Do you auto-pay your CC accounts?

[Cobra9777]

Like many of you, I have all recurring bills on auto-pay using a cash-back CC, which works great. But for the CCs themselves, I still get a paper statement in the mail, and then manually schedule the payment using the bill-pay function from our checking account (Fidelity CMA).

So far I have avoided putting the CCs on auto-pay for various reasons (like fear of a big auto-pay error that empties my acct and takes time to correct... or fear that my routing/acct# gets compromised... or wanting to review the charges one last time... I already review them online every couple days). So I'm beginning to question the validity of those reasons vs the convenience of auto-pay. Plus I don't like the security aspect of paper statements arriving in the mailbox.

Also, at Fidelity, the bill-pay functionality includes an automated "push-pay" service called eBill, which sounds like a great idea. But only one of our three CCs supports eBill. For the other two, I'd still have to enter my routing number and account number on the CC company's website. Oddly, the Fidelity-branded Elan VISA is one of the cards that doesn't support eBill.

So question is: Do you use some form of auto-pay for your CC accounts? And if so, do you use a similar "push-pay" service or are you OK letting the CC company "pull" the payment from your bank?

 

[Col. Klink]

For CC accounts, I get the bills sent to me in .pdf format. I pay them using online banking but do not autopay them. Other stuff, like medical insurance, I do autopay

 

[pb4uski]

I have my CC bill scheduled on autopay... the CC provider pulls the full payment from my account on the scheduled date... been doing this for 7 years and have never had a problem.

In fact, I can't ever recall having an issue for any of my pull-type autopays other than recently when BCBS changed their account system and they pulled the right amount but didn't split the amount paid between my policy and DW's policy (prior to that change we were a small group of two).

 

[Rianne]

I do not auto pay CC, but pay at the end of the month to track spending for that month, online directly. Auto pay HC, dental, utilities.

 

[CardsFan]

For CC accounts, I get the bills sent to me in .pdf format. I pay them using online banking but do not autopay them. Other stuff, like medical insurance, I do autopay

Ditto.

I would rather push a payment than let the CC (or anyone, actually) pull.

 

[gwraigty]

I get bills electronically for those that allow it, directly from the biller's websites. I pay bills by manually pushing from bill pay. Like you, I found that trying to get the ebills from bill pay was hit or miss, so I don't bother with that anymore.

 

[audreyh1]

I use auto pay for most when an ebill type option is available and I know the amount doesn’t usually exceed some number so I’ll have the funds to cover it. In these cases I don’t have to provide routing and account number as it’s handled within the billpay system.

For example, Bank of America receives ebills from American Express, Citi, and BofA credit cards. So those are automatically scheduled to pay the statement balance one day before due date. I leave enough in checking to cover them.

For the one that can vary most widely I could autopay, but I usually wait to see the statement and then manually schedule it too be sure I’ll have the funds available. Again this is handled in billpay and just requires a couple of clicks as they already know the amount.

I only have one credit card (Amazon store card) where I gave the routing information for autopay.

I’ve been auto paying credit card bills like this for well over a decade and never had a snafu - knock on wood!

I only get electronic statements for credit cards. No paper bills for me ever!

 

[audreyh1]

Also, at Fidelity, the bill-pay functionality includes an automated "push-pay" service called eBill, which sounds like a great idea. But only one of our three CCs supports eBill. For the other two, I'd still have to enter my routing number and account number on the CC company's website. Oddly, the Fidelity-branded Elan VISA is one of the cards that doesn't support eBill.

I get ebills for the Elan VISA at Fidelity although I don’t have that one as autopay since it can be quite large some months and I may need to move funds to cover it. It’s super easy to schedule billpay from Fidelity as they already know the amount and due date.

But on clicking on the billpay options when I schedule payment I thought I saw options for monthly autopay...... maybe that sends you over to the Elan site instead.

 

[calmloki]

I have the credit cards set to auto-pull payment in full each month. As soon as I know the amount it gets entered in Quicken so I know where my financial state is. If I have really big charges I sometimes prepay the bill, foregoing float.

