I just added Emory Hospital as an automatic payee. Wells Fargo has no
caller ID lookup so the chances of finding the address, city, state
automatically is 0. (I suggest adding this feature every time it
comes up but all I hear are crickets)

Also automatic payments has no way to send the exact amount of the
bill. I can set up payments, and I have the option of sending them
forever until I stop them, or sending xx number of payments. South
Trust had the option of "send until you pay $$$.cc."

Because all of my bills recur monthly, I rarely have to add payees so
the amount of trouble to switch banks is more trouble than to put up
with this, so all I can do is complain.

M. I. C. K. E. Y. M. O. U. S. E bank

--
O'Neil to General Hammond:
For the record Sir, I wanted to blow it the hell up.

On 6/4/2011 10:36 AM, Metspitzer wrote:
I just added Emory Hospital as an automatic payee. Wells Fargo has no
caller ID lookup so the chances of finding the address, city, state
automatically is 0. (I suggest adding this feature every time it
comes up but all I hear are crickets)

Also automatic payments has no way to send the exact amount of the
bill. I can set up payments, and I have the option of sending them
forever until I stop them, or sending xx number of payments. South
Trust had the option of "send until you pay $$$.cc."

Because all of my bills recur monthly, I rarely have to add payees so
the amount of trouble to switch banks is more trouble than to put up
with this, so all I can do is complain.

M. I. C. K. E. Y. M. O. U. S. E bank

--
O'Neil to General Hammond:
For the record Sir, I wanted to blow it the hell up.

Most, if not all, big banks suck and exist to please share holders. Get
a credit union. I've been with a CU for almost 30 years. Not one
problem. In fact, they are very helpful particularly when it comes to ID
theft. Small enough to treat you like a person.

Jim

On Sat, 04 Jun 2011 11:36:04 -0400, Metspitzer
wrote:

I just added Emory Hospital as an automatic payee. Wells Fargo has no
caller ID lookup so the chances of finding the address, city, state
automatically is 0. (I suggest adding this feature every time it
comes up but all I hear are crickets)

Also automatic payments has no way to send the exact amount of the
bill. I can set up payments, and I have the option of sending them
forever until I stop them, or sending xx number of payments. South
Trust had the option of "send until you pay $$$.cc."

Because all of my bills recur monthly, I rarely have to add payees so
the amount of trouble to switch banks is more trouble than to put up
with this, so all I can do is complain.

M. I. C. K. E. Y. M. O. U. S. E bank

This is why I've always used the "pull" method of automatic payment
(where you authorize the utility/school/credit card/etc to initiate an
ACH transfer each month for the bill amount), instead of the "push"
method of these bill-pay systems. I'd see if the hospital can set
that up if these are ongoing bills.

I've done this for all my recurring bills for 15+ years and never had
a problem with a bad withdrawal -- on the contrary, the one time I
tried to use "bill pay" several years ago with my credit union to pay
the rent I couldn't have autopayed via pull, on the third month they
took the money out of my account...and never sent it to the rental
agency. They did take responsibility, and refunded it along with the
late charge I paid the agency immediately, but I gave up after that.
Too much room for error/finger pointing, where with ACH withdrawal, if
the statement says "PG&E ACH $16.85", that's proof that PG&E received
that amount.

In the end, if the company pulling the money is legit, they're only
going to take what they should. If they're not...well, anyone with
your account and routing number (including someone you "bill pay" to)
can initiate a fraudulent payment anyway, so you don't really have any
more protection.

Josh

On 6/4/2011 11:56 AM, Josh wrote:
On Sat, 04 Jun 2011 11:36:04 -0400,
wrote:

I just added Emory Hospital as an automatic payee. Wells Fargo has no
caller ID lookup so the chances of finding the address, city, state
automatically is 0. (I suggest adding this feature every time it
comes up but all I hear are crickets)

Also automatic payments has no way to send the exact amount of the
bill. I can set up payments, and I have the option of sending them
forever until I stop them, or sending xx number of payments. South
Trust had the option of "send until you pay $$$.cc."

Because all of my bills recur monthly, I rarely have to add payees so
the amount of trouble to switch banks is more trouble than to put up
with this, so all I can do is complain.

M. I. C. K. E. Y. M. O. U. S. E bank

This is why I've always used the "pull" method of automatic payment
(where you authorize the utility/school/credit card/etc to initiate an
ACH transfer each month for the bill amount), instead of the "push"
method of these bill-pay systems. I'd see if the hospital can set
that up if these are ongoing bills.

