Slashdot Mirror
On Paying Bills Online
sharv asks: "I'd like to hear what you all think of the relatively new online bill payment services offered by sites like OnMoney and Yahoo Bill Pay - they both seem to be powered by the same engine, from an outfit called PayTrust. I'm curious if anyone's using one of these services and what, if any, technical issues people are concerned about. Any privacy concerns? How about any problems arising from not having snail-mail copies of your statements immediately available? Any of the meatspace bureaucracies having problems dealing with this latest incarnation of paperless personal finance?"
I have all the FU on-line services, billpay, banking, etc (hey, they're free with a CAP account). I'm still looking at paymybills.com or one of the like because there are a couple bills i have which are of variable amounts and aren't payable by credit card or bank draft. Those ones are a pain when I'm travelling as if I'm gone for a while I have to make sure I have somebody pay my bills for me, and I don't exactly trust the neighborhood kid who always lets my fish die to pay my bills.
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The Cure of the ills of Democracy is more Democracy.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
With the exception of rent, power (haven't gotten around to doing that one yet), and student loans, all my bills are taken care of through the respective company. no third party to worry about. I still get paper bills in the mail to tell me how much I owe, and when my bank account is going to be debited.
So now I write far fewer cheques than I used to, and spend a good deal less on stamps too.
"For I am a Bear of Very Little Brain, and Long Words Bother Me"
I do that too. But I don't have a Klein bottle. Just a bowl...and an empty Classico jar for when the bowl gets full. When they get full, I roll them and take them to the bank.
And, as an added bonus, sometimes you can find interesting coins in that spare change. Some of the ones I've found are here.
"For I am a Bear of Very Little Brain, and Long Words Bother Me"
what the US needs is Interac like in Canada. After moving to the US, I had to get used to carrying money again. And US money is all the same colour, so at first it was hard to tell what bill I was grabbing. I still have to make sure I take a close look at what I'm handing over. Sure, there are a lot of places now where I can use debit card transactions with my ATM card, or those VISA cheque cards from the bank. But I still need actual money in my pockets. WIth Interac as ubiquitous as it is in Canada, all I needed was my ATM card.
"For I am a Bear of Very Little Brain, and Long Words Bother Me"
Qualifier:
I work as a security/encryption sysadmin. I have a very strong background in math and system security. I've developed several encryption protocols that are in process of peer review. I've been a sysadmin for 7 years, and have programmed fr 15.
First off:
[trog@pain trog]$ ros www.paytrust.com
Netcraft: [11]www.paytrust.com is running Microsoft-IIS/4.0 on [12]NT4 or
Windows 98
www.paytrust.com: Server: Microsoft-IIS/4.0
Not to Microsoft bash, but IIS is extremely insecure. Due to fundemental problems with IIS, it really cannot be secured.
Secondly, with a bill payment that does direct money transfers, you are dealing with actual money, not credit cards. You have less legal protection against fraud here than if you use a credit card. IANAL, but I've worked with them in systems design.
Thirdly, there are really no industry-wide standard security practices. Visa can audit these bill payment companies, but they can only make suggestions, and their recommendations can be(and I have seen businesses who do) completely ignored, with no vendor ramifications.
Forth: A secure system is INCREDIBLY difficult to implement. It requires a vast amount of knowledge and experience that most sysadmin's simply don't have. Not that it can't be learned; it just takes a great deal of time and desire to learn. Add to that the proliferation of paper-MCSE's calling themselves security experts, and all the Internet startups who get their website up and lock the system down later, and you have a definate recepe for disaster.
Fifth: As a consumer, you have absolutely NO WAY of knowing if a site is truly secure. The CdUniverse fiasco happened because they stored their credit card numbers in their database PLAINTEXT. How pathetic.
In fact, most customers compromise their security when they connect to a secure site; the default 40-bit encryption from exportable browsers is trivial to crack.
I would stick to the old "check in the mail" until sysadmins start taking security seriously.
I wrote a very patient email, explaining how their password change policy doesn't do beans towards keeping people from getting into my account, and in fact, makes it easier, because if I have to change passwords, I am going to pick easier to remember passwords, which defeats the good passwords I had memorized.
And for a computer system, or a general purpose password, it may well make sense to change passwords often, but not for a bank account, because the only reason to break in is to steal money and get out. No one will break in and steal, say, $10 a month and hope to not be detected. They might break in and look around, and check back to get the big deposits, but only over a short period; not over several months.
A real annoying clueless policy.
--
Infuriate left and right
Right, but they don't get the float if you pay your bill immediately at the due date. If you wait 'till the due date, well, no float.
