# I pit having to jump through hoops just to pay my bills **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 22, 2025, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-having-to-jump-through-hoops-just-to-pay-my-bills/1015955 "2025-03-22T16:38:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2025, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-having-to-jump-through-hoops-just-to-pay-my-bills/1015955/21 "2025-03-22T22:31:14Z")
I think I am able to pay my electric bill and gas bill without going through all that - if not online, I can pay over the phone with just account numbers. . But as far as insurance companies and other bills that I have to log into the account to pay , generally speaking I can do other things in those accounts. For example I can add or delete a car , change my coverage limits , add or delete cable channels. Being able to pay without logging into the account would require them to set up a separate system. I’ve encountered that with some medical providers - I get an email that has a bill, I go to my account to see the bill and then I have to go somewhere else to pay the bill. BUT - I can also jump through just one hoop . I can log in to my account on my banks website, go to " Pay bills" , find the electric company, enter the electric company account number, amount of payment and the day I want it paid. And then do the same for the gas company and the homeowners insurance and the car insurance . And I I can set up autopay from the bank’s side for those bills that are the same amount every month. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2025, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-having-to-jump-through-hoops-just-to-pay-my-bills/1015955/22 "2025-03-22T22:52:56Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Doesn’t it work that way everywhere? No, it does not. Especially not in the USA. Major banks have the system you describe. Minor banks and many credit unions do not. Some vendors can accept electronic payments from those major banks on behalf of their mutual customers. Other surprisingly major vendors cannot accept electronic payments from banks on behalf of customers. For those kinds of very common vendors, when the bank customer clicks [send] on e.g. a $300 payment to some e.g. credit card, the bank cannot transmit it electronically. So instead the bank prints a paper check, puts it in an envelope, puts postage on it, then snail mails it to the address they hope corresponds to that creditor. And hope USPS doesn’t lose it. And hope the creditor’s paper-shuffling system doesn’t lose it or mis-credit it. Meanwhile the bank customer has to guess how long this will take and order their payment enough days in advance that it will almost certainly get credited before overdue. If _anything_ goes wrong, as a matter of law, 100% of the downsides fall on the consumer with neither the bank nor the creditor having any responsibility even if they admit it was their error. _That_ is how we roll here in the mighty USA. Mighty as in “mightily backwards.” ---
**Author:** ![aurora\_maire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aurora_maire/32/328_2.png) [@aurora\_maire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aurora_maire)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2025, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-having-to-jump-through-hoops-just-to-pay-my-bills/1015955/23 "2025-03-22T23:07:09Z")
I had an issue with Consumer Cellular for several months where I logged in to pay my bill and they sent me a code. Only for some reason the code wasn’t being received by the phone I was trying to pay the bill for. Very frustrating. Fortunately, they’ve sorted that out now. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2025, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-having-to-jump-through-hoops-just-to-pay-my-bills/1015955/24 "2025-03-22T23:24:54Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Some vendors can accept electronic payments from those major banks on behalf of their mutual customers. Other surprisingly major vendors cannot accept electronic payments from banks on behalf of customers. For those kinds of very common vendors, when the bank customer clicks [send] on e.g. a $300 payment to some e.g. credit card, the bank cannot transmit it electronically. > > So instead the bank prints a paper check, puts it in an envelope, puts postage on it, then snail mails it to the address they hope corresponds to that creditor. And hope USPS doesn’t lose it. And hope the creditor’s paper-shuffling system doesn’t lose it or mis-credit it. Wow, thanks for the interesting info! I have just two words: freaking unbelievable! I’m impressed by my bank’s huge searchable database that seems to contain just about every possible payee imaginable, including small businesses and municipal government tax offices. When I’m adding a new payee, it also knows what the account number is supposed to look like and verifies that the format is correct, which helps avoid blunders like getting the right company but the wrong subsidiary – the account numbers are usually different. Once registered, the payees are permanently on my list. Being senile and scatterbrained, I also like the fact that for each payee, the date and amount of the last payment are shown. It really is extremely useful to have all my accounts payable consolidated in one place. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2025, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-having-to-jump-through-hoops-just-to-pay-my-bills/1015955/25 "2025-03-23T01:19:37Z")
You misunderstand the account isn’t being frozen there are other things that must still clear, but the auto payments have been ordered stopped…only then, they go through again, you go do it again, yes they’ve stopped them, they assure you. Then… next month it goes through again. That’s what pisses them off. That and the fight it takes to get the money put back into the account. ---
