Method of paying bills each month

Submitted by grizgrin75 t3_z83tc9 in personalfinance

For about 18 years I had used my banks online bill paying function to pay the vast majority of my bills this worked very well because I traveled all over the world for work for weeks and months at a time. I no longer travel anymore dudo to a career switch. Recently it all went to heck in a handbasket they started failing to get my bills delivered on time caused my credit to take some pretty significant hits then refuse to do anything about it. I've stopped using their online service and have gone back to the old school methods of mailing my bills in. I'm curious to see if reddit has any better ideas on how to get bills in each month. The methods I have available to available to me as I understand them now are as follows:

  1. Banks mail in system
  2. Postal service first class mail
  3. Vendor website payments

In this age of "there's an app for that", Are there any other methods that people use that work well for them?

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Comments

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JannaNYC t1_iy9klt8 wrote

Why not just get a reliable bank? I've been using my bank's online bill payment system since its inception, and I've never had a single problem.

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grizgrin75 OP t1_iy9me2l wrote

I tried that a few years back and tried to go with a different institution. That was a painful ridiculous experience. I could look into other institutions to switch to however you are right.

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JannaNYC t1_iy9nkbs wrote

I use Citibank, if that's available to you.

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Werewolfdad t1_iy9kmsb wrote

I set up autopay with each utility/vendor because I'm lazy and its easy

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MikeWPhilly t1_iy9v0eq wrote

Some people will hate this but I put every single bill imaginable on a credit card. Then I just have the cc set up for autopay alongside the mortgages. I like my points so more on cc is good.

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thebrightstuffs t1_iy9l8q2 wrote

If they have a website (or app), I pay there. I like knowing the money went to the company directly and getting a confirmation number. If not, I use my bank's online bill pay.

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whoknowsme2001 t1_iy9mqvq wrote

Did these companies change their addresses? Not sure how this mess happened in the first place. Billpay will either process an electronic payment or send a physical draft/check if the company doesn’t accept electronic payments.

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grizgrin75 OP t1_iy9wbpk wrote

The bills were getting mailed late by the bank billpay service, or not sending them at all. After 18 years I guess I had got used to leaning on this crutch too much and not checking up on it enough. Turns out there is fine print in the billpay service agreement that the bills will basically go out whenever they feel like it, and the customer cannot do squat about it.

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whoknowsme2001 t1_iya5twr wrote

How is this possible? Usually a date is selected and a received by date is made available. This contradicts everything I’ve ever known about online billpay since 2002 (working for a bank).

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sciguyCO t1_iy9oc8d wrote

Another option would be to find a new bank with a more reliable bill pay. I've used bill pay with my own credit union for over 15 years (maybe creeping up on 20?) and had a problem exactly once. The payment was received by the merchant (credit card) the day after my chosen "deliver by" date. The CU has a "payment guarantee" with their service, so they reimbursed me for the interest + late fee that failure incurred. Sadly, they wouldn't do anything about the following month's card interest (since new charges were no longer in its grace period), but I took what I could get. I have gotten slightly less trusting, so now I set the payments to arrive a business day (or two) prior to their due date to give me a bit more buffer just in case.

I personally prefer to "push" my payments out of my checking account to vendors using my bank's system, rather than allowing vendors to "pull" from my account. Maybe it's overly paranoid, but it gives me a little reassurance against my electric company's payment system having glitch and yanking more out than they're due.

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grizgrin75 OP t1_iy9wigq wrote

Completely agree about push vs pull, which is why I am looking for other options ATM since evidently my current bank has laid off it's last competant worker.

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SkyliteBlueSnake t1_iyb5fvj wrote

Any bill that can go on a credit card goes on a credit card (and by "can", I mean not getting charged a fee for using a cc). Have automatic payment of the statement balance for all cards set up with via the credit card website. My electric bill would charge a fee to use a credit card so I set up autopay of the statement balance through the power company's website.

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SquareVehicle t1_iyaa5e3 wrote

I haven't mailed in a bill in years except for child-care which was hand-delivered. It's all online or automatic payments. Anything not on auto payment I designate a specific day at the end of the month to pay everything.

Almost every utility lets you auto-bill against your checking account. Almost everything else can be put on a credit card for the points and then auto-paid.

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BogBabe t1_iyav01j wrote

I would just find a better bank with more reliable bill pay service. I've used online bill pay with multiple different banks & credit unions over the past few decades, and they've all been extremely reliable. It sounds like your bank's service has deteriorated to the point of being unusable. But there are many, many other banks out there.

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grizgrin75 OP t1_iyask9n wrote

Dunno. But Fortiserve has a line in the EULA (or whatever its called ) that states that the check might get sent out before, on, or after the target date, and user is responsible for it.

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