 

[Car-Guy]

I have very few things on autopay, but most (not all) of my recurring bills are paid online/electronically. About the only things I pay by USMail are Sirius XM radio (I'll never give those guys my credit card or checking account number) and my gas credit card. (Believe it or not, I actually get a 10% discount if I pay by mail - long story)

 

[Midpack]

We autopay from our local bank checking, but they notify my accountant (DW) and she has to give them the go ahead. We've been doing it at least 10 years, never had a single incident of any kind with CC providers or the bank.

 

[Sunset]

Due to some folks here that pointed out some benefits, I now auto pay with my CC various regular subscription services example Netflix.
Then I have the credit card that does this , auto pay itself.

I have a couple more services to switch over, then when we travel, I will only have to be concerned about the actual credit cards I take with us on the trip, and not be concerned about paying other bills.

Simplification of life.

 

[grasshopper]

I have the credit cards set to auto-pull payment in full each month. As soon as I know the amount it gets entered in Quicken so I know where my financial state is. If I have really big charges I sometimes prepay the bill, foregoing float.

This is what I do paperless statements, downloads to Quicken, alerts on all my accounts. I get a text or email for all charges, all transfers, all international charges. There is a few seconds before I would get a text, and would be all over any fraud.

 

[pb4uski]

.... There is a few seconds before I would get a text, and would be all over any fraud.

I recently bought a sectional at a local furniture store. When the sales associate ran my credit card I got a text with a notification before he got from the office back to me with the slip for me to sign.

 

[Cobra9777]

I get ebills for the Elan VISA at Fidelity although I don’t have that one as autopay since it can be quite large some months and I may need to move funds to cover it. It’s super easy to schedule billpay from Fidelity as they already know the amount and due date.

But on clicking on the billpay options when I schedule payment I thought I saw options for monthly autopay...... maybe that sends you over to the Elan site instead.

On the Fidelity bill-pay tab, any payee that is eligible for eBill has a link beside the name that says, "Sign Up For eBill." The Elan CC does not have that link. Although it has a link that says "Credit Card Overview." That just produces more links to pay various amounts using the standard bill-pay functionality. The links to auto-pay on the credit card tab, just take you to the Elan website where you would enter routing/acct#. Elan and Fidelity share data, but for some reason it's not eligible for eBill.

 

[scrabbler1]

I autopay my co-op maintenance, electric, and phone/internet/TV bills. The amounts are either fairly small and/or don't vary much from month to month. The co-op maintenance I use my bank's autopay where they mail a check to the managing agent's bank. If I used a different electronic payment method, I'd get charged.


The other two I use ACH where the two providers pull the money from my bank. I have been using that method for them for the last 20 years and never had a problem. It is very unlikely I will change any of those service providers.


My health insurance has a stable (albeit increasing) amount I have to pay. But because the chance I will change HI providers is not tiny like with my co-op or electric or combo package, I don't autopay them but use ACH so they can pull the money at my initiation.


My CC is from the same bank I do my banking with, so pulling versus pushing the money is moot. I don't autopay it because the amount can vary significantly from month; if it is really high, beyond my checking account's cushion, I may pay it from my second-tier EF, or at least wait until the end of the grace period. So I want to retain monthly control over it.


I get paper statements for all bills except for the co-op maintenance, which I get via email. That began when I began the autopay. I print out only the January bill when the amounts change.


Other non-monthly bills, such as car/home insurance and medical bills, I pay on line using either my CC if they allow it, or using ACH pull.

 

[RetireAge50]

All bills including credit cards are automatically pulled from checking. I do nothing but monitor the balances and activity.

 

[grasshopper]

I recently bought a sectional at a local furniture store. When the sales associate ran my credit card I got a text with a notification before he got from the office back to me with the slip for me to sign.

I quit having Ms.G call when she is on the way back home, I just tell to put gas in the truck.

 

[kaneohe]

I have had multiple cc on autopay for a decade or more and love the convenience. There is some limited overdraft protection on the acct so that if I forget to provide enough funds, the bills are still paid. No problems at all with the credit card accts. despite the worst case fears of things that could go wrong. The month end statements always come in time so you can review before they payments are made.

I have only had 2 problems (none involving credit cards)

1)My drug prescription plan is on autopay w/ Humana, Used to be just $20/mo. One month a few hundred dollars disappeared. Humana seemed to have a so-what attitude about it so I got credit union to intervene. I just had to fill out a form and soon money was back in acct.