**Author:** ![Spiderman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiderman/32/230_2.png) [@Spiderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiderman)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2025, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-having-to-jump-through-hoops-just-to-pay-my-bills/1015955/26 "2025-03-23T02:07:29Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > Many of these companies in the United States encourage customers to use autopay, in which the company pulls the money out of the checking account or bills the credit card automatically. I’m not willing to let them do this, fearing that they will suck all of the money out of my account. This fear may be irrational but I would rather initiate the payment myself. Nope, totally rational. A couple of years ago the power co changed out the meter. They print a 13-month bar graph so you can see your last year of usage & in Sept I used as much gas as the previous Feb, basically 100 units off. I called up the utility & they looked at it, agreed, told me to ignore that bill & to wait for a new one to pay & they send someone out to adjust it. The next month it’s quite obvious that they hadn’t sent someone out so I called them again. Wash, rinse, repeat. It was either the third or fourth month that I threatened them with a regulatory complaint that they _finally_ fixed it. Had they been able to take money from me I’m sure I would have overlooked/forgotten about it in one of those months & they would have gotten away with it. There are also the occasional news story of someone who goes away & racks up a couple thousand dollars of roaming charges. If the cell-phone provider comes in on the right day, they get their charges satisfied but you can’t pay your rent/mortgage because you’re not short because the cell phone company sucked out so much more than normal. I use my bank’s bill pay system. It’s free for me, just some one-time setup of a new payee but after that I just click on the payee’s name & type the $ amt & click on {Confirm}. any bigger payees are sent electronically (it’s to the bank’s advantage to do that because it’s less expensive for them as they’re doing an ACH instead of cutting & mailing a check) > [@Magiver](#): > > It’s not to protect your payment process. It’s to protect access to your bank account. > > They started doing that to me years ago and like you I was miffed at the inconvenience. But then I realized it was another layer of safety the bank has applied to protect me. Nope. The people you’re paying are not your bank, they’re abiding by NACHA rules to debit you which don’t require 2FA. Additionally, Reg E requires fairly quick investigation & provisional credit if the investigation cannot be completed within 10 business day but _frequently_ it’s quicker than that. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2025, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-having-to-jump-through-hoops-just-to-pay-my-bills/1015955/27 "2025-03-23T03:27:16Z")
> [@echoreply](#): > > My wife gets a bill in the mail that says she owes some money, “go to this link to pay.” I go to the link. I type in the account number on the bill, it asks for a birthday This is my pet peeve about doctors and pharmacies using birthdays for billing information. I get that they focus on birthdays primarily to make sure they are dealing with the right person for prescribed drugs or for medical procedures. But they should keep that out of billing transactions, the security risk is too great. Not to mention how, when identifying myself at a pharmacy prescription pickup window, they ask for my name, address, and birth date, which are easily heard by the person standing at the next window. I think the next time I will just hand them my driver’s license instead of saying it all out loud. ---
**Author:** ![echoreply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/echoreply/32/3641_2.png) [@echoreply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/echoreply)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2025, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-having-to-jump-through-hoops-just-to-pay-my-bills/1015955/28 "2025-03-23T04:46:45Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > So instead the bank prints a paper check, puts it in an envelope, puts postage on it, then snail mails it to the address they hope corresponds to that creditor I used to use this system to pay one particular monthly utility bill. The small company doing the billing charged a fee to setup automated ACH withdrawals, so mostly out of spite, I had the bank mail them a check every month. One month they lost my check. I got a bill that seemed too high, did a bit of investigation and found they’d never cashed last month’s check. Talked to them, sent them the receipt showing the bank mailed the check, and they waived the fee for me to setup automatic payments. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2025, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-having-to-jump-through-hoops-just-to-pay-my-bills/1015955/29 "2025-03-23T05:23:32Z")
> [@elbows](#): > > the company keeps withdrawing the payments, even though the bank has been told to stop. One needs to contact the company (internet service, cell phone provider, whatever) and cancel the service. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2025, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-having-to-jump-through-hoops-just-to-pay-my-bills/1015955/30 "2025-03-23T06:15:28Z")
