topic Re: Auto-PIF Function in Credit Cards

Auto-PIF Function

Anonymous — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 16:57:08 GMT

So I got sick and tired of sitting down and typing in my credit card statement balance into Navy Federal BP each and every month. Since my Navy Federal card is set to automatically PIF from my checking account on the 29th of each month, I tried to do the same for my other cards.

Discover was relatively easy. I just called in, told them what I wanted to do, they transferred me to someone who knew how to do it, and they told me the web address and offered to walk me through the process (I didn't need their help, it was pretty self-explanatory). I told it to PIF my balance each month on the 29th.

AmEx was a bit tougher. I called in, explained what I wanted to do, and they sent me a form that I'm going to have to mail back. No word yet on whether or not I can pick the date on which I can pay. It's nice to have them all pay on the same date so I can just go online a few days afterwards, check my statements, make sure they're accurate and let them take the money right out of my account.

Re: Auto-PIF Function

Creditaddict — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 18:05:02 GMT

oh what it would be like to auto pay full balance on ALL my credit cards! hehe

Re: Auto-PIF Function

Anonymous — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 18:20:29 GMT

Several posters have had issues with auto PIF. I would check each month, just to make sure. Last thing you want is a late.

Re: Auto-PIF Function

Anonymous — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 19:24:42 GMT

cobra19 wrote:
Several posters have had issues with auto PIF. I would check each month, just to make sure. Last thing you want is a late.

Thanks for the heads-up. I was actually thinking about that. I'd think if I watch it for the first couple of months, if everything's going alright, I can just let it go unchecked. If it screws up after that, I can just blame it on them.

Re: Auto-PIF Function

CodeMonkey — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 19:31:35 GMT

You are a far, far, far, far, FAR more trusting person than I.

Even in the absence of any nefarious intent, one typo on the part of any one person along the line and your finances could be hosed up for months.

Having spent quite a bit of time dealing with the fallout of such things in the past, I don't even allow anyone direct access to my checking account, period - I have a secondary checking account from which I send EFT payments, and transfer exactly that amount from my primary account right before I make the payment. The secondary account has an overdraft limit of $0.00, so if they try to withdraw more than I gave them permission for, the transaction bounces instantly - much easier to sort out with the bank than a negative balance in your primary checking account, and who knows how many other bounces, overdrafts, service fees, etc. Also, you don't have to worry about tracking down the "accidentally" appropriated funds.

Good luck - hopefully you'll have a better experience with that than I did.

Re: Auto-PIF Function

Anonymous — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 19:39:52 GMT

I use it, but verify payment after. Makes life so much easier, but you need to have some cash in the bank at all times....!!!

Re: Auto-PIF Function

CodeMonkey — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 19:46:23 GMT

To elaborate - last year, I made a rent payment online, like I always do, in the amount of $1371.17.

I received the email receipt, as always, showing the amount - it was entered correctly.

The next day, someone in their finance department made a "typo" - entering 1371177.

So, they withdrew $13,711.77 from my checking account.

At the time I was a heavy debit card user - so instantly I was in the red. I had, I kid you not, 27 separate overdraft fees in the span of about 3 days before my bank thought "hmm, gee, something doesn't look right here - maybe we should freeze the checking account and give him a call??"

It took me about three months and probably as many years off my lifespan due to stress and embarrassment to get the whole thing sorted out - even though the whole thing was completely and totally their mistake!

This was also one of my big motivators to move away from debit cards or EFT transactions and to start using credit cards exclusively for all my expenses - even if something goes terribly wrong, it isn't "my money" that's being hosed up right away - so I have a 30-some-odd-day window to get things fixed before my liquid reserves have to suffer.

I admire trusting people - and I'm not trying to bag on you - just pointing out to anyone considering doing this sort of thing that even if something is "not their fault," they will still generally end up dealing with the resulting fallout.

Message Edited by CodeMonkey on 09-03-2008 12:46 PM

Re: Auto-PIF Function

Anonymous — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 20:37:13 GMT

I will hear you Code Money! But, I have to agree with pizza on this one. Even if, god forbid, someone does screw up and it bounces on my checking account, I'll have the opportunity to correct it and from then on it'll be one less thing to worry about.