Not comfortable with direct deposit for checks? Sheesh, it's only been around for 20 years! I'm surprised you use an ATM!
By the way, posters should keep in mind that there is a lot more here than bill PAYING. The service pointed to by the article does BILL PRESENTING. So, they actually RECEIVE your bill from the electric company, phone co, visa co, SCAN it, and present it to you for payment, which you can then do. Talk about opportunities for things to go wrong! If they screw up your visa bill, there goes your credit rating.
The real problem with ALL these systems is that they are just bandaids over paper. Even Checkfree, the service used by most banks, sends paper checks to most of the recipients of its payments. Only a few recipients are set up for automatic funds transfer. Similarly, the only reason this bill pay thing exists is that people like your visa company or electric company don't have a standard way to GIVE you an electronic bill.
I've been using checkfree for about six years now, originally as a Compuserve-based add on to Quicken, now as a software-agnostic web interface. The cost is $10/month, and I only use the basic bill-paying features, but I have been very pleased with their product.
I have changed banks twice, with no difficulties, and migrated from the Quicken/MS centric dialup interface (compuserve) to the web interface, also with no difficulties.
If a payment goes astray, they will track it down for you (every time this has happened it has been an accounting error on the creditor's side - Ameritech and Commonwealth Eddison (typical old-school monopoly utility companies) were notorious for this, but the folks of checkfree did the legwork in getting the issues resolved.
The web login insists that you be 128-bit capable, which is reassuring (as there were a couple of times I would have unknowingly connected using 40-bit encryption).
All in all very nice, especially when you are travelling for seven months strait (as I used to do), or have decided to take a month off and go on safari with no possible contact to the western world. Even just residing in the States, one gets very used to the convenience of having those recurring payments (loan and mortgage, for example) queued up automatically each month.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
I treat my credit card transactions like checks. If I couldn't write a check for the same amount, I can't charge it either. Simple, really. Credit cards are also nice in that the bills are itemized so that I always know what I spent things on without having to track it myself.
Unlike debit cards, the charges nicely integrate back into my checking account with one entry. Less security risk too.
What interest me more are the online friend-to-friend payment services, like PayPal...absolutely free, and you can send money to anyone anywhere--including many eBay auctioneers. And they even pay you for signing up...
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
but I can speak of my experiences with Quicken Bill Pay. It has never been a problem.
Of the 8 bills a months I get, only my credit card is done via electronic transfer - everything else is processed by an actual check (telephone, electric, gas, water, mortgage). There is no problem doing any of this except for one thing: lag time.
I talked to some folks at the bank about how all this stuff works, and it is quite amazing. All you do is tell the system who you want to pay, how much, and give them your account number and the address of the party you are sending the payment to. If they sign up with Quicken, in my case, then Quicken simply sends them a tape, otherwise, they send the payment as a real check just like it came from you. Say I want to pay my credit card bill - because it is done electronicly, I can schedule a payment to be made to them as soon as tomorrow. The other stuff that is sent out snail mail can be scheduled no less than 4 days ahead of time. Likewise I can also cancel payments as long as the cutoff time has not hit, which I do occassionally when I decide to shift around who gets what money.
And it does not need to be a business either. You can send a check to anyone. It makes it really easy when Christmas comes around... just hop on, make a payment and don't worry about it. Depending how far away they are from where the payments are sent from, they will get the check in a few days.
I think the nicest part of doing this stuff though is that I don't forget to make a payment. As soon as I get the bill, I enter the payment to be made to them and that is it. I also have things like my house payment scheduled for the next 6 months.
It may cost some money to do all this, but I still think it is wicked cool.
It's strange. My account at Royal Bank of Canada provides me with an online banking site that's rather nice. I can see all my accounts, pay all my bills, my visa, at no charge.
They initially were going to charge $3/month for the service, but I believe it's now free.
Apparently, other banks up here are just the same.
As for refusing to use it.. well.. even for the $3 a month. That's $3 I don't have to spend on gas going to the bank to pay the bills. I can look at my balance before I head to the bar. I know if a cheque was deposited or not. I can check my visa balance whenever I want. All from my desk, from work, or from home.
And it is VERY convenient. for the first time in my life, I pay all my bills on time.
I mostly agree with your assessment, and I think I know why the US seems relatively behind on electronic money. The reason that Canada seems far ahead is that it has five or so big banks that everyone banks at. The USA has a lot more banks, and comparatively few people bank with big national banks. It's harder for thousands of banks to come up with economies of scale (e.g. like Interac POS).
