topic Re: Cards that always take your autopay? in Credit Cards

Cards that always take your autopay?

Anonymous — Sat, 18 Jul 2020 19:46:17 GMT

So after setting up autopay minimum on all of my accounts, I have had a few surprises this month.

Capital One warned me that my autopay would happen regardless of any payments I make as long as I have a balance and gave me an option to skip the autopay so I did that this month and I will probably pay my Cap cards off before the statement cuts going forward.

Target hit my NFCU account for my current balance on the due date. It was under my minimum but I had already zeroed the card when my statement came out. Called Target and she informed me that if there is any balance on the due date, the system will pull the amount up to the minimum despite any payments made. Okay. Now I know for the future.

Well I thought that was all I had to deal with. I already knew that AMEX doesn't take your autopay if you already satisfied your minimum payment, Citi was set up for a set amount and took it, NFCU does not double dip, and I paid AOD before the statement cut since I heard they will take your autopay as well.

I was wrong. Sitting here browsing Facebook and I get an alert of a $39 transaction out of my NFCU account. Went to go look and see who it was and it didn't show on the app or online so I called. It was BBVA. BBVA was also paid in full this month and these were new charges.

I tried going on BBVA's app to see if there is any such warning about the autopay always coming out and it wouldn't even let me get to the screen that will let me see or cancel my autopay despite that being how I set it up to begin with. 🤦‍♂️ I did find it on the website and there is no warning that it will take it no matter what.

So yeah, looks like Capital One, Target, and BBVA will take your payment even if you already satisfied your minimum or paid the card in full and used it again.

The BBVA one took me totally by surprise so I was $3 short in my NFCU checking. I moved money in to cover it but worst case scenario I just used my CLOC for the first time.

What other lenders that do this? It's no wonder why some people don't trust autopay when there isn't consistency in how payments are done. With me approaching 800s, I'm obviously not going to risk that over a potential missed payment so I'm going to leave it set up on my accounts, but it's going to alter the way I use (and whether I use) some of my accounts for sure.

Banks/CUs confirmed to double dip:

- AOD
- Barclays

- BB&T

- BBVA

- Capital One (you can avoid this by going into your scheduled payments and skipping that month's autopay)

- Citi

- FNBO

- Target

- US Bank

Banks/CUs confirmed to not double dip:

- AMEX

- Chase

- NFCU

Mixed DPs on Disco.

Re: Cards that always take your autopay?

NRB525 — Sat, 18 Jul 2020 04:54:01 GMT

trying to come up with a friendly method of suggesting basic budgeting may be the underlying topic here.

Re: Cards that always take your autopay?

Anonymous — Sat, 18 Jul 2020 05:16:13 GMT

@NRB525 wrote:
trying to come up with a friendly method of suggesting basic budgeting may be the underlying topic here.

My budget is more than fine. I move everything to my ABLE account and I have $1500 in savings accounts elsewhere earning 5-6.17%. The problem is that NFCU isn't my main account and I just didn't expect this to happen. The only reason I set up autopay was a just in case - with people being hospitalized in a coma over a month with COVID, just seemed like a logical thing to do. I am not as upset about it as I was surprised about it happening and I was curious who else does it for future reference.

I shouldn't have to leave money in my accounts earning nothing beyond what I actually budgeted for just because some banks want to double dip on payments without warning.

Re: Cards that always take your autopay?

Anonymous — Sat, 18 Jul 2020 05:35:02 GMT

To make this perfectly clear, I paid BBVA $205.55 on July 2nd, due date was July 23rd, which paid the card to zero. The $39 they took was no longer actually due, they took it to cover charges I made this month which were still under my grace period and wouldn't have been due until August 23rd.

Target, I paid $54.25 on June 11th, due date was July 6th, which paid the card to zero. The $24.66 they took from me on July 6th was for a transaction I made that wouldn't have been due until August 6th.

I knew that Capital One would take my payment if I still had a balance because it warned me about it and gave me the opportunity to skip my automatic payment. The other two had no warning that would be the case and when I called Target, she was actually surprised that it happened and had to check because she hadn't ever actually heard of a credit card company always taking a minimum payment, even if there is no payment currently due.

