topic Re: BofA apparently doesn't want my money in Credit Cards

BofA apparently doesn't want my money

Anonymous — Sun, 04 May 2008 14:27:14 GMT

Veteran BofA'ers:

I know this has been discussed before, but I can't find it.

How do I pay my CC online if I don't have a BofA checking account?

Why do they make it so hard to give them my money?

Thanks!

Re: BofA apparently doesn't want my money

haulingthescoreup — Sun, 04 May 2008 14:36:37 GMT

It took a while for it to be established with my account, and I knew how to pay, since DH had a card and no other accounts. So it might not be there yet.

Log into your account. Once you're on the Accounts Overview page (check the white tab on the second row of tabs), click on the tiny link to the right of your account name that says "View options." On this second screen, you should see your balance and another tiny link below them that says "Pay now." Now you're on the Pay Bills screen.

It should name your account again and say "no e-bills due now." Find the third tiny link on this screen that says "Pay," and it should take you to a page where you can set up your payment info.

If any of these links aren't there, it might be that they just haven't got you set up yet. It seems like I needed to wait for something to happen before I could pay; quite possibly the first statement had to drop. HTH

Re: BofA apparently doesn't want my money

Anonymous — Sun, 04 May 2008 14:41:46 GMT

Thanks, HTSU.

I can get as far as the "Pay now" link under "View Options", and when I click that, I see this:

That's why I thought they were insisting that I have a BofA checking account just to pay my CC online. I guess I'll just phone in my first payment and then hope I get that "third tiny link" you mentioned by the time I'm ready to make my next payment.

Re: BofA apparently doesn't want my money

Anonymous — Sun, 04 May 2008 14:43:37 GMT

I pay my BofA CC through my Wachovia checking account online billpay. It's always worked pretty quick for me, 1-2 days to post and I don't have to worry about checks.

Re: BofA apparently doesn't want my money

Anonymous — Sun, 04 May 2008 14:46:26 GMT

PatronHeel wrote:
I pay my BofA CC through my Wachovia checking account online billpay. It's always worked pretty quick for me, 1-2 days to post and I don't have to worry about checks.

I'm glad that works for you. I refuse to use Billpay of any kind, so I'm looking for a way to pay online from the BofA site.

I want to pull the payment rather than push it.

Message Edited by cheddar on 05-04-2008 07:46 AM

Re: BofA apparently doesn't want my money

haulingthescoreup — Sun, 04 May 2008 14:52:14 GMT

Dang, I know I did something, and I didn't mail in a payment. And I didn't have to wait for the first statement, because I just checked, and I show an electronic payment the day before the statement dropped.

Research time...

edit to add: OK, just looked on my bank account, and I show one and only one bill pay to BofA, and it's this one. I've made numerous payments since then from the BofA site, and they don't show, so this must be one that in fact I did push from my USAA site as a one-time deal. The balance posted the next day, and from that point on, I could pay from the BofA site ("pulling"), which I also prefer. HTH

Message Edited by haulingthescoreup on 05-04-2008 07:52 AM

Re: BofA apparently doesn't want my money

Scamp — Sun, 04 May 2008 14:50:51 GMT

cheddar wrote:

I'm looking for a way to pay online from the BofA site.

I want to pull the payment rather than push it.

Message Edited by cheddar on 05-04-2008 07:46 AM

Cheddar, I was able to pay on-line without Billpay, pulling rather than pushing, for my first payment last month (I think) - but I'm danged if I can remember how, now, and I also now have a BofA checking acct., so I'm not sure I can remind myself how it was done.

I think I just hunted around on the site for a FAQ about paying online without a BofA acct., and was able to go from there - on there trying to find it myself for you, right now.

Re: BofA apparently doesn't want my money

Scamp — Sun, 04 May 2008 14:59:56 GMT

Ah HA!!:

Found it -

Quote from BofA's Help pages about CC accts:

How can I make a payment to my credit card from a Bank of America account or another financial institution?

3. Online

To pay your Credit Card from a Bank of America checking or savings account, go to the Make Transfer tab in Online Banking and follow the directions to transfer money to your credit card.
To pay your Credit Card from another financial institution, visit MyEasyPayment to submit a payment online. You will need to provide the following information online:
Credit Card #
Last name as it appears on Card
Last 4 digits of your SSN
City and zip code of where your statement is mailed to
ABA / Routing Number of non Bank of America financial institution
Account Number of non Bank of America financial institution
(edited to add bold formatting on some text and: I was able to pay with my debit card acct. #, this way)
(edited AGAIN to add: Rats - wait a minute; this might not be the way I did it! This sounds like one of those push-through methods, now that I look at it more closely. Sorry, Cheddar! I know I managed what you're talking about, though; nose around in Help and FAQ's about CC accts.)