When I am in Canada, I bank online for C$4 per month and all my payments are instantaneous. When I am in the US I bank at a little trust company whose outsourced internet banking costs US$8 per month and which, amazingly, consists of them snail-mailing checks for me!!! Needless to say, I wasn't too impressed with that service, so in the USA I mail checks or use my Visa check card.
I do all my bill payments using my online banking interface that my branch offers. This is mega convenient, I've never been so up to date with my bills until now, usually as soon as I get the bill in the mail I'll go online and pay it.
When I had to go and mail the money more often than not I'd end up with the money spent before I mailed off the check, so my credit rating still suffers to this day because of that.
I don't think I'd use an outside service to do this though, you should be able to do it all via your bank, mine doesn't charge me extra to do so and in fact encourages its customers to use this method rather than bothering a teller.
As for problems, never seen one yet, soon as I hit the payment button I get a confirmation number that I can use later on if the payment doesn't make it to the company in question.
Originally my bank was using some proprietary software package, but quickly switched to web based banking once enough people bitched about their broken software and the fact that it required Windows didn't help them any.
Lots of banks offer free bill pay on their sites. One is Wells-Fargo. And they already have all your info, so it's not like you're losing anything.
I've been rather impressed with paymybills. Good site, good UI, and prompt service.
In particular, two things about PMB are very appealing:
- they will help you expedite a bill quickly with a simple phone call
- they have third-pary insurance (from Traveler's) to cover up to $100,000 of inappropriate use of your checking account
-Jos
I have been using CheckFree for about 4-5 years now, via the Windows-based modem-dialup software. My bank offers it's own software, in addition to a web-based system, but it isn't as intuitive as the CheckFree system.
One thing that I love about the CheckFree system is their level of customer service - A+! On many occasions they have helped me to figure out when and where something has gone wrong (sometimes I got double billed, other times it was my fault). As long as those dial-up's work I should be ok...
Which brings me to a point I _hate_ about CheckFree - the software is Windows only! Even if I decided to chuck all of my Windows software today and move to Linux, I would have to keep a Windows box for the CheckFree software. Why? Because I track ALL of my transactions in the CheckFree software - from ATM withdrawals to checks I write (and I write VERY few checks, now). I balance everything in CheckFree, and it all works easily, with the features I want, when I want them.
I thought about going with the CheckFree web interface, but it only does the bill paying features - it doesn't allow you to run budget reports or balance your account - you have to do that on paper or in a spreadsheet or something external (and basically be doing double entry at that point, which can lead to errors). I have seriously given thought to creating some software for Linux to allow me to use the web interface, but do the balancing stuff on a spreadsheet, in an all-in-one package.
It's a real sticking point - I don't want to be able to only pay bills - I want to be able to track the cash flow as well, without two different interfaces (or double entry, or whatever you want to call it). I haven't found anything that allows this yet...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
They don't do online bill presentation (ie, the bill goes there) but paying bills is simply as filling in the amount and clicking PAY. I have a credit card through them too, so I can schedule an amount to transfer on the exact day it's due and have it credited that day.
Customer service is the best. I can deal with them totally through on-line forms and e-mail or call them if I have to.
I've never had a problem with bill paying. If someone I pay a bill won't take an electronic transfer, they will laser print a check and mail it to the person/firm FOR FREE. I don't even pay for the bloody stamp.
You also get regular checks to use the old fashioned way if you want to. The checking accounts are free and include about 20 e-pays a month if you get direct deposit to it or maintain some balance in there.
Overall, I am HIGHLY satisfied with them.
Make sure you know where the funds are being drawn from when they write those checks!
Example: I pay bills electronically over the web via my bank's site (Huntington). When I say "Pay So-n-So Co $100" the bank debits $100 from my checking account, credits it to their account, and then cuts the check to the So-n-So Co from their account. Normally no big deal, but...
Once I paid a lawn service twice, my mistake - the nice lady at the service mailed back the 2nd check she recieved from the bank. Now I can't just throw this check out because it wasn't written from my account, the funds it represents have already been taken from me. And I can't cash the thing because it's made out to someone else. So I had to explain things (slowly, and several times) to Real Live People at the bank, and eventually it worked out. But just something to keep in mind.
Exactly! I simply have my bank do some (not all, not even most) of my bill paying. It was set up before my bank even had a website.
Now that they have one, I can log in, check my balance, shuffle funds around, etc, etc. It's all free, and it's all tracable since it's the actual bank.
Paying a third party electronically and then having them cut a paper cheque just sucks.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
I have paid my bills online for about 3 years now. And by online I mean by web browser, before that I used a modem and a terminal software.