Re: Cards that always take your autopay?

lhcole77 — Sat, 18 Jul 2020 05:49:42 GMT

Citi will as well. Auto pay was set for $28 on 7/8. On 7/1 I made a payment of $105. On 7/8 the $28 was paid.

Contacted Citi. Was told autopay will still happen UNLESS full account balance is paid off by auto pay date.

Gulp 😮

Re: Cards that always take your autopay?

Anonymous — Sat, 18 Jul 2020 06:43:35 GMT

@lhcole77 wrote:
Citi will as well. Auto pay was set for $28 on 7/8. On 7/1 I made a payment of $105. On 7/8 the $28 was paid.

Contacted Citi. Was told autopay will still happen UNLESS full account balance is paid off by auto pay date.

Gulp 😮

Ah I was curious about Citi so thank you for the DP, @lhcole77!

Re: Cards that always take your autopay?

MisterWives — Sat, 18 Jul 2020 06:24:34 GMT

You could consider making payments through your bank payment to card instead of card requesting from bank. I'm not sure what bank you have or how many credit cards you got, but it's unlikely the bank will fail to send the payment and if they do hopefully you bank with one that will usually pay for both the error fees in both bank and credit card account.

Re: Cards that always take your autopay?

Anonymous — Sat, 18 Jul 2020 06:41:28 GMT

@MisterWives wrote:
You could consider making payments through your bank payment to card instead of card requesting from bank. I'm not sure what bank you have or how many credit cards you got, but it's unlikely the bank will fail to send the payment and if they do hopefully you bank with one that will usually pay for both the error fees in both bank and credit card account.

The whole point is just in case something happens to me and I can't make my payments for some reason. I didn't actually expect to ever use it. I am always completely on top of my payments. It won't matter after this month since I'm throwing everything but AOD, BCP, and Amazon in the SD as I shift the money I used to spend to money I save instead but I figured it could be a good thread for DPs for others.

If you are talking about ebills, I have added most of my cards to my bank but some of them don't support ebill platforms and some like NFCU will only take checks. You did remind me to activate the service for my Amazon and Marvel cards though so I went ahead and did that.

Re: Cards that always take your autopay?

staticvoidmain — Sat, 18 Jul 2020 07:34:10 GMT

This is a dilemma I have as well. I always PIF the statement balance as soon as it generates (I never wait for the due date), but if something happens that makes me unable to pay my balance manually, I want autopay to be able to take care of that. However, it is annoying that many banks can't do this properly, and thus, I just choose not to do auto-pay at all.

Re: Cards that always take your autopay?

Anonymous — Sat, 18 Jul 2020 07:55:14 GMT

@staticvoidmain wrote:
This is a dilemma I have as well. I always PIF the statement balance as soon as it generates (I never wait for the due date), but if something happens that makes me unable to pay my balance manually, I want autopay to be able to take care of that. However, it is annoying that many banks can't do this properly, and thus, I just choose not to do auto-pay at all.

This is how I was until I started seeing stories about people on ventilators or quarantined having their credit destroyed... I decided since I have a CLOC with NFCU that I would just go ahead and direct the autopay there. Its not a big deal since I get an alert immediately and can transfer money instantly with Zelle to cover anything or just pay off the CLOC the next day. I would rather put up with some banks removing my grace period than risk a 7 year penalty if something happened.

Re: Cards that always take your autopay?

Gmood1 — Sat, 18 Jul 2020 12:08:10 GMT

I allow autopay to pull the entire statement balance once a month.

That negates any surprises of extra payments. Yup..it's that simple.😆

Their are MANY banks that will pull minimum due. If you still have a balance on the CC. More than I can remember at the moment.

Re: Cards that always take your autopay?

NRB525 — Sat, 18 Jul 2020 12:12:13 GMT

I understand the health-interruption concern, but my reading of the news is someone placed on a ventilator is running some rather large medical bills. For myself, I would be more concerned about recovering and my $30 CC bill can go pound sand.

The advantage of relying on true autopay of the statement balance, it pays the statement balance on time. The amounts you are discussing are not large utilization, so if you let those go to autopay, I'd really be surprised if any score penalty resulted. The extra time the funds are not yet paid, and the 20 day lead time you have to move savings to checking to prepare for each autopay, makes the cash management easier also.