Message Edited by scapegrace13 on 05-04-2008 07:56 AM

Message Edited by scapegrace13 on 05-04-2008 07:59 AM

Re: BofA apparently doesn't want my money

Anonymous — Sun, 04 May 2008 15:04:06 GMT

Thanks, scapegrace, for finding that for me!

I wonder why I wasn't able to find that myself.

I do have a link on the "Customer Service" tab that says "Pay from another financial institution," but when I click it I get the same message about not having an account eligible for BillPay!

Anyway, I think it's kind of ridiculous that a bank that size doesn't just let me do a simple ACH pull-through payment instead of having to use one of those external Billpay services.

If that's the case, I guess I'll just have to phone in my payment every month.

Thanks again!

Re: BofA apparently doesn't want my money

Anonymous — Sun, 04 May 2008 15:04:27 GMT

Hmmm. What is Push/Pull? I've been using bill pay for about 7 years.

Re: BofA apparently doesn't want my money

Anonymous — Sun, 04 May 2008 15:05:40 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:

@Anonymous wrote:
I pay my BofA CC through my Wachovia checking account online billpay. It's always worked pretty quick for me, 1-2 days to post and I don't have to worry about checks.

I'm glad that works for you. I refuse to use Billpay of any kind, so I'm looking for a way to pay online from the BofA site.

I want to pull the payment rather than push it.

Message Edited by cheddar on 05-04-2008 07:46 AM

cheddar, just out of curiousity and I don't mean to threadjack, but why the refusal to use electronic billpay from a checking account? Just don't like it, or is there some other concern, like security?

Perhaps I misinterpreted what you mean.

Re: BofA apparently doesn't want my money

Scamp — Sun, 04 May 2008 15:07:50 GMT

cheddar wrote:
Thanks, scapegrace, for finding that for me!

If that's the case, I guess I'll just have to phone in my payment every month.

Thanks again!

Just so you know - if I read right the REST of that 'how do I pay my bill from another institution' page, paying by phone will cost you $15.00 each time!

Re: BofA apparently doesn't want my money

haulingthescoreup — Sun, 04 May 2008 15:08:09 GMT

When you pay a bill online from your own checking account, I think of it as "pushing" your money into the account. There can be some serious delays in crediting the payment.

When you pay a bill online from the creditor's site, you're "pulling" money into the account, and it's generally credited that very day. (Exception: some of the crummier banks still delay the crediting, but it's not common.)

cheddar's current problem is that since they haven't set him up yet, he can't pay on the Bofa site to pull in the payment. One alternative is to go to his checking account, enter all the BofA account info, and push the payment in. I got lucky --BofA credited my account that very day.

Re: BofA apparently doesn't want my money

Anonymous — Sun, 04 May 2008 15:12:36 GMT

Wow. I was completely unaware. I pay all my bills from my BoA checking account on Bill Pay.

So, if I cut it close it's best to go the the billing agencies site to pay a bill then, if I've got this right.

Re: BofA apparently doesn't want my money

Anonymous — Sun, 04 May 2008 15:14:17 GMT

@haulingthescoreup wrote:
When you pay a bill online from your own checking account, I think of it as "pushing" your money into the account. There can be some serious delays in crediting the payment.

When you pay a bill online from the creditor's site, you're "pulling" money into the account, and it's generally credited that very day. (Exception: some of the crummier banks still delay the crediting, but it's not common.)

cheddar's current problem is that since they haven't set him up yet, he can't pay on the Bofa site to pull in the payment. One alternative is to go to his checking account, enter all the BofA account info, and push the payment in. I got lucky --BofA credited my account that very day.

I understand cheddar's problem, I was just wondering if there was a more general objection to push as compared to pull.

For me, I prefer to do it all in one place. I like having my checking account receive e-bills, then push the payments out, as I don't have to fiddle with half a dozen different websites. I've never run into a timing problem because I can set up a rule to send the payment 5,7,10, whatever days before the bill is due.

Re: BofA apparently doesn't want my money

Anonymous — Sun, 04 May 2008 15:16:15 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:

@Anonymous wrote:

@Anonymous wrote:
I pay my BofA CC through my Wachovia checking account online billpay. It's always worked pretty quick for me, 1-2 days to post and I don't have to worry about checks.

I'm glad that works for you. I refuse to use Billpay of any kind, so I'm looking for a way to pay online from the BofA site.

I want to pull the payment rather than push it.

cheddar, just out of curiousity and I don't mean to threadjack, but why the refusal to use electronic billpay from a checking account? Just don't like it, or is there some other concern, like security?

Perhaps I misinterpreted what you mean.

My refusal to use Billpay is for a number of reasons.

