Am I the last guy that doesn't want to sign up for automatic checking account payment withdrawals? Is it okay for me to put a stamp on an envelope and mail in my bills?
Is Chase bank going to ask me to "sign up" for this over and over and over?
Hey, some of us still like to float a check or two near payday.........leave me alone! 
Unless they offer me some additional benefit I pay manually. Via check or web-page or whatever.
And yes. They will ask over and over and over.
No you are not the last . I pay with a handwritten check that i have a duplicate of and mail it via usps. If I didn"t sign it, it ain't happenin. I choose who gets my money when i want them to have it.
I still mail checks for all my bills. I don't know what it is about online but I don't trust it, and I am a linux sys admin.
jonny330 wrote: I still mail checks for all my bills. I don't know what it is about online but I don't trust it, and I am a linux sys admin.
I don't know what a linuxsysadmin is but i rest my case.
Thank you for keeping the post office in business.
I pay everything online. If I need to send a check to somebody I put them into my online bill pay and send the check that way. I write less than 1 check a year and I don't even remember the last one I wrote.
I pay everything online, but I absolutely refuse to do automatic payments for anything. I review my bills individually and have 2 dates a month set aside to log in to my bank and pay them.
No way am I just giving them carte blanche to effectively pay themselves with my account information.
I pay when I want, but prefer to do it online. Something about sitting down, filling out a check, writing an address on an envelope (if the bill didn't come with one), finding a stamp, putting it in the mail, etc...just keeps me from getting it done in a timely fashion.
With online payments, though...I look forward to the process and do it religiously.
Different strokes vs. different folks and all.
I don't, however, sign up for automatic debits for any variable bills (electric, phone, gas, etc). Anything that comes out automatically (not initiated by me every month or billing period) is a fixed payment (house payment, child support, student loan, etc).
Clem
Duke wrote: I pay everything online, but I absolutely *refuse* to do automatic payments for anything. I review my bills individually and have 2 dates a month set aside to log in to my bank and pay them. No *way* am I just giving them carte blanche to effectively pay themselves with my account information.
This. No reason not to pay bills online (I do for nearly everything that has that option), but letting somebody else automatically pull money from MY account? No berkleying way! And if you want to argue for it, why don't you authorize me to take $1 out of your account and see how fast I can clean you out. Stupid, stupid, stupid!
Well...just to play devils advocate (because I don't necessarily disagree with what you are saying even though I DO have automatic payments set up...though I control them for the most part...the bank sends a check to the payee on MY behalf...not the other way around), I'll describe THIS real life scenario:
Ms. Ex-Sparks goes to pay her cell phone bill online (or over the phone, I don't know or care). Since MY old debit card number and/or bank account number had been used to pay the bill (when it was "ours" before the split...a year earlier) the company gladly let her use that account to pay the now-exclusively-hers cell phone bill.
Once you've paid a bill online (or even over the phone) that payment account could be used again to pay that payable account.
Of course, when disputed, the bank found in my favor and credited my account. It just goes to show that you need to stay on top of what's going into and coming out of your accounts (which online account management facilitates...and I LOVE it).
Clem
ClemSparks wrote: I pay when I want, but prefer to do it online. Something about sitting down, filling out a check, writing an address on an envelope (if the bill didn't come with one), finding a stamp, putting it in the mail, etc...just keeps me from getting it done in a timely fashion. With online payments, though...I look forward to the process and do it religiously. Different strokes vs. different folks and all. I don't, however, sign up for automatic debits for any variable bills (electric, phone, gas, etc). Anything that comes out automatically (not initiated by me every month or billing period) is a fixed payment (house payment, child support, student loan, etc). Clem
+1, sort of. I have nothing come out automatically. Even recurring stuff like the house payment, I do it manually.
If you give anybody access to your account, they will make a mistake. You won't know about it until you bounce checks. This has happened to me twice now, never again. Both times it was an "innocent" misunderstanding. Whatever, won't happen again.
pete240z wrote: Hey, some of us still like to float a check or two near payday.........leave me alone!