> [@The\_Librarian](#): > > I’m really curious cf how that works in other places. > > Here i fill in a “volmacht”, a blank cheque if you like, for every utility, insurance, telco that I use and they bill me and that automatically gets paid. As long as there is enough money in my acount it is completely painless. > In fact the majority of transactions in my account are automated. Meh. I’m irresponsible enough that I hardly ever look at my account balance except when I’m paying a bill. Having them all be automated payments could get me in a lot of trouble. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2025, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-having-to-jump-through-hoops-just-to-pay-my-bills/1015955/31 "2025-03-23T10:33:48Z")
I don’t know what’s so hard to understand here? Yes, they all contacted both bank and company but still, the bank keeps making the payment, then the customer has to fight to get the funds back. It’s automated, so even though they are assured each time that, “no, it’s been definitely stopped now!” , somehow, come next month, it once again goes through. There is no real penalty for the bank when it happens, I think that is the problem. They are, ‘gosh, sooo sorry!’, when it happens. But it keeps happening to people. Enough that lots of people won’t do this any more. I’m one of them. ---
**Author:** ![Gordon\_G](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3da27b/32.png) [@Gordon\_G](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gordon_G)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2025, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-having-to-jump-through-hoops-just-to-pay-my-bills/1015955/32 "2025-03-23T11:16:17Z")
Could it be that the utility/insurance/whatever is protecting your confidentiality? Otherwise an adversary could learn about your electricity consumption (R U growing pot? 🙂 ) or whatever. Here in Thailand it’s easy to transfer money instantaneously: Just point your camera at a QR code and click a few buttons. To transfer more than a few $1000 I must take off my glasses, point camera at myself, smile when told to smile, blink my eyes as instructed. I’ll probably need to first get a haircut next time I want to make a large transfer via phone. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2025, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-having-to-jump-through-hoops-just-to-pay-my-bills/1015955/33 "2025-03-23T11:50:49Z")
I think this is what’s confusing > [@elbows](#): > > It’s quite common here to hear stories of people who set up such things for their elderly parents. When the parents pass, while they are busy with other issues, the company keeps withdrawing the payments, even though the bank has been told to stop. If all you meant to say was that banks and the company that was being paid could both mess up and payments might continue after they are told to stop and it could take a while to fix it, then I don’t understand what that has to do with payments being set up for a parent who has since died. That could happen if the person was still alive. The taking “months to fix” part can happen even without autopayments. Although I have to say there’s a difference between telling the electric company/cell phone company/insurance company to stop taking automatic payments and stopping the service as @PastTense said - and if there is still service, there is still presumably a bill to be paid \* so I’m not exactly sure what the big problem is. Sure, you want the autopay stopped, but the bill would still have to be paid so you aren’t out any money. You talk about months to get the funds back, but I can’t figure out what funds you are talking about getting back . I understand if you don’t know, as these apparently were not your personal experiences, but that’s part of what’s hard to understand. \* Even if I unplug everything and use no electricity, there’s still minimum service charge from the electric company just to have the service turned on. ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2025, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-having-to-jump-through-hoops-just-to-pay-my-bills/1015955/34 "2025-03-23T12:15:57Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > but the bill would still have to be paid so you aren’t out any money. I’m in agreement with this statement. However, I THINK that what @elbows may be referring to is auto-payments for cable TV, internet, cell phone, or possibly car insurance. Presumably, any of these should be able to be cancelled with a phone call or via the company’s website. But if the cancellation doesn’t get processed correctly, then the trouble begins. I set up auto-payments for my parents for everything that could be paid via this method: cable/internet (Cox), cell phone (AT&T), electric, gas, auto insurance. When they sold their house and moved to the retirement community, it was a trivial exercise to cancel the electric and gas payments. After Dad died and Mom quit driving, I sold their car and easily cancelled the insurance payments. And after Mom passed, I cancelled her call phone account online, and took her cable modem and set-top box to the Cox store and cancelled her account in person. I had zero issues with ending the automatic payments, and I’m sorry to hear that it’s been a problem for anybody. ---
