Does anyone have any experience with hitting the "Pay!" button on a PSECU auto loan? On every single car I've bought I've always paid extra every month when sending in checks.... but this one I haven't yet and it is my first loan through PSECU with online pay. The reason I ask is I don't want to mess up the auto-pay that currently debits from my checking account every 9th of the month. My 3 questions:
Does hitting the "Pay!" button affect my auto debits?
Can I hit the "Pay!" button as many times a month as I like?
Does the money from hitting "Pay!" get applied solely to the principal?
I asked these questions to PSECU but they've been vague in answers I've gotten previously, so I thought I'd ask them here as well.
For people that are curious in the future, below is the information from the response from PSECU:
While on auto-pay, if you pay throughout the month, the auto-pay will pay the difference between what you paid and the amount owed. So it appears that you can't pay extra on the loan with the "Pay" button. They also mentioned that the best way to make additional payments is to call them and be taken off auto-pay, and make payments through home banking. And finally, they said interest is accrued daily from the last time you paid, and the next payment will pay that interest first before applying to the principal.
I suppose the best option for me will be to cancel auto-pay and pay once a month with and overpayment, so that all of the extra will be applied to the principal.