Hmm. I wonder whether RBC does that.
Wouldn’t that be a kick? Just taking talking to myself to a new medium … 
As for online bill pay, it can mean basically two things:
[ol]
[li]Going to the website of the creditor and setting and using a payment account. You provide them with your bank info, and you go to that site to view your statement and make payments. For example, I don’t know of any credit card companies that don’t do that, and many retail credit cards (Home Depot, etc.) have this as well.[/li][li]Using a third party to pay your bills for you. It can be your bank or another company like Quicken. There’s also one site I know of (PayMyBills, maybe?) that basically do #1 on behalf of some companies/utilities who don’t provide the service on their own web site.) In all cases I’ve seen, if the company making the payment for you can do so electronically, they will. If they can’t, then they’ll write and mail a physical check. I use a credit union rather than a bank, and this service is free for me. I have the option of setting up an automatic payment for any creditor; this can be most useful when you have a payment that is exactly the same every month.[/li][/ol]
A third option, not usually called “online bill pay,” is setting up an automatic withdrawal. I set this up for my mortgage payment (which includes insurance), my car insurance, and various charitable donations. Again, you give the creditor your bank info, how much to take out how often, and it just happens through an ACH with no further work from you, unless something needs to change.
There’s still a few people who expect to be paid in person with a check. These are usually for services done at my house, such as cleaning or repairs. Those are about the last checks I actually write nowadays.
But I suppose we’re getting way OT now.
Ed
Update: Thanks to all your good advice, I went right on down to my bank (actually a credit union) and closed my checking account and opened a new one. And a good thing too.
My husband’s account was also compromised (we were both paying bills that day and have separate accounts) - but he is disabled/chronically ill so getting his account closed and a new one opened was a bit more problematic. We thought we had everything taken care of via fax, mail and wifely-messenger-service – but there was some sort of “miscommunication” at the credit union. His new account was opened and his balance was moved to it, but his old account remained open. On Wednesday (social security disability payment day) he went online and to his horror discovered that the thief had made up fake checks with her (probably fake) name and address and his account information, and had been passing bad checks all over town. Some of the checks had hit the day his social security had been direct deposited (to the old account) and had been paid through. What a nightmare! We are working with the credit union to get it all straightened out, and it will be, but in the meantime it’s a pain.
I’m sure the bitch-thief tried doing the same with my account, but since it was closed right away we’ll never know. Thanks for the advice everyone - I thought it was a bit paranoid, but I was wrong and you were right. Oh, and I now take my outgoing mail to work or to the post office, no more leaving it for the mail carrier. (Our mail carrier mentioned that there has been a rash of this type of thing going on lately.)