I've done this for all my recurring bills for 15+ years and never had
a problem with a bad withdrawal -- on the contrary, the one time I
tried to use "bill pay" several years ago with my credit union to pay
the rent I couldn't have autopayed via pull, on the third month they
took the money out of my account...and never sent it to the rental
agency. They did take responsibility, and refunded it along with the
late charge I paid the agency immediately, but I gave up after that.
Too much room for error/finger pointing, where with ACH withdrawal, if
the statement says "PG&E ACH $16.85", that's proof that PG&E received
that amount.

In the end, if the company pulling the money is legit, they're only
going to take what they should. If they're not...well, anyone with
your account and routing number (including someone you "bill pay" to)
can initiate a fraudulent payment anyway, so you don't really have any
more protection.

Josh

I would never ever give anyone the keys to my bank account. All
disbursements are made by me and I can think of a number of occasions
why that makes sense.

We use natural gas for heating/cooking/water heating. The highest bill
we ever had was ~ 160.00 There was bad weather so they didn't read the
meters and delivered estimated billing. Only little problem was they
delivered a bill for almost $700. If they could take whatever money they
wanted they would have caused other payments to fail since I only keep
sufficient money to pay bills in the account. Since I am in control of
my checkbook I called them and asked how much I really owed them and
they played the part of the 900lb gorilla and told me $690. I refused to
pay unless they gave me a reasonable estimate so the "supervisor" had a
powwow with someone and decided $150 would work.

The water company notified us they needed to change the water meter. So
they kept on making appointments and then no one would show. They even
cluelessly claimed it wasn't their problem because they hired a
contractor to do the work. Then the normal $22 water bill became $400+
with estimated fees because they tried to make their poor management my
problem. If they had the keys to our checking account they could have
taken the money and we would need to battle them and when they did they
could have caused other legitimate bills not to be paid. I called and
asked "how much do I actually owe you?" and received the same we are
megacorp you are stupid response that the other utility gave me. After a
long discussion the "manager" agreed to the normal monthly bill.

George wrote in :

On 6/4/2011 11:56 AM, Josh wrote:
On Sat, 04 Jun 2011 11:36:04 -0400,
wrote:

I just added Emory Hospital as an automatic payee. Wells Fargo has
no caller ID lookup so the chances of finding the address, city,
state automatically is 0. (I suggest adding this feature every
time it comes up but all I hear are crickets)

Also automatic payments has no way to send the exact amount of the
bill. I can set up payments, and I have the option of sending them
forever until I stop them, or sending xx number of payments. South
Trust had the option of "send until you pay $$$.cc."

Because all of my bills recur monthly, I rarely have to add payees
so the amount of trouble to switch banks is more trouble than to put
up with this, so all I can do is complain.

M. I. C. K. E. Y. M. O. U. S. E bank

This is why I've always used the "pull" method of automatic payment
(where you authorize the utility/school/credit card/etc to initiate
an ACH transfer each month for the bill amount), instead of the
"push" method of these bill-pay systems. I'd see if the hospital can
set that up if these are ongoing bills.

I've done this for all my recurring bills for 15+ years and never had
a problem with a bad withdrawal -- on the contrary, the one time I
tried to use "bill pay" several years ago with my credit union to pay
the rent I couldn't have autopayed via pull, on the third month they
took the money out of my account...and never sent it to the rental
agency. They did take responsibility, and refunded it along with the
late charge I paid the agency immediately, but I gave up after that.
Too much room for error/finger pointing, where with ACH withdrawal,
if the statement says "PG&E ACH $16.85", that's proof that PG&E
received that amount.

In the end, if the company pulling the money is legit, they're only
going to take what they should. If they're not...well, anyone with
your account and routing number (including someone you "bill pay" to)
can initiate a fraudulent payment anyway, so you don't really have
any more protection.

Josh

I would never ever give anyone the keys to my bank account. All
disbursements are made by me and I can think of a number of occasions
why that makes sense.

We use natural gas for heating/cooking/water heating. The highest bill
we ever had was ~ 160.00 There was bad weather so they didn't read the
meters and delivered estimated billing. Only little problem was they
delivered a bill for almost $700. If they could take whatever money
they wanted they would have caused other payments to fail since I only
keep sufficient money to pay bills in the account. Since I am in
control of my checkbook I called them and asked how much I really owed
them and they played the part of the 900lb gorilla and told me $690. I
refused to pay unless they gave me a reasonable estimate so the
"supervisor" had a powwow with someone and decided $150 would work.