All major banks in Finland offer online billing and it's actually cheaper to pay your bills online. Security is handled with SSL-encryption, user number, master password and one time transaction passwords.
- Raynet --> .
PayMyBills.com is free for me through mid-'01 due to a promotion deal. They cut a check off my bank account, so I get all the float I'd get if I'd written it out myself. And they cover postage. It's frankly cheaper than doing it myself, and I intend to keep using them even after I have to start paying for 'em, because the cost is maybe 25c a payment over and above postage, and I'm perfectly willing to pay that much for the convenience.
gomi
But, this is my major beef with them:
From the second the money comes out of your account, Wells Fargo records the bill as paid. Of course, there is a 5 day delay before your creditor receives payment, and possibly a bit longer before they say that you have paid.
This means that Wells Fargo is claiming to have paid something long before it is actually paid. They need another possible entry for the status column "payment allocated and pending" or some such.
Perhaps they should change the status to "payment cleared" after the money has actually been transferred.
Then you'll know when the creditor should has the money - and the information that he has the money.
This way Wells won't need to sound like they're doing anything less for you than with the current version, while the change will look to them like they're improving the service to their customers at essentially no cost to them (since they already have the info online and only need to get it to the display).
It's also a closer match to their current paper-based terminology. That will make the advantage more obvious to the decision makers.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I don't trust anything online as far as financial transactions go! ESPECIALLY MICROSHAFT. They have a bad history of doing what they want.
I don't like the idea of keeping my financial records on a machine I don't even have actual access too. Think about this a second. A new market can now open up. This company can now sell data on peoples buying patterns based on criteria. If you pair this with other information available out there in cyber-space, you can get a make-up of a person and their sending habits or the spending habits of a group of people.
For example, they can group information on age, race, social background and/or sell this data to companies to increase the bottomline with a more accurate profile of peoples spending habits. This data can then be used to define more specific target groups with commercials. This would reduce some of the errors in existing methods to compile such data. I would not be surprised to find out that U.S. users give a SSN.
I don't plan on going to any type of thin client, and I don't plan on moving my financial records to somebody elses computer which I don't have physical access to. Talk about big brother watching you!
At the next eco-hypocrisy-meeting, count the private jets used to get to the meeting. Should be interesting to see that
your points against the service don't make any sense.
...and bill you for doing so.
1. Have your bills sent to us.
beautiful, I don't have to look at 40 bills in the mail each month, deal with the paperwork and record keeping, and remember to mail them.
2. Give us your banking information.
If you read Paytrust's privacy and security info, you'd see that they take this VERY VERY seriously
3. We'll pay the bills from your account
well, do you expect them to pay the bills with their own money?
4.
and it's not expensive at all. The take care of the postage, sending the checks (so you don't have to pay to get more from your bank also), keep all of your bill records for you and give you an easy search query and sort functionality (I'm referring to Paytrust), in addition to reminds to pay the bill or you can set a max amount and it will automatically pay the bill for you.
5. If there's a screwup, good luck.
Paytrust has great customer service, and will probably go to one of those live online customer service companies for additional round the clock service.
6. And until your account runs out of cash, you can keep paying your bills after you're dead!
Paytrust can syncronize with your checking account and give you all sorts of notifications and tie-ins if you so desire.
Beside their blatant abuse of the letter 'e', I should also point out that the image that appeared on every single page was a shot of Netscape Navigator 4, obviously caught in the act of paying bills online.
What worries me is that the address shown in the location bar is a plain 'http' address - no https, no nothing.
If these market leaders who are teaching business how to perform commercial transactions using the internet use straight plain HTTP sans encryption, I am seriously worried.
I refuse to use on-line bill paying until such time as the cost of paying the bill goes below the price of a postage stamp. Okay, okay, I'll throw in the price of the envelope and check too. One loses the "float" by paying on-line. The bill payers also get to use that "float" to enhance their profits. Nope, I won't agree until the costs come down to reality.
Trust one of the most commonly hacked websites to PAY YOUR TAXES. Even with encryptions, can they guarantee their own people won't do anything? And codes can be cracked. Even web masters are only human (except for the wonderful and godly Commander Taco, of course.) It is possible that the code can be leaked, or figured out, etc. Anything can happen in this world of ours. Just do it yourselves. It's not as hard as everyone makes it out to be.
"As many of you know, I was very instrumental in the founding of the Internet" --Al Gore to Katie Couric 3/99
"...so I can pay bills while I'm on vacation in Hawaii!"
You really know how to live, you wildman you.
The watch analogy isn't the greatest really.