Re: Cards that always take your autopay?

Anonymous — Sat, 18 Jul 2020 13:47:49 GMT

Thank you for this thread. I haven't used autopay ever in my life so it's nice see how different how some credit cards issuers do autopay. I finally set up on Citi(I had 0 balance at the time the offer was sent to my email, but my Amazon prime membership renewed) so I can get the 25 dollar cash back offer. I set it for a week before my due date so I can see how it works. And if it doesn't work, I have a payment to go.

Re: Cards that always take your autopay?

kdm31091 — Sat, 18 Jul 2020 14:26:56 GMT

I would agree with the point that if you're faced with a major medical concern to the point where you're unable to pay your CC bills, you probably are going to be more worried about surviving/recovering and major medical bills...not so much your CC bill that is peanuts in comparison.

All autopay systems have their quirks. I don't mean this in a rude way, but I'd think almost anyone using this forum is more than diligent enough about checking all their accounts that autopay seems like it wouldn't be necessary. If we can spend the time to post on here about cards, I'd think it's reasonable to assume we have enough time to check our acounts and pay as needed. Someone invested enough in their finances to maximize CC rewards probably has the time and mental energy to manually pay things.

I never really use autopay for anything, CC or not, because in my mind I'm still going to check to ensure it worked right, so what's the point?

It's not really a popular mindset here but I'd also suggest trimming down some cards if the juggling payments etc is overwhelming or just annoying for no benefit.

Re: Cards that always take your autopay?

Anonymous — Sat, 18 Jul 2020 14:29:54 GMT

@kdm31091 wrote:
I would agree with the point that if you're faced with a major medical concern to the point where you're unable to pay your CC bills, you probably are going to be more worried about surviving/recovering and major medical bills...not so much your CC bill that is peanuts in comparison.

All autopay systems have their quirks. I don't mean this in a rude way, but I'd think almost anyone using this forum is more than diligent enough about checking all their accounts that autopay seems like it wouldn't be necessary. If we can spend the time to post on here about cards, I'd think it's reasonable to assume we have enough time to check our acounts and pay as needed. Someone invested enough in their finances to maximize CC rewards probably has the time and mental energy to manually pay things.

I never really use autopay for anything, CC or not, because in my mind I'm still going to check to ensure it worked right, so what's the point?

It's not really a popular mindset here but I'd also suggest trimming down some cards if the juggling payments etc is overwhelming or just annoying for no benefit.

If your spend is under control, and you don't need score boosts, I see no reason NOT to autopay statement balance on due date. This maximizes float (so you can maybe earn 1.5% interest, no need to ever work again!) and even if you check, the process is quicker because the payment is automatic.

Re: Cards that always take your autopay?

Anonymous — Sat, 18 Jul 2020 15:14:01 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
So after setting up autopay minimum on all of my accounts, I have had a few surprises this month.

Capital One warned me that my autopay would happen regardless of any payments I make as long as I have a balance and gave me an option to skip the autopay so I did that this month and I will probably pay my Cap cards off before the statement cuts going forward.

Target hit my NFCU account for my current balance on the due date. It was under my minimum but I had already zeroed the card when my statement came out. Called Target and she informed me that if there is any balance on the due date, the system will pull the amount up to the minimum despite any payments made. Okay. Now I know for the future.

Well I thought that was all I had to deal with. I already knew that AMEX doesn't take your autopay if you already satisfied your minimum payment, Citi was set up for a set amount and took it, NFCU does not double dip, and I paid AOD before the statement cut since I heard they will take your autopay as well.

I was wrong. Sitting here browsing Facebook and I get an alert of a $39 transaction out of my NFCU account. Went to go look and see who it was and it didn't show on the app or online so I called. It was BBVA. BBVA was also paid in full this month and these were new charges.

I tried going on BBVA's app to see if there is any such warning about the autopay always coming out and it wouldn't even let me get to the screen that will let me see or cancel my autopay despite that being how I set it up to begin with. 🤦‍♂️ I did find it on the website and there is no warning that it will take it no matter what.

