

I also auto transfer $200 each week to my $1K limit visa card on which all my ad hoc expenses are paid, gas, groceries, investment newsletters, etc. and that is running a huge negative balance after I stopped working

So each month, I just look at the balance, and if negative, i just file the bill, and continue on with whatever else i was doing.

Utilities allow you to send money electronically. I use that money "address" to send money on the same day every month. Let's say my highest Villages water/ amenities bill is in August of $325.

1. I send $325 (my balance is zero)

2. I send an extra $325 once ( I have a credit balance of $325)

3. I send $325 on the due date.

4. Eleven months of the year I accumulate a small credit balance increase as I used the highest annual bill.

5. The bill increases annually slightly chipping away at the credit balance.

6. Revisit you payment amount in five years.

ToyMeister and CoackKandMe, thanks for your clarifications. All these methods are superior to the P.O.S. BillPay I'm hassling with at Truist (Formerly SunTrust and BB&T) bank. Wells Fargo was better at BillPay than Truist, but I'm in a state half the time in which the nearest Wells Fargo is 3 hours away in another state.

The biggest downside I am seeing is the initial set up. Looking back at bills for the past year for an idea of the highest monthly bill from that vendor/utility/creditor/whatever is gonna be a bit of a project.

Thank you for sharing your ideas, practices, and advice.

I am trying to figure out why someone would prefer to pay a monthly fixed amount, based on the highest annual monthly bill, versus simply going auto pay for the exact amount due? It only takes a few minutes each month to reconcile the billing statement to the auto pay and record and file information for your records. What is the advantage of this method, I’m always looking for ways to simplify life?

Just pay all bills with CC and they just autopay themselves.

Then just pay one CC bill.

The CC is fraud-protected I’m not going to lose sleep over it but I wouldn't hand a waiter my CC.

Everything outside like Publix I use ApplePay which just generates a random number and keeps a log of my expenses.

Except T-Mobile and Verizon take away your auto pay discount if you use a CC so I have a debit card with limited money in there for those companies.
I hope more companies don't follow these policies.

Some utility companies will not accept a credit card, or, if they do, they charge a percentage fee.

You can use a credit card to pay your SECO bill on their website (no auto-pay) without a fee.

https://www.talkofthevillages.com/fo.../10300-sig.jpg

I had the same thing happen to me a long time ago regarding gym. GRRRRRRR! But it hasn't kept me from setting up autopay with other well established companies like Hydro, The Villages amenities bills, Comcast, but would not do it for phone refills from Tracfone. I'd say pick and choose what you trust and ALWAYS check your accounts regularly.