Its more like this:
Windows is ok on security. Everything is easy
and anybody could probably set it up and get it
almost as secure as anyone else...however...its
security is not "the best"
A unix system has the potential to be ALOT more
secure, and more stable. However, it requires
a competent admin. Too many places just install
and leave it. Hell, even where I work we are
"a few patch kits behind".
A system is only as good as the admins that run
it. If the admins are not security consious, then
any system it subject to fall, especially a Unix
box, even more so than an NT box because unix
systems tend to run alot more services.
(just how many NT machines sit around running
telnetd, sshd, portmapper, a host of RPC services
and whatnot....along with a webserver etc?)
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
> This is disgusting, this guys has had a valid
> argument.
Did he? All he said seems to boil down to
"Microsoft rocks and is secure, you are all
jealous"
>erybody jumps on his ass and moderates him to 0
Nothing of the sort happend, AC posts start at
score 0. It just menas his flame bait wasn't
moderated up.
> I'm just sick of the Microsoft bashing, its
> getting old, and you have no real reason to be
> bitter except for jealousy
Having both used and supported microsoft products
I feel quite justified in calling them a steaming
pile of shit.
They have earned everything thats been said.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
I do my banking online (a swedish bank). The service is OK and they don't charge me extra for doing their work (like some others).
At one time I needed proof that I had paid a bill some months back. (tax reasons). It was an impossible task for the clerk to produce some sort of proof that the bill was actually paid. Finally, after half an hour of discussion, I got a transcript of my transactions for that period, with irrelevant lines whited out. Hardly anything that would hold in court, but luckily there was no complaint from the tax office.
All opinions are my own - until criticized
I've been using Wells Fargo bill pay for over 2 years (recommended to me by my mother, of all people). It's quick and easy, but the issues are: the funds have to be in your account earlier than usual, since the money gets deducted immediately on your payment date, even though the check won't arrive at the destination for up to a week. Also, I've had problems with companies screwing up because I didn't send in that little stub they send you to attach with your bill. (YMMV, since the bill pay services now available actually receive the paperwork for you, and may well send that stub with your payment.) Even that issue though is fast becoming only a memory; I haven't had a single creditor complain about receiving electronic payment or, as in the case of my former auto insurance carrier, continuously screw up the crediting of my payments. (Screw you Western United. Geico hasn't given me any such problems.) As far as security, make sure they strongly encrypt everything, and make sure they have a strong privacy statement.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
I can't help with the float, but as for the monthly fee, skip Yahoo and head to Net.B@nk. They offer free payment through Checkfree, and no monthly fee for bill payment or for their standard checking account, which pays ~3% annually. The local banks around here (Boston) can't touch them. Disclaimer: I don't work for them, just a (mostly) satisfied customer.
Most utilities and many debt collections offer EFT, Check by Phone, and the ilk. Why would anyone need a service like this if the utility will do it for them? These services all seem so simple and offer the same features as using a credit card...or do they?
Credit Cards offer a degree of protection either via laws or Credit Card Company policies.
EFT does not. In fact in most cases you have no recourse. For example, for a credit card companies require serious credit checks to even obtain a merchant account. Payment are delayed in case of fraud, and a minium ammount of money must be left in the transfer account to cover refunds. With EFT there is no credit check. No special equiptment. In fact I can go down to Office Depot, pick up blank check stock, and print out checks if I have your routing and account numbers.
And you know what? You don't have any recourse. Sure, you can ask the police to track down the person for Check Fraud. If they have any assets maybe a few months later you can get a lean against thier bank. But for the most part once it's gone it's gone.
Credit cards and (in most states) debit cards have liability limits of 50 bucks. There will be some hassle but you know you're entire account won't get cleaned out.
But what about "honest" companies? Got a charged slammed on the phone bill? Guess what it's already been paid before you can dispute it. If they don't want to help you dispute it your only recourse is court.
People should get in the habbit of protecting check just like they protect the SSN or a credit card number.
The best solution is to have one of these companies pay your bills via a credit card. You just keep track of one single bill to pay each month.
Yesterday near my Work Onmoney had a promotional giveaway in the form of Cash and an SUV. I checked the site out, signed up, and the first account I tried to import, Blue, from American Express, it couldn't download the statement for. If I can only do some accounts and not others, what's the point? Previous experience with online banks are bad. Mispellings when I signed my own name, half-encrypted pages, etc. I cancelled the account...
fslg503-985-8686503-985-8686503-985-8686503-985-8
...I've had mostly good experiences, with only one technical glitch. One of the checks they mailed (yes, they use actual paper and mail it to the payee) was malformed; it had extraneous digits across the bottom, *below* the ABA routing information.