So yeah, looks like Capital One, Target, and BBVA will take your payment even if you already satisfied your minimum or paid the card in full and used it again.

The BBVA one took me totally by surprise so I was $3 short in my NFCU checking. I moved money in to cover it but worst case scenario I just used my CLOC for the first time.

What other lenders that do this? It's no wonder why some people don't trust autopay when there isn't consistency in how payments are done. With me approaching 800s, I'm obviously not going to risk that over a potential missed payment so I'm going to leave it set up on my accounts, but it's going to alter the way I use (and whether I use) some of my accounts for sure.

@Anonymous buddy, in the immortal words of Bill Clinton,

Target

Barclay

Citi

Cap1

BB&T

Chase won't, Amex won't, NFCU won't

Bit me a couple of times....I have a specific account for the auto-payments, and I push enough money from payroll every two weeks into that account to cover it, regardless... so if they hit me, I'm covered. Got bitten with an fee once when I had that pulling from Chase.... Never again.

Re: Cards that always take your autopay?

calyx — Sat, 18 Jul 2020 15:51:04 GMT

I tend to manually pay (because I'm paid monthly, I just hit everything at the end of the month when I'm paid and move any overage to HYSA), but, like you, I leave a buffer and autopay on "just in case"

I mean, I'm having surgery in a few days, when I'm also paid - what if I'm looped out and forget about something? I don't want to worry about thinking of not having a late payment when I spent so much time and effort cleaning my credit report.
And while I'd /prefer/ to autopay the statement balance, I don't want to lose my pitiful few cents in interest by keeping money in my checking account instead of a HYSA (which has that mandated 6 withdrawal limit).

That said - Citi definitely does still take it, and I've had USBank do it sometimes, too. Disco, Chase, Amex have all been safe from double dipping. I have Comenity automated (because it's pet supplies/vets, it's not like I have surprise! spending on that), so I'm not sure there, and Sync is a push payment since it's a 0% deal (so also not sure there). SDFCU is manual, but I have an automated push from my bank for what *should* be more than minimum since their interface is sketchy and I don't trust it. Since it's my daily driver, I am not concerned about overpaying there and just account for it in my budget ahead of time.

Re: Cards that always take your autopay?

Yankee2 — Sat, 18 Jul 2020 16:41:04 GMT

I would do autopay if they had an option to pay at time of statement cut. (which is what I do manually) Seems like most are geared to set up close to when closer to being due.

I have the same concern about if something happens and I can't do it manually, but since I have quite a few accounts, the total balances between all the cards can add up.

That's the only reason why I don't.

Re: Cards that always take your autopay?

Anonymous — Sat, 18 Jul 2020 19:09:21 GMT

@Gmood1 wrote:
I allow autopay to pull the entire statement balance once a month.
That negates any surprises of extra payments. Yup..it's that simple.😆

Their are MANY banks that will pull minimum due. If you still have a balance on the CC. More than I can remember at the moment.

Yeah I'm not setting autopay up to do full statement balances. I don't trust automation enough to do that. Would rather manually pay myself.

Re: Cards that always take your autopay?

Anonymous — Sat, 18 Jul 2020 19:16:37 GMT

@NRB525 wrote:
I understand the health-interruption concern, but my reading of the news is someone placed on a ventilator is running some rather large medical bills. For myself, I would be more concerned about recovering and my $30 CC bill can go pound sand.

The advantage of relying on true autopay of the statement balance, it pays the statement balance on time. The amounts you are discussing are not large utilization, so if you let those go to autopay, I'd really be surprised if any score penalty resulted. The extra time the funds are not yet paid, and the 20 day lead time you have to move savings to checking to prepare for each autopay, makes the cash management easier also.

The problem with autopay of the full statement balance is that I don't have a large CLOC with Navy and I don't have one with 1stBank at all. I would have to keep more money in my checking account at 1stBank and move all of my autopay there. The problem with this is that Medicaid won't let me have more than $2K in normal deposit accounts so I would have to give up probably $500 of my savings to have a cushion I'm comfortable enough with. I will think about it. I would rather just deal with the occasional CLOC dip for now though. I mean honestly it's not normally going to be an issue since I'm shifting around which cards I use anyway. Two of the three in my plan going forward don't double dip.