@Anonymous wrote:
Hi, my name is Caroline and have an irrational fear of auto-pay. 😐
@Pickaboo... sorry about the score ding. Seems silly during the holiday shopping season.
We should create a support group. lol
Thank you- this too shall pass.. At least it's a small thing & temporary.
@trusty wrote:
@Gmood1 wrote:There's that cool thing called account alerts. It lets you know when your bill is due, how much it is. It will also send you notifications of every charge, if you so choose. Some of mine will also notify me several days before, that a auto-payment is scheduled. Why on earth would I want autopay to end? If you're using the CC's. Then expect a bill to come, followed by an auto draft in 55 days.
Normally there's a cut off time for autopay to be canceled. If you wait until after that cut off date. It will still process.
With as many accounts as I've had set to autopay. The only time I had payments to pull more than what was scheduled was an auto loan. And that's because I waited too long to cancel the draft from the bank. It wasn't because of a system glitch or anything like that.
I think you guys look for reasons to worry about nothing. lol
The point is that autopay is the other party in control of your funds.
So, the only way to do autopay is if you're actually in control, by proxy; either by limiting the card number, the card type, cordoning off the bank to a secondary bank where you only do business with them for autopays, using a third party, or whatever have you... to minimize potential exposure to over-billing, double-billing, difficulty canceling, etc; and so that you can unilaterally shut the autopay down, anytime you decide to cancel, without having to wait on hold and hope that a representative has canceled it correctly, not stuck wondering if it will charge again anyway.
It's only paranoia if there's no chance for an issue to arise. I can tell you from experience, and from listening to others... that systems oftentimes fail, when you least expect it. Emails don't get delivered, or end up in junk; banks, and bill pays encounter unexpected down periods; autopays glitch up and take out massive amounts of money - or just double-bill. Oh, and then there's that thing that neither you nor I can envision happening. That's what we set things up proactively for... for the worst case scenario.
I will never trust my primary account access with the debit power of someone else not in my immediate family; and even that will come with pre-planned restrictions. But, it's not even really about trust... it's about making sure that stuff doesn't hit the fan, if and when things do go awry.
I liken it to the data breach scenario. If you've ever been a victim of a data breach, for thousands of dollars... you have now come to the realization - that any card can get completely tied up, anytime. So, you always need backups. Well, setting up autopay should be done with the mindset that autopay itself is a backup procedure... not a primary reliance. If you are relying on someone else to balance your checkbook and pay your bills timely, than you're potentially setting yourself up for a learning experience. Which is at the core of all of this. If you've lived the downsides of autopay, than you already know what to do, and how to best set it up, to protect yourself. Otherwise, failing to heed the advice from the learned... you will just continue to go along thinking that you know what your're doing... until you don't.
Trusty, you seem to have some specific experiences in the past that make you not trust autopay.
Which banks have you had bad experiences with? Can you share some experiences?
I have autopay set up on all the accounts that I have, unless I'm just starting out or the technical aspects (such as SDFCU) don't allow autopay from an outside checking account.
I had so many accounts paying down balances, that I would set up the autopay with a specific dollar amount, like $212 for one card, $213 for another, so I could decipher them on the checking account side to see which was paying. Now that balances are PIF, I still leave the odd values up. For example, I have a $319 monthly autopay on a US Bank card. The statement usually comes in less than that, so US Bank only takes the statement balance.
It also seems that you don't want to log on to the credit card website to set up the autopay. I've never tried to call a bank to set up autopay over the phone, but I can imagine that creates all kinds of potential points of failure and surprises later on. Using the website, you give AMEX, Chase, US Bank, Capital One, etc the routing number and checking account number, so they have it validated in their system. With many of my CCC I have multiple of my checking accounts pre-set up to be available.Then you arrange the autopay to schedule when you want. Or set a specific payment if the autopay is not going to cover the statement balance, and all the necessary details are pre-validated and ready to go. No new fat finger errors.
I will agree there are a few CCC that do not close down the autopay. PenFed, Bank of America, they will continue to pull your funds out at the full autopay amount, driving the CCC well into a big negative position and draining your checking account if you don't watch it. So vigilence is necessary. CCC like AMEX, Chase, US Bank, Cap One, do not have such issues. But one should be reconciling and confirming that the autopay is working each month, anyhow. If an autopay misses, the worst case is you catch it the following statement cycle and quick like a bunny make some payments to avoid the 30-day late millstone. And I have called the bank on a few prior occasions, when they missed the autopayment, to get them to catch it up with no fees, since it was their issue, and the autopay was running consistently.
Avoidance of autopay is not something I advise anyone, even you 
@Revelate wrote:I autopay literally everything I can, literally the only problem I have had with my credit is a card that wasn't setup for autopay. That is why I'm at a 750ish on FICO 8 rather than seeing how quickly I can hit 850 for S+G.
Ultimately even if a lender screws me on this I have recourse, whereas if I screw the pooch I don't. I know myself, and I need autopay when I go under a rock: build a system that works for you and your individual quirks.
Account alerts though, bleh. I recently picked up a second job where I'm a slave to the god damned smart phone again and I forgot how much I hated constant notifications on things I'm supposed to pay attention to. I turn them utterly off. When Chase or Amex detects possible fraud they call me, everything else don't care.
Instead I just check CK or Experian every so often for balances hanging out, and then go look at the account page in question.
Anyway fully agree with the others: life is too short to micromanage one's credit all the time... get pretty for a mortgage or other big ticket credit item, don't do anything stupid (like my 30D late), and go live the rest of your life.
Good thinking. Screw the pooch? god damned smart phone? ROTFLMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You could say once bitten stay away. Long ago I got the shaft from an auto pay. Funds were there. Took to much time to fix it. I just dont like a computer managing my money. I like to be in control. And I just got dinged for having more than 50% of my cards reporting a balance for 3-6 points. Its minor but sheesh. Use too much....dinged. dont use much...dinged. Cant win for losing I guess.
