Autopay gone bad - Florida Blue

[45th Birthday]

Florida Blue is THE WORST all the way around. Enrollment, billing, policy documents, etc. I had a huge number of problems with them this year. Just yesterday I received my fourth or fifth set of member cards (requested in December). Two of the sets were for last year's plan.


I didn't have anything taken out even though I'm on auto pay. Good thing, because that account is tied to my brokerage line of credit and they would have been able to take millions if they were truly doing it until the account was drained.


That said, I use auto-pay as much as possible, and this won't cause me to change that.

[braumeister]

The old eyeballs are playing tricks on me again.
When I saw this thread I thought it said Autopsy gone bad.

I was a bit reluctant to open it, thinking "Well, this is going to be grisly."

[Blue Collar Guy]

i have auto pay on my house taxes, i pay once a year, 2 years ago everyone on auto pay paid double, they took out an extra 6000 bucks, they returned it a few days later, i did not bounce anything, but thousands of people did. i didnt even know it happened till after my neighbor told me it happened,https://therealdeal.com/2014/07/02/c...ts-by-mistake/

[athena53]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Car-Guy I pay most everything I can on-line but Netflix is the only autopay I have setup and that's VIA a credit card. I'm not going to give anyone autopay access to one of my checking accounts.

There were two cases where I had no other options. One is my Planet Fitness membership and the other was the year I had BCBS although maybe BCBS would have been OK with paper bills. So far, so good.

[Texas Proud]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MichaelB Florida Blue (BCBS) autopay went haywire this month. For some members, it apparently withdrew the scheduled monthly payment more than once - until there were no funds left - entirely draining many bank accounts. From the Sun-Sentinel The report documents multiple examples of tens of thousands of $$ withdrawn erroneously and included confirmations by Chase and BoA. Scary how easily this happened. We have two accounts on autopay, had multiple payments withdrawn for March and April, and when I called to complain, they insisted it was user error setting up the autopay. Right. The back office systems for insurers are stone age. Hopefully they will see the light and update them.

As I have said many times, I do not allow anybody to pull money from my checking account... I only push...

If I go autopay I use a CC.... if they started to charge like posted the CC company would have closed it down and alerted me right away...

[Janet H]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bestwifeever This happened with our mortgage, the only thing we had on autopay. We had about three months' of payments in our checking account and that was pulled out by the mortgage bank. Checks bounced right and left as a result, and I immediately assumed I had done something wrong in balancing the checkbook. The mortgage bank took care of everything including writing letters of apology to the bouncees, but we refinanced as soon as we could through our credit union. The mortgage bank went under not soon after. That was back in 1982--before the everyday use of the term "user error."

This happened to me as well a just a few years back. The autopay function went nuts and pulled out payment after payment until my account was drained. There were over draft charges that began accruing as the negative balance began to grow. They called it a 'glitch' and it took me weeks to get it cleaned up. My credit union actually flagged the issue after they saw 'suspicious' activity and called. The payment was withdrawn hourly for a full 24 hours before it was suspended.

No autopay for me now - ever.

[cathy63]

Quote:

Originally Posted by 45th Birthday ...I didn't have anything taken out even though I'm on auto pay. Good thing, because that account is tied to my brokerage line of credit and they would have been able to take millions if they were truly doing it until the account was drained...

Whew! I use auto-pay on everything, but I use a credit card where possible and a credit union account that never has more than a couple months' worth of funds in it where a cc is not accepted. The only thing I do with the brokerage cash account is ETF spending money into our regular bank/CU accounts. If someone managed to drain one of those, it would be a major annoyance and probably take a while to correct; but if someone got into our brokerage accounts, they could take everything we plan to live on for the next ten years!

I spent a lot of years working on software systems that handle money and payments, and I always find it entertaining that people think auto-pay is safe for some bills but not for others. They're all pretty safe, especially if you protect yourself by limiting the amount of money they can access; but some of the worst online financial systems I've ever seen belonged to utility companies, and those are usually the ones that people say they are willing to let into their checking accounts.

[Texas Proud]

Now... I guess that autopay could go haywire at the bank... and I do have my mortgage and auto loan on push autopay... if it happened I would think that the bank would put back all the money right away and pay any late fees... but I have not heard of this happening...


All other bills I have to put in the amount.... again, if an error occurred I guess they could send it multiple times, but so far so good...

[youbet]

Our autopay nightmare was with SS. It was unbelievable. After SS withdrew multiple times in error, we found no one at SS willing to take on the problem. Snippy people who rudely explained how it couldn't have happened or who said to just wait and it would correct itself were plentiful. But someone who would embrace the problem and work with us to get it fixed, none of them around....... We wound up working with our Congressman's office.