The credit card I was paying sent it through the ABA system, and got it back with a cryptic error message; something like "Invalid draft". They promptly sent me a note saying that they'd revoke my credit card if I bounced another check (!). It took about two months of faxes, xeroxes, letters, and phone calls to convince them that it was not indeed a bounced check.
Other than that, the one thing I'd caution people about is that it makes it more difficult to balance your checkbook. If you've got infinite money in the account, it's perfect. But if you get into scheduling recurring payments or payments a month or two in advance, it's hard to know what your true balance is without finding web access and checking out the pending payments. A minor annoyance, but it does complicate life.
-b
If I wanted a sig I would have filled in that stupid box.
www.badassmofo.com
The software runs on Win3.1 (or higher) and requires a 386 with 4mb ram. I've seen it, and it stunk.
I'm about to switch banks anyway, since they wouldn't let my 8 months pregnant wife use their restroom. They made her go across the road to McDonald's. Wonderful customer service they have, like there aren't at least 15 different banks in our small town of 56,000.
I am also from Canadian, but living in the States now, and I still can't believe how primitive the banking system down here is. I used to expect the US to be pretty high-tech, but it seems like when it comes to any kind of consumer technology, they're anywhere from 2-5 years behind where Canada is (and many European countries as well). For example, in Canada we've had widespread high-speed Internet access for about 3 years now, and some cities have had cable modems for 4-5 years. In the US, there are still numerous large cities that don't have affordable high-speed net access. Even where it is offered, it's usually twice as expensive as in Canada. As far as banking goes, I still have a Canadian bank account, and I've used Internet banking for 4 years now. That includes payment of all my bills, and the service is free.
Down here, I do have online banking now, but all I can do is view my balances and account history, and transfer money between accounts. They don't have a proper debig card system in the States either. My bank does have VISA check cards now, which are like debit cards but can be used anywhere VISA can be used. That's ok, and a lot of people are using that now, but it's even less secure than regular VISA, which makes me pretty uneasy. If someone gets my card, they can just start spending and the money comes directly out of my account. Meanwhile, I can't even remember the last time I actually made a cash purchase in Canada - it's a lot easier to pay for everything by Interac. In the US, I constantly see people walking around with their little check-books (with ID on front). It's pretty common to see people paying by cheque at supermarkets. It's very weird, because I think it's been about 10 years since I saw anyone pay for their groceries by chque in Canada. I've even seen people pay by check at my company's cafeteria. It's pretty bizarre.
Actually I do the same thing, only one step further. I have all my recurring charges go to my citibank visa, and then i have that account setup that it automatically pays in full every month. Two advantages over your way of doing things. Firstly, I float my bills for 30 additional days, and secondly, it's an extra couple grand a month helping my credit record.
----------------------------
before some criminal(s) steal a lot of money from a bunch of online bank accounts. I have no problem giving out my credit card #s online, because there's a legal limit to my liability if it's stolen. But if your bank accounts are looted, you're probably going to be stuck. And it _will_ happen, eventually, to someone.
I use Security First Network Bank and it works pretty well. It's a complete bank, replacing the brick and mortar variant for me. See below for the only drawback I see with this approach.
:-) of actual checks you have written.
:-( Worst of all, they could easily send email when the check is received and when it clears, but they don't; you have to check your account periodically to find out. I left the stamp and return address off one check I mailed in, and it took a month before I was convinced it hadn't arrived (took the PO 2 mohths to send it back). Had to stop the old check, get a new check, etc.
I chose this bank over the brick and mortars about 3 years ago, because the brick and mortars use custom software, which not only does not work under Linux, but also has to be installed on a computer. SFNB works from any web browser. Perhaps things have changed since then.
There's a button on their site for "Pay Bills". It brings up a table of payees you have set up. You fill in the amount for the ones you want to pay, and change the pay date if you want, or leave it at the default earliest possible Then click SUBMIT and it sets up the transactions. I find it incredibly easy compared to writing checks, adding stamps, and mailing the payments.
Setting up a new payee is a minor nuisance. They need name, address, phone number, and account id. From then on it's very easy to deal with. You can set up regular payments, with various intervals (weekly, monthly, semi-monthly, etc). I collect my credit card, utility, etc bills once every week or two and do them all at once.
They supply an ATM card. No extra charge at grocery stores, most gas stations, etc. Brick and mortar banks will nick you for actually using their ATMs, so I just get cash back from the grocery stores.