**Author:** ![natureboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/4491bb/32.png) [@natureboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/natureboy)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2025, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-having-to-jump-through-hoops-just-to-pay-my-bills/1015955/35 "2025-03-23T12:24:14Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > But then I realized it was another layer of safety the bank has applied to protect me. To protect _them_ (from added legal liability), but it protects you in the process, which is good for both. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2025, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-having-to-jump-through-hoops-just-to-pay-my-bills/1015955/36 "2025-03-23T13:47:45Z")
I’m glad for the 2FA, annoying as it is. Most of the direct pay accounts I use are the whole account, meaning it isn’t just a payment vehicle (e.g. for my home/auto insurer you can see all sorts of info). As for accounts that run on past death, notes I made that go with our will delegate work across the kids, and I’ve got detailed instructions for one son to go into our online accounts, pay any outstanding balance, and then close the accounts without any reference to me/us being dead. I’ve also got the same accessibility for my mom’s accounts. That won’t apply to every account, obviously, but it’ll ease the transition. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2025, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-having-to-jump-through-hoops-just-to-pay-my-bills/1015955/37 "2025-03-23T13:50:16Z")
With all of these things, it’s simplest to think of it in terms of the vendor / creditor _pulling_ money out of your bank, or your bank _pushing_ the money to the vendor. Either system can be used, but they’re very different in their details and more importantly, failure modes. Vendors much prefer _pull_, because then they control the timing and payments aren’t forgotten or “forgotten”. But there is no enforceable regulatory mechanism for you to order your bank to deny their attempts to _pull_. You would think that is a basic feature of the system, but it is not. OTOH, if you choose _push_, then you are in control. Even if you have the e.g. cable TV bill set up to auto-push $X every month on the e.g. 25th, one click absolutely, positively, _reliably_ stops that process cold. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2025, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-having-to-jump-through-hoops-just-to-pay-my-bills/1015955/38 "2025-03-23T14:34:53Z")
> [@Spiderman](#): > > Nope. The people you’re paying are not your bank, they’re abiding by NACHA rules to debit you which don’t require 2FA. Additionally, Reg E requires fairly quick investigation & provisional credit if the investigation cannot be completed within 10 business day but _frequently_ it’s quicker than that. The person hacking your account does not abide by NACHA rules, or any other rules for that matter. ---
**Author:** ![Bookkeeper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bookkeeper/32/281_2.png) [@Bookkeeper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bookkeeper)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2025, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-having-to-jump-through-hoops-just-to-pay-my-bills/1015955/39 "2025-03-23T15:02:32Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > I don’t understand the OP’s complaint. I simply pay all my bills through online banking. When I log into my bank, there’s a list of all the entities I do business with along with the associated account numbers. I simply enter the payment amount in the box beside each one, click “Next”, confirm with “OK”, then view a confirmation screen with all the payments listed along with reference numbers. Takes a couple of seconds. It used to take a few days for the payments to go through but now it’s always the next business day. Doesn’t it work that way everywhere? > > There’s no reason for me to log in to any particular payee’s own website unless I need to find out the amount owing, but most providers send me email reminders with that information. Also, for credit cards not from my own bank, I’ll log in to look at the e-statement. > > As others have said, I really don’t like autopay. I prefer to have direct control over payments. I am also in Canada, so pay almost all my bills like this - utilities, taxes, insurance, whatever. For a couple of small businesses. like my snow plowing service, who haven’t set up a service with the banks, I use an e-transfer from my bank to pay. In either case, once it’s set up it’s just a matter of going to my bank website, logging in, selecting the applicable payment option, then selecting the payee I had added to my list and telling the bank how much to pay (and possibly when, if it’s not immediate). I can then switch to my account and see the updated balance. IIRC the list of possible bill payees is maintained centrally through the Canadian Payments Association, the central clearing house for financial transactions, so is available to all banks. I can make my payments from my huge bank or the small credit union I also have accounts with. ---
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2025, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-having-to-jump-through-hoops-just-to-pay-my-bills/1015955/40 "2025-03-23T15:03:03Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > No, it does not. Especially not in the USA. > > Major banks have the system you describe. Minor banks and many credit unions do not. Perk of a major bank then? I use the USBank app and pay 99% of my bill as wolfpup describes. Once I have the payees set up I never have to enter my account number with them again. I get a bill via mail or email, go into the USBank app, select who I want to pay, how much I want to pay them, and the date I want them to get the payment. Currently I have setup auto loan, dentist, gas, electric, internet provider, water bill, trash, credit card, mortgage, insurance, cellular. Couldn’t be easier. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-having-to-jump-through-hoops-just-to-pay-my-bills/1015955.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-having-to-jump-through-hoops-just-to-pay-my-bills/1015955.md?page=3)