My bank offers a bill pay service. I tell them who to pay and they do so. For $9.95 a month. I’ll pass. Otherwise, I like my banking online options.
I pay the following bills online (for free):
Electric bill
Charge cards
Home & auto insurance
Phone bill
I now have the option to pay my gas heating bill online. I thought, great, one less check to write. Until I went to their site. I have the option to pay by electronic check - $4.95. Okay, I figure there’s some sort of fee involved for this, maybe. But wait, there’s a check card option - also $4.95. I say, WTF?
I’m going to give you your money right this second and you don’t have to handle a check and wait up to 10 days for payment and you still want to charge me $4.95?
Sorry, no deal. You are just going to have to wait for me to send the payment, pay someone to open and process the check, and then wait for the money you could be getting up to two weeks interest on.
My bank just went to free bill pay.
They send electronically when they can and actually mail a paper check to those that don’t do EFT.
I can add as many payee’s to my list as I want and once they have been checked out as to that I actually need to pay an account there and that the company or person will accept the checks, ( usually take 36-48 hours to make the arrangements) I can set up for automatic payments for stuff that never changes, like a mortgage and I can do single payee’s as much as I want. Places, people, etc.
I now have some of my bills on “Email notification only” and don’t even have a paper bill.
I’m anal and keep good records and each check that the bank does has an ID # that I record in my files. So whit Quicken and my bank, it is just a computer game, a free one…
My electric company offers two bills: snail mail or email. I picked email (save a tree, y’know?) Turns out that if I pay my bill via the net they charge me an extra $2. But if I CALL them, they can do an over-the-phone check for free.
Idiots. Like it costs more money for an online cr/debit card payment than a 5-minute “what’s your account number/you don’t send me a bill! I don’t know my account number!!” conversation?
I love my electric, phone and cable companies. I get a bill once a month (and, in the case of the electric company, via e-mail for FREE!) and can pay it online and have it posted that day or the next.
The gas company, OTOH, is a bunch of idiots. It takes MONTHS to get anyone into the house to read the meter, then we either get a huge credit or face a huge bill. And they are “investigating the possibility” of taking online payments. I wish we had some kind of choice on our gas provider.
My mortgage company will allow me to set up automatic payments, either monthly or biweekly, for a nominal charge, which is way more than the price of a stamp. Yeah, I’m gonna jump on that. After all, I’ve been sending them a buttload of money every month since Sept 04 and I think I own .5% of my house now…
Similar deal with my car loan - they want to charge me to pay electronically. They can also open the envelope and remove the check every month.
On the other hand, my electric co-op bills me via email and I can set up immediately upon receipt to pay it on the day it’s due, or before that, if I wish. Similar deal with my VISA and my phone bill and my cell bill.
I get bills payed through the bank for free. It’s one of their geezer perks. I likes me some geezer perks. I get to pay all my bills online! Free! Takes me all of ten minutes to do it too. Geezerdom has its good side.
My bank offers free internet banking as well. Even if they didn’t, I’d gladly pay $10 for the convenience and time it saves me balancing accounts, etc. I used to spend HOURS writing checks, addressing envelopes, buying stamps, balancing checkbooks…now I can do my monthly banking in about 15 minutes.
And with identity theft on the rise, the fewer physical checks I write, the more secure my accounts are.
What’s really bizarre is that the IRS charges a fee to file online. If anything, they should pay you to file online so that they don’t have to deal with all that paper a tax form generates. And it’s not like a small amount either, but 15 bucks.
I pay most of my bills online and have absolutely no problem. Except with Adelphia. I signed up for the online billpay on Monday because I’m visiting my parents for two weeks and won’t have access to the paper statement in my regular mail. I got a message that the system will take three to five business days to register me for online payments. Which means that if I’m lucky, I might be able to pay my bill by this weekend.
Why are these companies making it so hard to give them money?
If your bank charges for bill pay, aren’t you at the wrong bank? Around here, at least, it’s not hard to find banks that will set you up with a free checking account that comes with free bill pay with direct deposit.
Can’t do much about utilities that charge to receive online payments through their own websites, but you can change your bank.
Wow. My credit union gives us free bill paying for everything. My two credit cards don’t charge me anything for going to their website and authorizing a payment to be pulled, either. I’m down to writing one check a month, and I’m going to look into setting that one up on-line as well!
I have free checking, but they make it up by charging for bill pay. I’d rather deal directly with each entity I pay anyway.
One bank I used (very briefly) had free checking. However, you were required to buy duplicate checks (they didn’t send you your cancelled checks back) for the mere pittance of $14.95 per box!!