I dump the "register" of transactions periodically in case they try to do something incredibly stupid such as change things. You can annotate transactions. They include GIFs of the front and back (I think both
The only drawback in this case is having to mail in deposits; it can be a couple of weeks before you see the funds
I don't like their password policy; it has to be changed every few months, and if you forget the new one, you have to call them up and they snail mail a new password, so there go several days at least with no access. I have tried sending email about how this does not improve security. If someone wants to clean out my account, changing the password twice a year won't do squat to prevent it. It will only stop someone taking small amounts once in a while, and then only when the password changes. In that case, it's my own fault for not monitoring my account. But they persist.
And even more minor, the data entry field checking is very anal about the exact format of phone numbers and such.
But I will keep the account, as it makes most transactions much easier, and I don't deposit a lot of checks, and don't live paycheck to paycheck anyway. And electronic deposit of paychecks happens overnight anyway.
--
Infuriate left and right
Well, it's not a problem with the service but rather a problem with how other companies deal with it. My housemate is currently looking at buying his own house. And therefore is spending a lot of time dealing with lenders and mortgage companies. One problem that has come up is that for christmass this year his parents decided that rather than buy him a gift they would add him to one of their credit cards and let him buy his own gift.
However now that he's applying for a home loan he needs to prove his credit and sources of income. And that card is causing some major problems. His mother who's the main cardholder has been paying it with a direct deposit from her bank account. And the morgtage company won't accept the card as being paid for unless they can see the actuall payments. But all his mom gets is her bank statement showing the money being transfered. And since that's from her main savings account she is not willing to provide them with the entire statement.
The lending company won't even accept the bank statements with everything but the payments they're interested in whited out. He tried sending copies of the Card bill showing no balance and showing that previous payments had been received but they won't accept that. They only know how to deal with cancled checks....and there simply aren't any.
Of course this is more complicated than normal since he's just an extra card holder and not the main person on the account. But it is something to watch for.
--- Juggle juggle@hitesman.com
That's a good point. But one thing that I haven't seen addressed at all yet is liability. When I was given CheckFree software as a gift one year, I looked into the agreement carefully. I threw the software away when I got to the part that released CheckFree from any liability whatsoever should a bill not be paid on time.
Now I can understand there are many ways the liability would fall on me. But if I am relying on another service to pay my bills, and they introduce a delay, or send payment to the wrong party, or [god forbid] get cracked, I don't want to be the one that gets stung.
So... sorry, but no thanks. It only takes me an hour or so each month to manage my finances, so until a time comes that a bill paying service will stand behind their service and admit their fault when they screw up, I'd rather just do it myself. I retain all liability, but then, I'm the one in control.
I can see the fnords!
As former support agent for an online bill payment FI, I have seen some of the major problems with some of the payment forms. Some payments are cut as checks and mailed out to the payees. Others are made as an electronic payment to the payee. Ironicaly it seems that the EFT (electronic funds transfer) transactions are the one that are most pron to problems. You will make a payment that might get mis-applied to a different account or lost or something. You will then be required by the payee to submit proof of payment. This usually means that you have to show a front and back copy of a canceled check. When the payment is made by EFT this is, of course, impossible. A claim is then required to be submitted to the EFT originator. A claim agent will get the EFT transaction number and fax it to the payee. Sometimes it is nearly impossible to see where the funds were mis-applied. Most of the time those companies that accept EFT payments are able to fix any problems fairly quickly, but when an EFT is made that consists of thousands of payments all at one time, some fall through the cracks. The online banking industry is getting better all the time but it still needs some work. More than once the only way to get your payment to certain people is to mail it like times of old. Once industries start to have better accountability of their online payments the system will function better. I do know some people that only use online payment for all bills. They seem to be very happy with the current services.
it is better to light a flame thrower than curse the darkness. -Terry Pratchett Men at Arms
...reputation for manipulation, their abysmal quality standards, and their obvious lack of concern for security, lest we be accused of hypocrisy?
No, thanks.
Geeky modern art T-shirts
It does require an additional password beyond one's regular Yahoo! password, so that's a slightly extra level of security...but, I've come to realize nothing is truely secure
BillPay was simple to implement...we still recieve our bills, we just use it to pay them.
I can even get in through my Palm/OmniSky combo, so I can pay bills while I'm on vacation in Hawaii!
Give a hand, not a hand-out.
When I get home, all the coins in my pocket just get tossed into my Klein bottle.
-CausticPuppy "Of all the people I know, you're certainly one of them." -Somebody I don't know
I'm really surprised I'm the first to post saying there's no way I'd ever let any of these folks get their hooks in my checking account.
I'm further surprised that people who are ostensibly concerned about privacy, abuse of information, and tracking via banner ad cookies are all so willing to give complete strangers the right to take money from thier account.
