@Loquat wrote:
@jawbrkr wrote:I absolutely NEVER autopay anything.
... Trust me, autopay can be a saver. I had an accident some time ago (rolled my vehicle) and I was out for a little over a month. Even though my wife knows the passwords to everything I'm sure the last thing on her mind would have been paying a credit card
+ 10 Million ^ ^ ^ ^ I've been saying this for a long time and this is the exact example of what I'm talking about, @Loquat! Life happens and having that autopay enabled keeps life a lot more simple for everyone! And it's a free backup!
ETA: Also, it's one reason why my interest rates matter to me. In the event my account autopays the minimum balances due, having lower interest rates keeps any finance charges that might accrue until I can pay down to a minimum!
I have all my cards set up to autopay just the minimum payment. I nearly always make a manual payment for MUCH more than that before the due date, the autopay is merely there to prevent a disaster if somehow I forgot to pay, or as happened to me one time, I legitimately remembered paying but apparently didn't hit the final button after the "are you sure this payment information is correct", the "are you REALLY sure your payment information is correct", and the "But seriously though, are you absolutely positively sure your payment information is correct" pages.
Since I manually make payments in addition to the autopays, I avoid the possibility of a bank (or user) error making the autopay fail. And if I mess up and forget the manual payment, I at least paid the minimum and only suffer interest charges. All I need to do is make sure my checking account always has at least a couple hundred bucks in it to cover the minimums. Some cards will draw the minimum payment even if I already paid the full statement balance before that (cap1 does, citi might, chase doesn't), and that's fine, I just factor that into the equation when I leave extra money in my checking account.
(I don't believe in having autopay set up to pay the full statement balance, because I don't like the risk that if there was a fraudulent purchase on my card, and I don't notice, it'll draw the funds out of my bank account. It also just generally makes it harder to remember to keep enough money in my checking account at the right times.)
TLDR; setting up autopay for the minimum payment is an incredibly valuable tool that almost everyone should use.
Message to the OP, just because you got burned because of an unusual "perfect storm" of your CU account changing unexpectedly and IT issues on Citi's end, doesn't mean you should stop using this tool. Those circumstances are not likely going to repeat themselves, and in any case, I'm sure you'll keep a closer eye on your accounts from now on to make sure everything is square. There's usually not much risk in autopaying just the minimum payments.
Total Loan Balance: $43k / $65k
Total SL: $78k
@Zeno wrote:I received a call today with some good news and was told that my account is opened again after reveiwing the documents. Thanks to everyone that told me to reach out again to them and have them look over it.
Congrats! Not everyone is so lucky. Good thing you posted your experience so others may learn from it too!
On the topic above regarding AutoPay, I couldn't agree more. I just wish everybody went about it the same way. The Citi Best Buy card doesn't let you setup AutoPay that won't charge you if you have a $0 balance.
IE: You will end up with a negative balance for no reason.
Must garden until 2/1/2022 to hit my goal AAOA. 
Autopay isnt bad, but i still do NOT recommend Citi's version of autopay... esp if you run a tight budget......
-J