With all the rapid check scanning that is going on these days, the float is becoming smaller and smaller every year. I swear that's why they have those fancy ATM's that scan and deposit without a slip. + the savings in tellers.
There isn't even much float if you give me a check. I scan it with my iPhone and it goes in my account. Then I throw away the paper check. Takes about 5 seconds.
Otto Maddox wrote: There isn't even much float if you give me a check. I scan it with my iPhone and it goes in my account. Then I throw away the paper check. Takes about 5 seconds.
Note to self: keep all the counterfeit bills to pay folks with i-phones.
I kid...I kid.
Clem
My sister in law is the accountant for a bank and she'd NEVER give anyone the right to automatically pay the bills. That should tell you something.
Insurance companies tend to be the worst offenders, but she says multiple payments made in the same month is a common ocurrence.
Otto Maddox wrote: There isn't even much float if you give me a check.
Once in a while I mail a check on Thursday and my direct deposit payroll check is there on Friday at 6:00am. I usually float one of my utilities or Comcast cable.
Javelin wrote:Duke wrote: I pay everything online, but I absolutely *refuse* to do automatic payments for anything. I review my bills individually and have 2 dates a month set aside to log in to my bank and pay them. No *way* am I just giving them carte blanche to effectively pay themselves with my account information.This. No reason not to pay bills online (I do for nearly everything that has that option), but letting somebody else automatically pull money from MY account? No berkleying way! And if you want to argue for it, why don't you authorize me to take $1 out of your account and see how fast I can clean you out. Stupid, stupid, stupid!
Pretty much my attitude as well. I'm actually used the setup - it's very common in Europe that a company sends you an invoice and you set up a payment type that allows them to draft your account, but the safeguards are a little more stringent in Europe that they are here.
Actually I have this type of setup for an online savings account but that's with an institution I have no other accounts with. Abusing their electronic access to the checking account to put money into the savings account is probably as far as I'd go risk-wise.
There are a couple of bills I pay by check (rent, for example, and usually magazine subscriptions) but everything else gets paid online.
I've got most of my stuff set up on automatic withdrawal. I go in and check for mistakes a few times a month, in 6+ years, there has been ONE mistake.
State Farm accidentally double billed me after I made a bunch of policy changes at once, then promptly fixed it.
Why everyone sending a check, which contains all your personal info including your account number, is somehow an order of magnitude safer is beyond me.
I'm off to buy stock in a tin foil.
I pay all my bills with cash, at 23 years old :P
z31maniac wrote: I've got most of my stuff set up on automatic withdrawal. I go in and check for mistakes a few times a month, in 6+ years, there has been ONE mistake. State Farm accidentally double billed me after I made a bunch of policy changes at once, then promptly fixed it. Why everyone sending a check, which contains all your personal info including your account number, is somehow an order of magnitude safer is beyond me. I'm off to buy stock in a tin foil.
I don't think anybody here is regularly paying bills (besides GRM subscriptions) with a check. In fact, most of us pay most of our bills online. I don't see how that's tin-foil or luddite, but whatever. What we are saying is that we aren't giving somebody else free access to our account whenever they feel like it. I don't care how long it's been without a mistake, it only takes 1 time for a decimal place to move and you could be out everything, hung out to dry on overdraft fees, etc, etc.
Again, if you're so comfortable with it, why don't you let me withdraw just a dollar? Come on, it's only $1, what's the worst I could do? 
Huge difference between automatic payments and automatic withdraws.
no on-line payment here... Chase gets payed by phone ... everyone else gets a paper check ... or if there is a place for CC info I'll do it that way.... ( doing it that way I at least get 1 - 5 % back )
Javelin wrote: I don't think anybody here is regularly paying bills (besides GRM subscriptions) with a check.
As usual, I'm the oddball.
The only automatic payments I have are for services USAA provides. I mean, they already know my bank info, so...
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