You mean: Always read your bills - especially if you have auto-pay.

What was this, another case of the account number and the amount getting swapped in the data entry form?

Autopay is great, on two very important conditions: a) it is arranged through your bank (one website, one login for all the bills) and b) you can specify the exact amount or cap the amount.

Here is a page from Commonwealth Edison's website:

[www.coned.com]

Put your horse back in it's stall;)

It's not a service, it's electricity.

And they're returning all the money and paying any overdraft fees it caused. Problem solved.

Get off your horse now.

"This is why I don't have a bank account, I just keep all my cash under my mattress. Why put your money somewhere someone can steal it?"

Now I know where your money is! *rubs hands together, smiling evilly* >:)

Seriously, the only autopay I have is on Netflix. If they mess up, I'll cancel it so fast their heads will spin around. Autopay on bills would screw me up bad on months that I have to juggle. Yes, I qualify for that "2 paychecks away from disaster" group.

I just write a check and a couple of bills I pay online (but not automatically). I just got a great deal on these cool Batman checks. I can't wait til I use up the ones I have now. :)

That wouldn't be Micro Focus Netmanage Rumba, would it?

That's all I can find regarding that, and it's just a terminal emulator. If it is, it is just providing a windows interface to a (likely very expensive) mainframe computer.

Which, IMHO, doesn't make an app bad or good. In fact, I find most GUI interfaces tend to be designed by, well... I don't want to use the r-bomb. :D

I use a "budget plan" on my utility bill so it's roughly the same amount every month. I then schedule payments to them for the correct amount.

Always keep control of the purse strings, this is why I never use a checking linked credit card as well. If anything is on auto-pay it's going through a CC ( that I pay every month anyways ).

@aisley: Xcel is not a bank, it's a utility company, and by wiped out the bill I assumed thye meant the million dollar bill, thus refunding the money

You should find a better bank that will let you pay bills to an account not at their bank.

@JGKojak:

Got it right JGK! How come if I go to a gas station and pay at the pump with my debit card, the bank freezes ALL my funds for 48-72 hours? The first and only time this happened to me was on a pay day, for $25 of gas and few pounds of ground beef. They froze ALL my paycheck for $25? But then they go ahead and debit $1.28 million to that woman's restaurant account? Shoot, I know she has more money in her business account that me in my small mousy account; but one thing is for sure, she's not Bernard Maddof, she doesn't have that much money! I guess!!

I too pay my bills with my credit card and then pay my credit card with online bill payment. However, I'm surprised your kids' colleges still allow credit card payments. I know a number of colleges have stopped doing that in recent years because they don't want to pay processing fees and they know that everyone is just doing it for the miles.

@edwardso:

Am I getting it wrong here? The company did not refunded the money. They just returned what they stole. And on the overdraft charges, it sounds to me, at the time of this story, that they still haven't paid that!

"wiped out the bill and HAS PROMISED to pay any overdraft charges,"

Do not believe in banks promises. Didn't Citibank asked for taxpayer money; got it free and clear, and now reported that they got net profits during 2009 first quarter?

@ideagirl:

Wait a second Idea, you pay all your bills in July? Huha! You must pay a heck of a late fees bill...

never do autopay for utilities or phone bills.

So - as you do in this economy - we opted to save a grand and just sign up for AUTOPAY. And would you guess it - the VERY NEXT MONTH we were overcharged by just under $7000. Yes - 7 THOUSAND. (on a bill that normally runs about $800 monthly)

Even after the ERROR was figured out (they had charged us for an entire extra rotation on our meter because we didn't use as much energy as they thought we should have used) Excel was UNAPOLOGETIC and claimed that it was our estimated total and that they HAD THE RIGHT to take that money from our bank account. When asked to return it they put is through the ringer - it took a week and they would not allow us to talk to their accounting department AT ALL.

Customer service was the WORST. The phone rep was yelling at US on the phone because we asked that the surplus from the charge be put back in our account and the over-draft fees be returned.

Currently Excel has not reimbursed us for any overdraft fees or issued any form of apology.

... that requires banks to refuse any automatic payment that exceeds the money currently in the account, unless the account holder specifically authorized overdraft for autopays, and then only up to the amount in that authorization. Banks should also allow account holders to set specific limits on each autopay.

How is this any different?

Furthermore, WHAT BANK IN THEIR RIGHT MIND PAYS A CHARGE THAT ALLOWS AN ACCOUNT TO BE A MILLION DOLLARS OVERDRAWN?????????

jesus - why oh why do people set up their BANK ACCOUNTS for bill payment?

That's like giving someone the keys to your house and saying "take what you need" from my desk drawer.

Write a friggen check. With ING, Chase, and other banks you can have it sent directly from your bank (via your bank site) so you don't even have to write a check, hunt down a stamp or mail it.

Does it sound like a smart idea to grand unrestricted acess your your checking account to an organization whos only purpose is to acquire money?

