How do you pay your cards?

[Anonymous]

wanting confirmation numbers is just paranoid to me. show me one instance where someone needed to actually use that number

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

wanting confirmation numbers is just paranoid to me. show me one instance where someone needed to actually use that number

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I just used one not even two months ago.  I made a $500+ payment to one of my two BofA cards.  The only one with a balance, for the exact amount of that balance.  They put it on the wrong card.  They used the confirmation number I had to verify that they screwed up, not me.  Still took two weeks to fix, but I pay before the closing date, so the only bad thing that happened was that it actually reported the balance to the CRA's.

I manage a call center for a Telecommunications company.  While I am actually on the Tech Support side of things, I still have to deal with customer service nonsense quite often.  Banks **bleep** up payments all the time, I see it every week.  And while it can be tracked in certain ways...usually...it takes a heck of a lot longer.

When BofA screws up payments, which they do all the time, it has to be escalated through the Accounting dept to track down the payment by the amount, if it was even made at all.  We don't know what account they paid, and neither do they.  So it has to be tracked by the confirmation number (batch #).  But when that payment is coming in via paper check or 3rd party ACH...nobody was there to give that number to.  If your payment gets screwed up and you call us up with a confirmation number, any rep you get can look that up in five seconds and tell you what went wrong.

Your confirmation number is your receipt.  I keep those for a bit too.  Sure, I just toss them in a box and shred them every few months.  But there's been a time or two where I had to go digging for one.

[ReVeLaTeD]

Yeah see, I don't play that.

EVERY credit card payment I have is issued through my online bill pay.  For those, I use Citibank.  And I've found that it really does depend on how advanced your bank's online bill pay service is.  Cabrillo Credit Union's bill pay app is in the stone ages.  Don't know about USAA as something rubs me the wrong way about them.

In Citibank, to set up a new payee, I simply tell them it's a credit card, give them the full number.  They know exactly where it's going 99% of the time and they send it electronically to the correct destination.  Come time to issue payments, I go to Express and just set the amounts and the dates.  Payments are generally credited 2-3 days later.  

Been using the service for nearly three years and never has a payment been missed or not applied, even the ones that didn't get sent electronically (Rewards660, I believe, was the only one still requiring check payments).  My credit union's credit card is even easier - I can do a next day transfer directly to the credit union, then make the payment.

The only account I "pull" funds for - and I do it only so that I get points on my debit card - is Verizon Wireless.  I could pay them via Bill Pay too, but since they take MasterCard I find it much smarter to just use them to accrue rewards points paying them directly.

[scottwagnon]

100% online pull. it just simply makes the most sense. the exception to this is my wells fargo being my bank, i just transfer from checking to credit.

[scottwagnon]

+1

[scottwagnon]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I pull from the CC website every time.  Not a chance that I'd ever push payments to credit cards.  I want a confirmation number, from the company that I actually owe money to, as proof that they can reference saying  I made the payment.  I don't want a confirmation number from my bank that means nothing to my creditors.  When something goes wrong, which it does all the time...you'll know why I do this.  Sure, your bank will take care of late fees if they make a mistake, and they'll do all sorts of stuff to fix any errors...but your CC isn't going to care.  They'll just see they didn't get a payment on time.

Of course, I pay early enough to where this isn't really an issue, but still...I prefer to deal with my creditors directly, not through a third party.

Plus it is simply faster, and I log into their sites all the time anyway checking transactions, rewards, and watching for special offers.

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+1

[clocktick]

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@Anonymous wrote:

wanting confirmation numbers is just paranoid to me. show me one instance where someone needed to actually use that number

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@Anonymous wrote:

wanting confirmation numbers is just paranoid to me. show me one instance where someone needed to actually use that number

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I had to use one.  I paid in full my now ex (GEMB) Paypal card and kept the confirmation number like I always do.  After the due date one day I received multiple calls from them while I was at work.  I finally got around to calling them back only to have the CSR question why I haven't paid the card at all and asking me to make a payment right then and there.  I told him I had no balance and the card was paid in full and on time.  His tone suggested he didn't believe me.  I found and provided the confirmation number, along with the date and time I paid (I always do screenshots of the "print this page for your records" page).  After putting me on hold he came back and apologized.  I never found out what happened on THEIR end.  I also never thought me wanting a confirmation number was paranoid.  Computers "make" mistakes too.  I'd rather have it be on their end then on mine. 

To answer the OP, I pull! 

[barbaralee]

I always pay on my BoA web bill pay. There was only one mess up and it was completely my fault (I sent in a payment to my apartment rather than Sprint). I just like sitting down and being able to pay all of my bills in one place, and not going to this cc's website, and that cc's website. Plus BoA has a great web bill pay. The only exception is my utility bill and my savings tranfers to my Amex savings account. Both of these I do over the phone with a rep. Amex's has great customer service for their personal savings accounts, btw. I don't like USAA's site at all.