I have my credit cards set-up to automatically pay my bills each month, so automatically having my credit cards paid will take so much off my mind!

Of course that isn't to say I won't be keeping an eye on all of the automated payments during the first few months of this and whenever I add another bill or credit card. But hey, I'd rather worry about it now, and then never again after that!

Re: Auto-PIF Function

haulingthescoreup — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 23:45:26 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:

@Anonymous wrote:
Several posters have had issues with auto PIF. I would check each month, just to make sure. Last thing you want is a late.

Thanks for the heads-up. I was actually thinking about that. I'd think if I watch it for the first couple of months, if everything's going alright, I can just let it go unchecked. If it screws up after that, I can just blame it on them.

OMG, I really, really hope you're joking here. Really, really, really.

We've had too many members who thought that they had everything on autopilot, only to have something blow up on the bank's end. And very few banks will say, oops, my bad.

He's joking people, really.

Re: Auto-PIF Function

Watchmann — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 00:51:30 GMT

You are brave to set up a PIF order on an account that will always be changing in value. I have accounts set up to take my money out each month on a continuous basis (mortgage, car, life insurance), but those are set amounts and don't change month to month, so less chance of a goof up. But I would not want charge cards or revolvers to have access to my bank account.

I don't think sitting down once a month and manually typing in an amount in your Bill Payer is asking too much. But maybe you are a busy individual and just don't have the time.

Message Edited by Watchmann on 09-03-2008 07:51 PM

Re: Auto-PIF Function

Anonymous — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 03:54:23 GMT

My Bill pay at my CU pulls the CC bills in auto-

I do PUSH my payments to the creditors- I do have the option to auto-pay and I do this with companies the CU can't pull bills from- Auto loan and mortgage-

They send me and email, I reconcile the statement in MS Money and set the payment date and $ amount.

With savings, 10K CC and 50K HELOC - I really don't need to worry about bouncing anything-

I gave up on AUTO EFT's FROM my checking several years ago when USwest pulled 18K for my cell phone bill.

Re: Auto-PIF Function

Anonymous — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 04:29:34 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
So I got sick and tired of sitting down and typing in my credit card statement balance.....

No offense, but it takes me 10 seconds to log into any one of my card's online accounts and about 30 seconds to make a payment....the process takes about a minute, maybe a few seconds more total.

You will find yourself getting even more "sick and tired" checking the sites all the time to make sure your payments were payed or not....at least you should do this unless you could care less about a late.

So.....60 seconds of being "sick and tired" or spending just as much time (most likely MORE) checking to see if a payment was made...and extra worry...and a possible late if you don't check.

Hmmmmm.......

Re: Auto-PIF Function

MsKiwi — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 06:06:27 GMT

Timothy wrote:

I gave up on AUTO EFT's FROM my checking several years ago when USwest pulled 18K for my cell phone bill.

<-------------- Faints

Re: Auto-PIF Function

Anonymous — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 15:57:53 GMT

Well, it's not like every time I have a payment due someone on the other end is physically typing in the amount to be debited from my checking account. The system reads the amount due and then debits THAT amount from the account.

Once it's set-up to do this, it's not like someone will go in and change a decimal point or something to have 10x the amount deducted from my account just to make my life more difficult.

Also, it's unlikely that someone who has everything go smoothely in terms of setting-up and auto-PIF will take the time to find a forum such as this and post about their success in setting-up an auto-PIF. It is also unlikely that someone who is already on the forum will post regarding a success. It is FAR more likely that someone whose auto-PIF got goofed up gets on and complains about how poorly they work.

I feel like these screw-ups are less the rule and more the exception. And, once everything works out for me (Assuming it does), I will be sure to post to let you know how everything turned out, especially if it turned out well.

Re: Auto-PIF Function

CodeMonkey — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 17:47:38 GMT

Well - you don't actually know this. And whether or not someone is entering the number manually, or a software program that someone wrote is doing it (and being a programmer myself I am always leery of automated systems, knowing what I know about the average code quality of most application developers - spaghetti!) - there is a human element involved. Humans make mistakes. Mistakes when you're dealing with your primary cache of liquid assets are very, very, very, very bad.