Didnt think so.
15 minutes to send a bill, or 2 weeks dealing with the company and the bank when crap like this hits the fan.

What makes me most aghast is that the bank allowed a $1 mil overdraft? Which was apparently four times what the customer had in their account. With all the scams out there, you would think that a $1.28 million check would have raised a red flag at the bank!

THIS!!

A transaction this large should have returned "Insufficient Funds" to the program running the debit action, which would have denied it and flagged an administrator to look at it, or at the very least send a notice to the customer.

BTW, who's doing Xcel's math? Is it Verizon?
".8¢/KWH and $8 per KWH are the same if you look at them on paper-wise!"

Autopay is very risky - especially to those who don't balance a checkbook. That's also why I never use a debit card. It's very easy to forget to note how much you're paying.

I should also mention my father was a banker. I overdrew my bank account...once. I received a note at school to skip football practice after school and head downtown to my father's office. When I arrived, the women at the front desk were being unusually nice to me. Dad called me into his office, slammed the door, and let's just say I have never overdrawn my bank account since.

Autopay is okay....IF...you can do it with a credit card. I have every bill set to autopay with my credit card. The ONLY one that doesn't autopay is my Kohls Credit card. I pay phone, tv, internet, gas, electric, cell phone, etc all with my credit card. I even pay my kids college tuition on the credit card.

So once a month I log in to my credit card, review my statement and pay it. I then login to Kohls and pay it. 2 logins a month to pay over 10+ bills. Plus I get miles toward a trip. And yes I do pay my bill in FULL every month.

So moral of the story...yes use Autopay IF and only IF you can tie to a credit card that is paid in full every month.

Rick

I agree...autopay is just a bad idea all around. When the company makes a mistake, you're left to spend hours fighting for money that never should have been taken in the first place.

I use online billpay through my credit union. Takes me all of 2 minutes, and I know exactly how much is coming out, when I request it to be sent, and I dont have to worry that some idiot company is overdrawing my account by $1 million.

Good news is the company involved is very good about notifying me in advance of a payment amount change (lately due to interest rates dropping, it has dropped a ton!).

I have my Bank of America account alerts setup so I instantly know when this bill is processed and money is taken from my account, so I can quickly call the bank and the loan company if something is amiss. So far (knock on wood), everything looks right.

@Saboth: IIRC, you don't have to mail anyone anything most of the time these days. You can either do it online or in person at the bank. You just have to at some point goto the bank and have that company added to a list of billing accounts you can pay though them (if they offer that service). It's basically "autopay" except you have to initiate the transfer rather them grabbing the cash themselves.

I use autopay because I've gotten sufficiently overwhelmed at times that there was more risk of financial penalty from late payment than there was of autopay going bad. I did have a similar seven-digit power bill several years back, but fortunately it got corrected before the deduction came.

Personally, I like not having gas bill surprises in the winter and electric bill surprises in the summer.

That said, I always CAREFULLY check my usage each month and read the bills.

How about blame the bank?

For everyday folk... it should NEVER be possible to overdraft (puts pinky to lips) ONE MILLION DOLLARS!

I mean... the computer program should limit overdrafts to $1000 or so (actually they shouldn't be allowed at all, but if they're going to be allowed...) or...

On autopay, allow people to set their own limits for how much they allow to be paid -- i.e. if my elec bill is normally $100, I'll allow $200, but no more, to be withdrawn.

Now to blaming Xcel. That is just poor poor poor business system they are running. Heck my billing dept is a month behind schedule cleaning up accounts and they are still notified if a bill unusually high goes through thanks to a simple computer program. I don't know its name but it is pretty simple, cause the system is MS-DOS for the program that is in use. Plug a number in too high and it says it is too high given the normal history.
How they ever let a bill like that get out is just embarrassing.

The good news is that excel refunded her money and overdrafts and she got free publicity for her restaurant

I am in control of how much money I send out to each company and when they receive it. Since I pick the date the recipient receives the money, the money stays in my account until the due date.

I have been using it for over 2 years. It saves a lot of time and postage so it is worth the $8 to me.

you evidently have much more time on your hands than some of us do. Every July I sit down and add up my bills for the previous year, then set an auto pay from my account for that amount plus 10%. I have never been short, and I have never ended up negative at the end of that year. It is much less stressful than worrying about how that extra $200 is going to "work for me."

It'S a balance even...

@sodomanaz: It a balance - is the convenience of autopay worth the occassional hassle of having to dispute a bill?

For me the convenience is worth it as I only autopay from a credit card. That way I have NFCU and Amex on my side to fight my fights.

Never ever give anyone the ability to arbitrarily grab money out of your bank account. In this case, it was pretty obviously an error, and the company acted promptly to fix it. But if it hadn't been autopay, the customer would have noticed it immediately, and never had to go through the hassle of bounced checks, etc.