Although I have credit cards, I refuse to allow any automated withdrawals from my accounts, and I refuse to ever have a debit card for the same reason. If you're going to do this, think seriously about it first, and decide if your freedom, privacy, and possibly your assets are a good exchange for a little convenience. C'mon, how long does it take to pay bills with a checkbook for cryin' out loud? At least by looking at them, I'm less likely to get ripped off - like the extra $78 one company tried to take just recently. Also, as someone pointed out elsewhere, I *have* my cancelled checks - this comes in handy when Postal Service employees steal checks out of the envelope and cash them, as happened last year. I had a paper trail that helped put the bastards away for a long time. If someone swipes cash from me electronically, it's just plain gone - heck they can't even audit legitimate transactions, how well do you think they'll find fraud?
Anything that is a direct vacuum hose into your account is a real and significant risk! Just ask my brother, who shortly after graduating from college had over $5000 stolen on a debit card with no recourse. (I understand this was such aproblem that there is some recourse now, but we all pay for that fraud protection in higher prices.) The theives spent his account dry, automatic overdraft protection from the Visa kicked in, and then they exhausted his remaining credit limit. All in less than twelve hours and without physical possesion of his card.
As an IT professional, I realize that the technology, processes, and laws for performing these kinds of transactions safely and securely are years, if not decades away. Even less intrusive/automatic things like Quicken are not so innocuous: A friend recently had a very tough time in an IRS audit after his computer crashed - he paid his bills electronically and had no records of his expenditures. He figures that mistake cost him maybe $15,000. You can buy a lot of stamps for that.
I suppose the people who use online bill paying are signed up for their local grocery store's affliate card program and have debit cards. (There's a particularly insidious affiliate card program run by Randall's grocery stores here in Texas: in order to avoid exorbitant prices and have the privilege of cashing or writing a check, you have to have their "Remarkable (Ripoff)" card, which identifies you and your purchases with every use.) Where do you think that data goes? If you think they're not building a dtabase of your particular buying habits in their data warehouse, you're incredibly naive. It's none of Randall's business what I in particular buy (although my purchases are not particularly interesting) - the only thing they need to know is what everyone has bought *in aggregate* from the store, but that's not nearly so valuable for marketing purposes. You can't have privacy and that sort of data collection, which is one reason I'll never carry a smart card, like the new blue card AMEX is pushing so hard.
Bottom Line: you either care about privacy or you don't. If you do, act on it, and refuse to give up your rights (because that is exactly what you're doing if you sign up for these services.
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
I personally have never used any of these services. I do, however, do 100% of my bill paying online through my bank. This bill paying is free, instantanious, and convienent. Also, I have neever had a problem with security, an unauthorized payment, or any of that nonsense.
While i live in Canada, I fid it hard, nay possible to believe that none of the larger US banks offer free online bill payment. It would only make sense for them to do so, fo rthe simple reason that it helps the customer AND cuts their costs at the same time.
I would reccomend online bill payment to anyone, but I wouldnt go through a seperate company and pay for it. Check out other banks, there must be one that has the options you need./p.I was using Wells Fargo for a while and it worked fine, but these new services are an order of mangitude more than that.
I evaluated Paytrust, Statusfactory and Paymybills and went with Paymybills. They seemed to have things the most together, and on top of it they had a free promotion.
These services receive your paper bills for you, scan them, OCR them and shred them. For me, this is the huge win, not just writing the checks. They can thus automate even variable bills while still giving you manual intervention, soemthing you can't do with EFT bills arranged with the phone or power company.
I got tired of filing all that paper, let alone writing all the checks. paymybills is going to send me a CD with all my bills at year's end for a $25 fee, and that is all I'll file.
Paytrust was seriously lacking in some areas. It doesn't even offer you an archive. Statusfactory wants $50 for the CD.
All of them need to offer instead an ability to download (or have mailed to you) archives of the actual GIFs of your bills. They might go out of business and then you wouldn't get the CD.
It would be nice if they also could handle statements like airline frequent flyer mile statements, health insurance payment notices and other things that clutter my mailbox.
They need to learn how to use encrypted e-mail and just mail me the bill plus ready-to-use URLs.
But this is a huge step forward. Though they plan it to be a temporary one. As more and more people use this, their plan is to get all the billers to just send electronic bills to the bill handlers, and that's fine with me.
One positive feature about the Wells Fargo bill-pay however -- if you use it to send an ordinary check to somebody, they get a check drawn not on your account but on Wells Fargo Bank. That's almost as good as a certified check, and it's free.
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation