Online bill payment systems, sometimes they suck.

[ed629]

Over the last two days, I've TRIED to make several online bill payments and they've sucked. I save my passwords to my computer to make it easier and I still get locked out. The worst is my gas bill, I entered the wrong password just once and now I have to make a new account everytime I try to pay it. I keep getting a a message saying I exceeded the maximum number of attempts if I try to log in more than once. So I have to either make a phone payment or create new account each time, but as soon as I log out the the new one doesn't work anymore.

The electricity switched over to a new system, so of course have to go through and create a new account, but it tells me my old account number can't be found, so call them and they say it should work, but it doesn't. To be fair, all lot of people are having this problem, so they have to go in person to make the payments.

Online bill payment has been aorund for over a decade now, and companies still can't get it right.

 

[RoJoHen]

My car payment charges me an extra $5 Convenience Fee if I try to pay online.

You'd think, at this point, they'd charge me an Inconvenience Fee for having to process a check.

 

[DarthTom]

My car payment charges me an extra $5 Convenience Fee if I try to pay online.

You'd think, at this point, they'd charge me an Inconvenience Fee for having to process a check.

Exactly. If anything they'd discount their services to those who pay online.

I also hate how each online bill pay system has different password requirement. Some require a character....some require a capital letter etc.

I have had to create a pass word cheat sheet for all of my different log on account information.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

My car payment charges me an extra $5 Convenience Fee if I try to pay online.

You'd think, at this point, they'd charge me an Inconvenience Fee for having to process a check.

Exactly. If anything they'd discount their services to those who pay online.

I also hate how each online bill pay system has different password requirement. Some require a character....some require a capital letter etc.

I have had to create a pass word cheat sheet for all of my different log on account information.

Never heard of a password locker?

 

[Lindley]

Apple calls it a "keychain".

 

[DarthTom]

Never heard of a password locker?

I probably shouldn't be telling an IT person this but I like many people use a similar password for several applications.

Lately, I've been finding that the password requirements both at work and for lesiure have been modified to be more difficult to crack.

For example when I purchased my IPad 2 Itunes wouldn't take my regular password. It needed a derivation of both a capital letter and a number in it.

Other programs I've found lately require either one or both of the above. It's just a pain. When youre typing on a virtual keyboard especially on a phone it's a pain at least for me to use all of the different log on requirements as simply.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Never heard of a password locker?

I probably shouldn't be telling an IT person this but I like many people use a similar password for several applications.

Lately, I've been finding that the password requirements both at work and for lesiure have been modified to be more difficult to crack.

For example when I purchased my IPad 2 Itunes wouldn't take my regular password. It needed a derivation of both a capital letter and a number in it.

Other programs I've found lately require either one or both of the above. It's just a pain. When youre typing on a virtual keyboard especially on a phone it's a pain at least for me to use all of the different log on requirements as simply.

I have several different passwords and rotate variations of them around several applications/sites. It sucks but I manage to keep it all in my head.

I recommend using a password locker application so you can have unique passwords for everything, you just have to remember the password for the locker program. And make sure it's a good program, too, and that you keep it backed up...

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I write all of two checks a month now - everything else, I pay online...the only reason I don't use the online service to pay rent on the downtown place is because I refuse to do the "convenience fee" bullshit as someone mentioned uptopic.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I write all of two checks a month now - everything else, I pay online...the only reason I don't use the online service to pay rent on the downtown place is because I refuse to do the "convenience fee" bullshit as someone mentioned uptopic.

Yeah, fuck that noise.

I pay everything online that it's possible to pay online, except my sewer bill, rent, and mortgage. The sewer bill has a "convenience fee" of 5 fucking dollars and the other two can't be paid online anyway. But everything else, I pay online and I like it that way. I don't even have any paper checks anymore. I use money orders.

 

[DarthTom]

[

I have several different passwords and rotate variations of them around several applications/sites. It sucks but I manage to keep it all in my head.

Lately though I've found that password change requests [often built into systems at work that require a change every 60-90 days] won't accept an uptick by one number in the password and/or something that is remotely familiar.

I have to completely alter the password for the system to accept the change.

 

[Nociod]

Sounds to me that you guys have a complicated system to pay things!

Over here, you log into your internet bank account, choose "pay bill", enter account number, sum and kid number, and voila, you're done.

And a fee to pay online sounds stupid! Over here there's no fees for paying online. If you go to the bank to pay, then you get a fee, but paying via the Internet is free

 

[auntiehill]

I pay all my bills online and never had a problem until last week. TruGreen double-billed me, for reasons that no one can explain. But I finally got the charge reversed.

What really annoyed me was the charges take "3 to 4" days to post to the account? Huh? There was also no option to cancel a pending payment,which most major companies have. Of course, they decided at that moment to give me a customer-service survey, so they got an earful.

But, surprisingly, the local rep called me the very next day to talk to me about the problem. That was fairly impressive.

I pay all my bills online. I hardly ever write checks any more. Luckily, I'm married to a IT guy, so we've set up a handy password-protected database for all our passwords and IDs for every company and website. So really, I only have to remember one password and the rest, I can just look up.

There are some that I just remember, anyway, since I use the site(s) so often.

 

[Lindley]

Over here, you log into your internet bank account, choose "pay bill"

You can, of course, pay bills online via your bank's website. That's essentially like asking the bank to write and mail the check for you.