2)I have a few mutual funds where the monthly income is deposited into checking account. One month money went the other way, reduced acct balance to 0, and caused a bunch of checks to be bounced w/ resulting fees.
Seems that someone at the fund company for some reason thought I wanted to auto-invest in the fund. When they recognized the error, it was immediately fixed, and the credit union waived all the bounced check fees .

If you think you are perfect and nobody else is, there is the convenience price that will have to be paid.........so I take the risk and get the convenience.
Overdraft protection is a nice backup feature.

 

[kgtest]

I autopay the min to avoid any possible ding to credit for missed payment, and on the day its due just logon, look things over quick and make the full balance payment (I ain't giving anyone a dime before it's actually due).

 

[cathy63]

Your routing/acct# info is not exactly a secret, so I don't get the worry over having it compromised. You give it away every time you write a check or pay a bill from your bank account.

I do have two of our three CCs on auto-pay. I review the statements online when I get an email saying they're available, then I enter the payment amount in Quicken with the future date so I'll notice if I don't get a downloaded transaction that matches up to it later on. That's never happened though. It's been years now, and every payment has gone through automatically, on the correct date, and for the correct amount.

The third CC is the one we use for most of our everyday expenses and all the auto-pay bills that can be paid by credit card. The only reason I don't auto-pay that one is because if we made a large purchase one month I might have to transfer more money into the checking account to cover it. Initiating the payment manually is a safeguard to make sure I look at both numbers when I pay it.

The way I protect myself against ACH errors is
1) pay bills from a checking account that is at a different institution than our investments
2) only keep enough funds in the checking account to cover a month or two of expenses

I've never once experienced an ACH error, but I know they can happen, and this way the maximum amount at risk is the amount at that bank. The institution that holds our investment accounts would be happy to give us check writing privileges and overdraft protection linked to those accounts, but I would never want that. I'd be too worried that the one-in-a-trillion ACH error would happen to us and they'd sell off all our investments to cover it before they figured it out.

 

[audreyh1]

I opened a couple of accounts at Chase Bank a couple of years ago, because of their $500 bonus. And I decided that it would be convenient for autopaying the several Chase credit cards we had. Plus my brother banked there and I hoped for easy transfers to his account.

Well, the Chase credit card autopay has been super convenient, so it's been worth it just for that.

However, otherwise not really happy with them. I can't do transfers to my brother's account directly like I can with BofA for my other brother which works beautifully. Chase forces you to use Zelle for transfers, and Zelle has a $2000 transfer limit!

Also, they limit you to $5000 for mobile deposit!

So I've ended up walking into the branch to make a deposit into my brother's account bypassing their checking entirely.

Pretty much just using them to autopay our Chase credit cards now.

 

[Jerry1]

Yes, DW handles, but she has the CC on autopay but then gets a printed (mailed) statement and reconciles it. No problems so far. I’m trying to convince her to just download the statement but I haven’t been successful yet. If it were me, I’d just check the account under transactions and know that all is okay. Oh well, I don’t intrude on jobs that aren’t mine.

 

[audreyh1]

The billpay type pulling errors I've heard about are:

1) Some health insurance company in some other state (Florida?) a couple of years ago pulled multiple times from clients accounts causing all sorts of mayhem.

2) Last January our county did multiple pulls from owner accounts for property taxes. They were using a standard system used by counties and municipalities all over the US, so it wasn't them specifically, but their eCheck provider. One of our neighbors was fit to be tied! Understandably.

 

[audreyh1]

Yes, DW handles, but she has the CC on autopay but then gets a printed (mailed) statement and reconciles it. No problems so far. I’m trying to convince her to just download the statement but I haven’t been successful yet. If it were me, I’d just check the account under transactions and know that all is okay. Oh well, I don’t intrude on jobs that aren’t mine.

I do reconcile receipts and then shred all the ones that don't need to be saved for warranty or tax or health insurance purposes.

In my computer calendar, I have entered the dates of when to expect a statement (recurring monthly) from each credit card. Between that and the email that most (all?) send when the statement is available, I can keep in sync. I download the statement and then go through my receipts comparing the statement and Quicken. Then I reconcile in Quicken and most of the receipts go into the shred pile. Been doing it that way for years and it's pretty fast and minimized paper.

Most credit cards are good about emailing me a few days before a payment is due.