topic Re: Stupid move on my part. Autopay! in Credit Cards

Stupid move on my part. Autopay!

Anonymous — Tue, 11 Oct 2016 20:29:44 GMT

Ok this post is to help anyone who did something stupid like I did. I set up autopay for my Home Depot account but made a payment early. The auto pay still proceeded and caused a returned check on my account. I figured Home Depot was like my other cards and would only process the minimum owed and the minimum owed was $0 since I made the payment early.

This is a fairly new account and Home Depot said I won't have to pay a returned check fee. But boy I wish I knew before that happened. Hopefully they won't close my account or cld me.

Re: Stupid move on my part. Autopay!

Anonymous — Wed, 12 Oct 2016 03:06:27 GMT

did they report you late?

Re: Stupid move on my part. Autopay!

Anonymous — Wed, 12 Oct 2016 04:48:47 GMT

I NEVER auto pay for this particular reason

Re: Stupid move on my part. Autopay!

Anonymous — Wed, 12 Oct 2016 09:26:53 GMT

I won't be reported late since I had already made a payment and the minimum due was zero.

Re: Stupid move on my part. Autopay!

NRB525 — Wed, 12 Oct 2016 12:38:41 GMT

Thanks for sharing your experience.

I'm presuming you set up an autopay for a fixed amount, not Minimum Payment?

There are three possibilities for how a bank handles autopayment with a fixed amount:

1) Take the exact autopayment regardless of the balance on the account (HD, PenFed I think also)

2) If Autopay amount is more than the prior Statement Balance, reduced by any subsequent payments or credits, then use the new [Prior Stmt Balance - Payments - Credits] to draw that. Capital One, Citi, Chase and US Bank will do this.

3) if Autopay is more than the current balance, then reduce the payment to the current balance, prior statement balance, less payments, less credits but adding in recent charges. It is possible AMEX does this, but I haven't tested to verify. Using this calculation it is possible to have a $100 autopay, prior statement of $200, pay $150 then charge $100 on the new statement cycle, and still see a $100 autopayment used to pay the account. Again, this is theoretical as I don't recall actually seeing this, but it's a plausible calculation from the text on AMEX.

With a card like HD, which you probably aren't using very often, if they have a Minimum Payment setting, that would seem to be better able to adjust your necessary payment. However, with all credit cards, it's best to simplify how many bank checking accounts you refer the autopayments to, and ensure that the bank checking account is always well-funded.

Hopefully the HD account is not affected. Good luck!

Re: Stupid move on my part. Autopay!

grillandwinemaster — Wed, 12 Oct 2016 13:50:13 GMT

This is way too complicated for me. More and more I hear horror stories about auto pay.

1- it didn't pay!

2- it paid too much

3- it didn't pay enough

I'd rather log in and pull a payment every time, and get a confirmation number from them. Problem solved.

OP I'm glad it all worked out for you in the end.

Re: Stupid move on my part. Autopay!

AverageJoesCredit — Wed, 12 Oct 2016 16:41:51 GMT

+100 GWM . Feel the same.

Re: Stupid move on my part. Autopay!

9CLINE — Wed, 12 Oct 2016 17:01:45 GMT

Sorry 2 hear, this happened but I think ur ok like a previous poster said,,, I use auto pay for all my bills and have never had any problems with it ...hope all turns out well....

Re: Stupid move on my part. Autopay!

Anonymous — Wed, 12 Oct 2016 22:30:02 GMT

I agree 100% with you grillandwinemaster and AJC!!!! I only have autopay on a couple of insurance products, but for my cards I always pay manually.

Re: Stupid move on my part. Autopay!

Imperfectfuture — Thu, 13 Oct 2016 02:14:03 GMT

@grillandwinemaster wrote:
This is way too complicated for me. More and more I hear horror stories about auto pay.

1- it didn't pay!
2- it paid too much
3- it didn't pay enough

I'd rather log in and pull a payment every time, and get a confirmation number from them. Problem solved.

OP I'm glad it all worked out for you in the end.

Same for moi. Which is why I do not like a ton of accounts. Some are definitely going bye bye for redundancy and when certain promos run out,

Re: Stupid move on my part. Autopay!

Anonymous — Thu, 13 Oct 2016 14:47:14 GMT

I solve this by having all of my autopays come out of a rewards checking account in which I keep a $20k balance. Now if *that* gets overdrawn, I've got much bigger problems.

Honestly, in 10 years of having all of my card issuers do an ACH pull of the statement balance on the due date (and I currently have 45 cards), I have never had a single instance of an issuer not processing the payment or charging too little, and I've never heard of anyone else having that problem, unless because of circumstances outside of the issuer's control (insufficient balance, incorrect routing/account info, etc.). I have had cards overpaid several times. This is largely because some issuers will recalculate the payment amount on the due date and only pay the balance down to 0, while others will pay whatever the statement balance was, regardless if that results in a credit balance. If I do end up with a credit balance, then I just either spend it down or request a check for the credit balance from the issuer. If it's a large amount, I may want to backfill my checking account with some money from savings to maintain my checking balance at $20k. But that's about the worst of it.

Chris.