I'm thinking about using Bank Of America's online services to pay my mortgage, credit card bills, etc. Has anyone had any bad experiences or heard any horror stories from paying their bills this way versus the old fashioned way?
I pay most of my bills online. The only ones I don't pay online are my phone, trash, and power bills. I do believe my phone and power are payable online, but I'm too lazy to set up an online account . The bills that I do pay online I go directly to the company instead of going through my bank (US Bank and Bank of America). Oops...add in my car payment...I don't pay that online even though I can. I've never experienced any problems. I love paying online. I have a friend that refuses to do any type of online transaction whether buying things off the net or checking bank info...he and his wife are extremely paranoid about stuff like that. They think they will be victims of theft. Heck they don't even use a debit/credit card when they are pumping gas...they much rather waste their time by paying inside.
--The only word of warning I would have is that alot of times when you're doing the bill paying through your bank and not directly with whoever you want the money going to, it can take awhile for a payment to reach. Alot of times, the banks are actually cutting paper checks and mailing them instead of sending electronic payments to the recepients so it can take a bit longer than you expect. When I pay bills online, I prefer to deal directly with the company I'm paying.
Also, some banks (like mine) charge you fees for paying bills on-line through their website. However if you deal directly with the company whose bills you're paying the bank can't charge you. I pay all bills I have the capability of paying through the companies' websites this way.
I 've written a three checks in the last year.(damn health care system, get with the 1990's, much less this century). And make sure you don't do automatic deduction from you checking or brokerage account, but automatically billing your credit card is okay.
I pay all my credit cards and my DirecTV bill on line thru their websites. I also manage my financial accounts online (download statements, transfer funds, etc). I think my utility bills can be paid online, but I haven't bothered to set those up. My mortgage is electronically debited automatically every month, as is my auto/homeowner's insurance. Both are constant in magnitude, and taken out on the exact same day every month. Even got a slight rate break on my mortgage. I used to do the same with my condo fees, but they never took the money out at a consistent time, so I never knew (just looking at the balance on an ATM receipt) if the money had been taken or not, so I went back to writing checks. I would NEVER EVER set up a variable cost bill to automatically debit from my account. I'd prefer to pay all my bills on line, since it saves me a stamp every time. I'll probably go check about paying the utilities online next cycle.
Both my fiance and I pay ALL of our bills through BofA online. 1. It's free. Totally and absolutely. 2. Some billers will send you an E-bill online. That means no more paper bills to lose 3. Other billers will at least collect payments online. That means no more checks, but you still get a paper bill. 4. Some billers, like say your rental company, won't do either. In that case, you can have BofA cut and mail a check for you, TOTALLY FREE. We both pay our rent that way. The only caveat is that BofA takes the money out of your checking account before they transmit it. If you count on the float, you're SOL. For example, my rent is due on the first of the month. It takes approximately 5-7 days for the check to arrive from BofA's Bill Pay center to my rental company. So they take the money out on the 23rd and mail the check. I've never been late in 18 months of living there. Since I started using BofA BillPay, my credit rating has shot up by 75 points and I haven't been late once. Also, I can go 3-4 months without writing a check. PM me with more questions, Sachin
apparently in two days there is no longer the ability to float checks AT ALL (save mailing time) due to a new federal law called Check 21. You can find out about it at here most banks haven't been talking about it because they will end up raking in a ton of overdraft fees, etc.
Check 21 From my limited understanding of Check 21, it won't eliminate float entirely. The reg forces bank to have the ability to accept digital versions of checks. However, banks do not have to invest in the technology to scan the checks themselves. So, although a small town bank will receive the digital checks, they will probably still be mailing out paper versions. Take my understanding with a grain of salt, though.
i check my score almost every month. it hasn't changed much for 14 month but all of the sudden the last month it went up by 60 points.
I pay most of my bills online and have had two less than positive events happen. One of my credit cards stopped sending out paper bills which almost made me late on a payment. I called but it took 2 months to get the paper bills back even though I never agreed to ebills and had in fact made sure to not select that option. The second strange event was one of my credit cards had numerous days blocked off as not available for payment to be credited to my account. It was something like thursday through wednesday which when added to the normal window would have forced me to pay online nearly 2 weeks before my due date. I called and got it fixed but it was a serious hassle. Note both of these happened with one company and I never had any trouble with others and highly recommend online bill paying since it is normally fast and free.
I recommend online or ACH payments whenever possible. I pay my Credit Cards, my AOL, my cable bill, phone bill, student loan and my electric all online, directly through the vendors. I also have my car and renter's insurance debited from my account through ACH. The only checks I have to write are for rent, car payment and a student loan from my church.
I pay all my bills online directly. I don't use the bank. Sure it takes a little longer to do but usually the payments post right away or they'll tell me when it will post. It gives me peace of mind. I did the bank thing for like two months and I kept checking to make sure the payments had posted to my cc acounts.