We've since switched to having them bill us but, of course, they screw that up too. Bills don't arrive so we have no coupon to send back with our check. We call and ask for a bill and receive lectures that we owe money and better pay but no help getting a bill sent.

[ExFlyBoy5]

Quote:

Originally Posted by athena53 There were two cases where I had no other options. One is my Planet Fitness membership

I have heard over and over again that gyms are the absolute last businesses that you want to authorize an auto pay from. Luckily, we have a nice little gym set up in our basement, so no gym fees to worry about!

[littleb]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ExFlyBoy5 I have heard over and over again that gyms are the absolute last businesses that you want to authorize an auto pay from. Luckily, we have a nice little gym set up in our basement, so no gym fees to worry about!

Many of these pop up gyms are now requiring auto pay in order to join or to get a low rate. There is no problem until you try to cancel. That is when the auto pay will benefit them more. Some will not allow you to cancel by phone or in person. You must send a document to their corporate office and then they will cancel. No back dating the cancellation date. So they get another month's membership fee out of your bank account. If you stop the auto pay at your bank because they do not respond quickly then sometimes they turn your account over to collections.

[ShokWaveRider]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MichaelB Florida Blue (BCBS) autopay went haywire this month. For some members, it apparently withdrew the scheduled monthly payment more than once - until there were no funds left - entirely draining many bank accounts. From the Sun-Sentinel The report documents multiple examples of tens of thousands of $$ withdrawn erroneously and included confirmations by Chase and BoA. Scary how easily this happened. We have two accounts on autopay, had multiple payments withdrawn for March and April, and when I called to complain, they insisted it was user error setting up the autopay. Right. The back office systems for insurers are stone age. Hopefully they will see the light and update them.

That is why I never use AutoPay from a provider or vendor! AKA Pull AutoPay. The BEST and safest way is to use PUSH AutoPay. Where YOU tell your bank or CU to push the monthly payment on a certain date for a certain amount of time. Been doing it for years.

The Only exception is credit card pulls that can be cancelled at any time or disputed with little effort.

[misanman]

BIL used auto pay from his checking account for as many things as he could. Then his checking account was compromised and he had to go back and change then to the new account. Not fun.

[nun]

I don't have anything on automatic payment from by bank account. I like to get a bill and pay it myself. My health insurance is taken out of my monthly pension check before It is even deposited in my bank account.


Sent from my iPhone using Early Retirement Forum

[athena53]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ExFlyBoy5 I have heard over and over again that gyms are the absolute last businesses that you want to authorize an auto pay from. Luckily, we have a nice little gym set up in our basement, so no gym fees to worry about!

I know- when I researched Planet Fitness there were multiple complaints about how hard it was to stop the auto-pay when you wanted to quit. I love my local gym and the people who work there, it's convenient, there's one near where DS and his family live, and DS can be a guest at mine when they visit- so no plans to quit now. If that day comes I'll follow cancellation instructions to the letter.

[easysurfer]

Sounds like a big mess .

Glad I followed my hunch and just write a check each month for my BCBS premium. A good old fashioned paper check doesn't go out of style.

[CardsFan]

Put me in the group of never letting anyone PULL from my account. I have a few autopays on the credit card (eg Netflix), and a few that I PUSH because the amount is constant for a year (HOA fees, HI). The rest I push, if possible, or send a paper check if it is one time thing.

Funny thing is, I resisted on line bill pay for years, and really just started about 2 years. Now, I realize it is the ONLY way to go

[walkinwood]

A big mess indeed!

I have all my bills on autopay including my credit cards. However, I do stay on top of them and have alerts when each one is paid.

I've had a car accident once; hasn't stopped me from driving. I'm became a more careful driver though.

[Blue Collar Guy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by youbet Our autopay nightmare was with SS. It was unbelievable. After SS withdrew multiple times in error, we found no one at SS willing to take on the problem. Snippy people who rudely explained how it couldn't have happened or who said to just wait and it would correct itself were plentiful. But someone who would embrace the problem and work with us to get it fixed, none of them around....... We wound up working with our Congressman's office. We've since switched to having them bill us but, of course, they screw that up too. Bills don't arrive so we have no coupon to send back with our check. We call and ask for a bill and receive lectures that we owe money and better pay but no help getting a bill sent.

hahaha, it will self correct, hahahah

[Texas Proud]

Quote:

Originally Posted by easysurfer Sounds like a big mess . Glad I followed my hunch and just write a check each month for my BCBS premium. A good old fashioned paper check doesn't go out of style.

Just thinking out loud.... but we do not yet know if paper checks are even safe anymore...

Most banks now have an app where you take a pic of the paper check and it is deposited... I know my son uses it... so what if that app starts to withdraw a paper check over and over etc...

Now, I would think that they would have something in place to prevent this, but you never know when some code goes wrong and it is not stopped...