1) It's not how I pay all my other cards, so it's a bit irritating to have to make special accomodations for one particular card just because it doesn't play well with others.

2) I have my checking at WaMu. Many moons ago, they tried to sell me on their Billpay service, but I was unconvinced, so they offered to demo it for me by setting up a Billpay of $1 to be sent via check to my home address. The payment was never debited, the check never came, and WaMu was clueless as to why it hadn't gone through. On top of that, I never even received any notification that the payment failed. That experience soured me on the whole idea of Billpay. If that had been a real payment rather than just a "demo payment" to myself, it could have caused some problems. Perhaps other systems are better than WaMu's, and perhaps WaMu has worked out the bugs in the meantime, but I'd rather not test that theory with my own accounts.

3) I trust myself to make my own payments on time much more than I trust another company to do it for me.

4) Billpay doesn't give me an immediate confirmation number from the creditor's system that I can use as a reference just in case the payment isn't credited in a timely manner. Just from a CYA perspective.

5) It's 2008. There is no excuse for any financial institution not to offer online pull-through ACH payments.

Re: BofA apparently doesn't want my money

Scamp — Sun, 04 May 2008 15:22:40 GMT

Cheddar, when I looked at the myeasypayment pages just now, they had BofA logos all over the place and NO mention of any third-party company.

Is there any chance this IS BofA's 'pull-thru' option, completely in-house....? Don't the third-party options always make it clear they're third party?

Or am I being dense (I've never knowingly used those sites, though I'm thinking now that my first payment WAS through a Bill Pay transaction and I just didn't realize at the time that was the case), and just the fact that it's called myeasypayment.com is the third-party tip-off...?

Edited to add:

P.S.: I avoid BillPay type things for all the same reasons Cheddar stated; I just don't trust the service not to have a glitch or be slow or heaven-knows-what when it really matters!

Message Edited by scapegrace13 on 05-04-2008 08:22 AM

Re: BofA apparently doesn't want my money

Anonymous — Sun, 04 May 2008 15:21:35 GMT

Yeah, I love my Bill Pay....well, you know what I mean.

From the BoA Bill Pay page I receive all my bills. I can tell the site on which day I'd like to send payment. I auto pay an ING account and manually select payments on eveything else. It takes longer to enter payments on my checkbook register than it does to make the actual payments.

Remember when we had paperwork scattered from one end of the coffee table or desk on bill paying day? I took an hour? Wasn't so long ago! I can still taste the stamp glue. LOL.

@Anonymous wrote:

@haulingthescoreup wrote:
When you pay a bill online from your own checking account, I think of it as "pushing" your money into the account. There can be some serious delays in crediting the payment.

When you pay a bill online from the creditor's site, you're "pulling" money into the account, and it's generally credited that very day. (Exception: some of the crummier banks still delay the crediting, but it's not common.)

cheddar's current problem is that since they haven't set him up yet, he can't pay on the Bofa site to pull in the payment. One alternative is to go to his checking account, enter all the BofA account info, and push the payment in. I got lucky --BofA credited my account that very day.

I understand cheddar's problem, I was just wondering if there was a more general objection to push as compared to pull.

For me, I prefer to do it all in one place. I like having my checking account receive e-bills, then push the payments out, as I don't have to fiddle with half a dozen different websites. I've never run into a timing problem because I can set up a rule to send the payment 5,7,10, whatever days before the bill is due.

Re: BofA apparently doesn't want my money

Anonymous — Sun, 04 May 2008 15:23:21 GMT

scapegrace13 wrote:

cheddar wrote:

Thanks, scapegrace, for finding that for me!

If that's the case, I guess I'll just have to phone in my payment every month.

Thanks again!

Just so you know - if I read right the REST of that 'how do I pay my bill from another institution' page, paying by phone will cost you $15.00 each time!

Argh!

So much for that idea.

Re: BofA apparently doesn't want my money

Anonymous — Sun, 04 May 2008 15:35:07 GMT

scapegrace13 wrote:

Cheddar, when I looked at the myeasypayment pages just now, they had BofA logos all over the place and NO mention of any third-party company.

Is there any chance this IS BofA's 'pull-thru' option, completely in-house....? Don't the third-party options always make it clear they're third party?

Or am I being dense (I've never knowingly used those sites, though I'm thinking now that my first payment WAS through a Bill Pay transaction and I just didn't realize at the time that was the case), and just the fact that it's called myeasypayment.com is the third-party tip-off...?

Edited to add:

P.S.: I avoid BillPay type things for all the same reasons Cheddar stated; I just don't trust the service not to have a glitch or be slow or heaven-knows-what when it really matters!

Hmm...now that's interesting. Perhaps this is their in-house system after all.

I'll have to look into it. I still wonder why it's easier to make an online payment with Orchard than it is with BofA.