@Anonymous wrote:
Well, it's not like every time I have a payment due someone on the other end is physically typing in the amount to be debited from my checking account. The system reads the amount due and then debits THAT amount from the account.
>

Re: Auto-PIF Function

Anonymous — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 20:12:45 GMT

CodeMonkey wrote:
Well - you don't actually know this. And whether or not someone is entering the number manually, or a software program that someone wrote is doing it (and being a programmer myself I am always leery of automated systems, knowing what I know about the average code quality of most application developers - spaghetti!) - there is a human element involved....

Well, fancy you should mention this. I used to work for a student loan company in the loan servicing department and one of my jobs was to take the ACH forms submitted by people along with their loan packet and enter their information into the system.

I would type in their bank information and it would deduct the proper payment each month. Out of the thousands of forms I processed (About 50-100 each day , I goofed up probably 1 out of every 1000 forms.

Eventually we developed an automated system where customers would go online and enter the information themselves, at which point it became THEIR responsibility to enter their correct account information.

ANYWAY. The moral of the story is that you only hear complaints about this sort of stuff when something goes wrong, so for every 1 person who complained about it, there are probably 999 people out there who didn't have an issues with it.

Re: Auto-PIF Function

CodeMonkey — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 20:16:28 GMT

Sure - why risk being that 1 person in 1,000 they "goof up"?

Especially considering the ROI you're talking about here, time-wise - you're going to have to verify payment is posted anyhow (unless you don't mind lates), so why not just take the extra 10-30 seconds when you do that and post the payment manually?

Guess I'm just not seeing the return being worth the risk, but to each their own.

Re: Auto-PIF Function

Anonymous — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 20:24:58 GMT

Haha, come on now. This is the myFICO forums! Irrationality is the norm.

My goal is to streamline and automate my finances. I transferred all of my accounts to my credit union, automated my IRA and 401(k) contributions, set my credit card payment due dates on the same day of the month, set-up direct deposit into my accounts, etc.

Basically, if want to not have to worry about paying my bills. For the first couple of months I'll make sure everything is gravy. I'll probably even call in and verify that the system is set-up to PIF (I'm 100% sure a computer automatically deducts the statement balance from the account. I highly doubt a person would manually enter in the statement balance each month. I'm sure AmEx and Discover are smart enough to get some software to automatically do it for them).

After that, I'll feel free to check my statements to verify my payments whenever. I already have lots of things on my mind to remember. A year from now, I could completely forget to check any of my bank accounts and everything would take care of itself. How nice would that be!?

Re: Auto-PIF Function

haulingthescoreup — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 21:03:04 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:

....After that, I'll feel free to check my statements to verify my payments whenever. I already have lots of things on my mind to remember. A year from now, I could completely forget to check any of my bank accounts and everything would take care of itself. How nice would that be!?

Pretty darn nice! And in a year, I might find (pick one) Harrison Ford/ Denzel Washington/ Kevin Costner/ George Clooney knocking at my door, looking for a new friend. Or Paul Newman, if he's still alive by then.

Despite how it sounds, I'm not telling you not to do this; you're a big boy. But since these are forums, and read by many, many people, many of whom have marginal or downright crooked CCC's and banks, I croak my "Nevermore" at this idea, for anyone else who might be reading.

Re: Auto-PIF Function

MsKiwi — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 23:40:05 GMT

jaybird201 wrote:
Haha, come on now. This is the myFICO forums! Irrationality is the norm.

My goal is to streamline and automate my finances. I transferred all of my accounts to my credit union, automated my IRA and 401(k) contributions, set my credit card payment due dates on the same day of the month, set-up direct deposit into my accounts, etc.

Basically, if want to not have to worry about paying my bills. For the first couple of months I'll make sure everything is gravy. I'll probably even call in and verify that the system is set-up to PIF (I'm 100% sure a computer automatically deducts the statement balance from the account. I highly doubt a person would manually enter in the statement balance each month. I'm sure AmEx and Discover are smart enough to get some software to automatically do it for them).

After that, I'll feel free to check my statements to verify my payments whenever. I already have lots of things on my mind to remember. A year from now, I could completely forget to check any of my bank accounts and everything would take care of itself. How nice would that be!?

If it works out for you, that'll be great. I'm not about to try my luck. I just don't trust that if the system failed I'd be given the benefit of the doubt by whichever lender didn't get paid due to a system failure.