Most of the discussion in this thread is about the other way around----authorizing vendor websites to write the check directly.

 

[DarthTom]

Sounds to me that you guys have a complicated system to pay things!

Over here, you log into your internet bank account, choose "pay bill", enter account number, sum and kid number, and voila, you're done.

And a fee to pay online sounds stupid! Over here there's no fees for paying online. If you go to the bank to pay, then you get a fee, but paying via the Internet is free

There is a way to circumnavigate the fees and still pay online for most Americans. You can go to your Bank's online pay system and what the bank does is try to establish an electronic agreement with the vendor. So when you pay it's usually a very quick process.

However vendors that attach a fee and won't "play for free," the Bank simply issues a manual check to them even though it appears as though you're paying "online."

This method still sucks for me because those vendors [e.g. my power company] that won't play nice with the bank they issue a check even though i'm paying online and the money still doesn't come out of my account until the check they cut to them clears.

 

[Nociod]

What's the point of authorizing vendor websites to "write the check" directly?

How long would it take for the bank to transfer the money othervise?

Here your money goes directly into the other account the day after (if you transfer before 1200, it goes the same day).

I don't really see the point of making different deals with different vendor websites, when you could just manage it all from one place, your online bank.

 

[DarthTom]

What's the point of authorizing vendor websites to "write the check" directly?

How long would it take for the bank to transfer the money othervise?

Here your money goes directly into the other account the day after (if you transfer before 1200, it goes the same day).

I don't really see the point of making different deals with different vendor websites, when you could just manage it all from one place, your online bank.

Perhaps I explained badly. If I pay my bills online through my bank's online website - in some cases they pay the vendor directly and in other they issue a manual check. It's dependent upon whether my bank has an agreement or not with that vendor to transfer the funds electronically or not on how fast it leaves my account.

If I pay VISA for example it goes out typically in 24 hours or less from their website. If I pay Joe's A/C repair it could take days for the money to be removed from my account because the bank issues a check and doesn't withdraw the funds from my account until the check is paid - the manual check they cut.

It's their business practice to not withdraw my funds until the vendor actually receives the money. Make sense?

 

[Lindley]

I don't really see the point of making different deals with different vendor websites, when you could just manage it all from one place, your online bank.

Well, doing everything through your bank's website is convenient once you have it set up. Setting up, though, you need to look up and type in 10 different account numbers, addresses, etc for 10 different bills.

Doing things through the vendor's website means there's only ever one account number you need to type in----your bank account. It's easier to set up, perhaps slightly less easy to use once set up.

 

[Nociod]

Ok, I think I get it.

I stand by my previous comment that we have a whole different systems than you guys. Here it doesn't matter who you pay to, individuals, big companies, small companies, they all get their money the next day. No checks, it's all electronically, no matter whether the bank has an agreement or not.

But yeah, your online bill payment system sure sucks , maybe someday you can update it so it's more like what we have here in Europe (or atleast Scandinavia, not really certain how the rest of Europe does it)

Edit for commenting on Lindleys post:

Hmm, but if you have to sign up at 10 different vendors, then how is that different than typing in 10 different account numbers?, and do you really need to put in their addresses as well?, sounds complicated :P,

hehe, thanks for explaining, but still think it sounds more complicated than it should be

 

[JoeZhang]

What's the point of authorizing vendor websites to "write the check" directly?

How long would it take for the bank to transfer the money othervise?

Here your money goes directly into the other account the day after (if you transfer before 1200, it goes the same day).

I don't really see the point of making different deals with different vendor websites, when you could just manage it all from one place, your online bank.

Perhaps I explained badly. If I pay my bills online through my bank's online website - in some cases they pay the vendor directly and in other they issue a manual check. It's dependent upon whether My bank has an agreement or not with that vendor to transfer the funds electronically or not on how fast it leaves my account.

If I pay VISA for example it goes out typically in 24 hours or less from their website. If I pay Joe's A/C repair it could take days for the money to be removed from my account because the bank issues a check and doesn't withdraw the funds from my account until the check is paid - the manual check they cut.

It's their business practice to not withdraw my funds until the vendor actually receives the money. Make sense?

Right, I think the confusion for many Europeans reading this thread is that here (well in most of Europe), it is irrelevant who the vendor is, as they don't make individual agreements with banks. Also unless I've missed something, our banks (in the UK) don't cut cheques in that way, it's all electronic.

 

[DarthTom]

Ok, I think I get it.

I stand by my previous comment that we have a whole different systems than you guys. Here it doesn't matter who you pay to, individuals, big companies, small companies, they all get their money the next day. No checks, it's all electronically, no matter whether the bank has an agreement or not.

But yeah, your online bill payment system sure sucks , maybe someday you can update it so it's more like what we have here in Europe (or atleast Scandinavia, not really certain how the rest of Europe does it)

Edit for commenting on Lindleys post:

Hmm, but if you have to sign up at 10 different vendors, then how is that different than typing in 10 different account numbers?, and do you really need to put in their addresses as well?, sounds complicated :P,

hehe, thanks for explaining, but still think it sounds more complicated than it should be

I guess I don't understand how that would work if you owned a primarily all cash business. Lets say you owned a small catering company or a flower shop in Europe. And lets say that most of your business was either in cash or from customers who wrote a personal check or paid with a visa card.

How would your bank pay a small vendor if they didn't typically use electronic transfers as a way to get paid?