Security Questions

[Executioner]

Anyone having issues paying bills using your bank or credit union? I never had a problem until just a few weeks ago. I receive a notice by my loaning company that they haven't received my payment for the month of September. My payment was cut by the bank, via a paper check, arrive late at the billing office. They charged me a late fee, but I called and had it removed since I've always been on time with the payment through my bank. I also called my bank and had a stop payment on the check since it may have been lost. The institution did receive it finally, but I already had a denial on the check which brings me to my next questions.

Is this an issue with the post office? I've already head on the news that packages were being delayed etc. Wondering if this also impacted general paper mail.

How safe am I have to have my banking info stored on the companies sites? It makes payment much faster as it's processed that same day instead of waiting for the mail to arrive. My passwords for each site are very strong using 15 generated passwords using LastPass built in password generator.

Maybe I should delete my saved banking info and put it in each time manually?

[Err]

I haven't had any issues paying bills through the mail. I still pay my car payment because and medical bills through the mail.

My mortgage is through my bank so it's automatic. The rest of my bills are done electronically but I initiate the payment each cycle.

You should be safe but if you're worried, you should be able to set up billing with your bank. Each bank is different so you'll probably have to go talk to them.

[Executioner]

Yeah I've been using my bank, but some of them are not sent electronically. Those are the ones I'm concerned about doing it at their site.

[psypher]

It's safe. I've been doing automatic payments, some through checks, but important things like mortgages and car loans have always been electronic. Banks will cover issues if any come up. Source: probably 20+ years of electronic payments and wife is a banker. I just finally got the last bill to be paid automatically. Dam water company has been manual payments for the past 8 years, until earlier this year. I still keep an eye on them and monitor them, but I don't recall ever having an issue.

[Executioner]

My concern is the storage of the banking info on their site. My mortgage is not electronic and sent by paper check.

[psypher]

My concern is the storage of the banking info on their site. My mortgage is not electronic and sent by paper check.

None issue, they have to adhere to certain security requirements. And your account is federally insured (FDIC) up to $250,000. Now, one thing I do as a hedge against any issues is that the account I use has limited funds, enough to cover the monthly bills. I use automated transfers between accounts in the same bank.

So $ goes into A, some $ transfers from A to B, and then B is where any ACH withdraws comes out of.

[FlyingPenguin]

I pay all my bills via my bank's bill pay (I refuse to allow a utility to have access to my bank account and make deductions).

Some are electronically transferred, some are sent as a physical check.

In your case it could have been anything. Long before the post office games the last month, I've had the occasional piece of mail get lost in the system and show up after a couple of weeks. It's a big complex system and sometimes things get misplaced.

Honestly, I'm surprised the mail is as reliable as it is.

BTW: It's possible your loan company has been added to the bank's electronic transfer system since you first set it up. Might be worth setting up a new payee on your bank's website and see if they have them in their database now.

[Losbot]

I pay everything through BoA's system. We have one account that, to obtain the rate we did, requires they hit the account. What I did was simply log into BoA and created a savings account. That's the account number I gave them. I setup an automatic transfer to happen 1 week before the due date and they grab their money. This way they're happy, we got a low rate and in reality can't take anything more than what we transferred over that month. Works for us.

[psypher]

I pay everything through BoA's system. We have one account that, to obtain the rate we did, requires they hit the account. What I did was simply log into BoA and created a savings account. That's the account number I gave them. I setup an automatic transfer to happen 1 week before the due date and they grab their money. This way they're happy, we got a low rate and in reality can't take anything more than what we transferred over that month. Works for us.

Sounds like you an I follow the same autopay best practices handbook

[reno]

im auto pay on all my accounts now. i have 2 accounts with one company . it got to be a headache trying to keep it straight. the due date every month on each account . or find i'd double pay one and be late on the other. then get hit with late fees on the other. seeing I pre- setup payment on the first of every month over the internet. I just said screw it and set all the accounts to auto pay.

[psypher]

Another thing I do for autopay is that for the ones that accept credit cards, I use a card that is strictly for autopay/bill payments. It's more likely to have a card that's used in day to day shopping/restaurants get compromised. Companies with automatic payments usually don't store credit card info in their less secure networks. They're stored with the payment processor. Nothing worse than having a card compromised and then having to run around updating all the autopay info.

[Losbot]

Another thing I do for autopay is that for the ones that accept credit cards, I use a card that is strictly for autopay/bill payments. It's more likely to have a card that's used in day to day shopping/restaurants get compromised. Companies with automatic payments usually don't store credit card info in their less secure networks. They're stored with the payment processor. Nothing worse than having a card compromised and then having to run around updating all the autopay info.

[Executioner]

I'm not into auto pay. I prefer to know what the amount is and then pay it off. I spent the last 2 years paying off all of our CC debt we had before I retired. Told the wife - no more CC balances.

[psypher]

I'm not into auto pay. I prefer to know what the amount is and then pay it off. I spent the last 2 years paying off all of our CC debt we had before I retired. Told the wife - no more CC balances.

One has nothing to do with the other. Autopay on credit cards doesn't mean debt, leaving balances does. Otherwise, it means collecting points/cash. I get charged the same amount whether it's by check or credit card. Why would I leave 1-2% on the table?

[Losbot]

We also take advantage of points. We are a Disney family (well, before all this Covid nonsense) and we have a Chase Disney Visa. We charge EVERYTHING that's a daily expense. Food, gas, etc.
Wife sends an electronic payment about every 2 or 3 days, for everything we charged. It adds up. We rack up a lot of points. We we go on our annual trip, we usually have around $1000 to spend on crap. I'll even do things like place the down payment for my car on the card and then send the money to Chase. That's a nice batch of points and we'll get cash back.

Years ago I did the same with my gold Amex, except I used to charge all the IT department crap on it and would use convenience checks to pay the office space lease. I used to put about $60k/month on that card. When I left after about 5 yrs there, I still over 2 million Amex points. I travelled to Europe, South America, Japan, Singapore and bought appliances for my new place.