The water company notified us they needed to change the water meter.
So they kept on making appointments and then no one would show. They
even cluelessly claimed it wasn't their problem because they hired a
contractor to do the work. Then the normal $22 water bill became $400+
with estimated fees because they tried to make their poor management
my problem. If they had the keys to our checking account they could
have taken the money and we would need to battle them and when they
did they could have caused other legitimate bills not to be paid. I
called and asked "how much do I actually owe you?" and received the
same we are megacorp you are stupid response that the other utility
gave me. After a long discussion the "manager" agreed to the normal
monthly bill.

I'm with Josh. Wrong billing is something you need to deal with
separately. I wouldn't stand for it either. Almost all my utility bills
and credit card payments are automagically by the "pull" method. When
Verizon started erroneous billing, I stopped it until they fixed their
paperwork. The gasportion of my bill has often estimated readings. I
either let them carry over to the next month or call them to correct it.
Even with Jersey's PSE&G that hasn't been a problem. The main
advantage (IMNSHO) is that if you forget to send a payment it is your
fault. If they forget to pull the money it is their problem. Now I
don't have to worry whether the payment gets there on time.


--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

On 6/4/2011 7:33 PM, Han wrote:
wrote in :

On 6/4/2011 11:56 AM, Josh wrote:
On Sat, 04 Jun 2011 11:36:04 -0400,
wrote:

I just added Emory Hospital as an automatic payee. Wells Fargo has
no caller ID lookup so the chances of finding the address, city,
state automatically is 0. (I suggest adding this feature every
time it comes up but all I hear are crickets)

Also automatic payments has no way to send the exact amount of the
bill. I can set up payments, and I have the option of sending them
forever until I stop them, or sending xx number of payments. South
Trust had the option of "send until you pay $$$.cc."

Because all of my bills recur monthly, I rarely have to add payees
so the amount of trouble to switch banks is more trouble than to put
up with this, so all I can do is complain.

M. I. C. K. E. Y. M. O. U. S. E bank

This is why I've always used the "pull" method of automatic payment
(where you authorize the utility/school/credit card/etc to initiate
an ACH transfer each month for the bill amount), instead of the
"push" method of these bill-pay systems. I'd see if the hospital can
set that up if these are ongoing bills.

I've done this for all my recurring bills for 15+ years and never had
a problem with a bad withdrawal -- on the contrary, the one time I
tried to use "bill pay" several years ago with my credit union to pay
the rent I couldn't have autopayed via pull, on the third month they
took the money out of my account...and never sent it to the rental
agency. They did take responsibility, and refunded it along with the
late charge I paid the agency immediately, but I gave up after that.
Too much room for error/finger pointing, where with ACH withdrawal,
if the statement says "PG&E ACH $16.85", that's proof that PG&E
received that amount.

In the end, if the company pulling the money is legit, they're only
going to take what they should. If they're not...well, anyone with
your account and routing number (including someone you "bill pay" to)
can initiate a fraudulent payment anyway, so you don't really have
any more protection.

Josh

I would never ever give anyone the keys to my bank account. All
disbursements are made by me and I can think of a number of occasions
why that makes sense.

We use natural gas for heating/cooking/water heating. The highest bill
we ever had was ~ 160.00 There was bad weather so they didn't read the
meters and delivered estimated billing. Only little problem was they
delivered a bill for almost $700. If they could take whatever money
they wanted they would have caused other payments to fail since I only
keep sufficient money to pay bills in the account. Since I am in
control of my checkbook I called them and asked how much I really owed
them and they played the part of the 900lb gorilla and told me $690. I
refused to pay unless they gave me a reasonable estimate so the
"supervisor" had a powwow with someone and decided $150 would work.

The water company notified us they needed to change the water meter.
So they kept on making appointments and then no one would show. They
even cluelessly claimed it wasn't their problem because they hired a
contractor to do the work. Then the normal $22 water bill became $400+
with estimated fees because they tried to make their poor management
my problem. If they had the keys to our checking account they could
have taken the money and we would need to battle them and when they
did they could have caused other legitimate bills not to be paid. I
called and asked "how much do I actually owe you?" and received the
same we are megacorp you are stupid response that the other utility
gave me. After a long discussion the "manager" agreed to the normal
monthly bill.

I'm with Josh. Wrong billing is something you need to deal with
separately. I wouldn't stand for it either. Almost all my utility bills
and credit card payments are automagically by the "pull" method. When
Verizon started erroneous billing, I stopped it until they fixed their
paperwork. The gasportion of my bill has often estimated readings. I
either let them carry over to the next month or call them to correct it.
Even with Jersey's PSE&G that hasn't been a problem. The main
advantage (IMNSHO) is that if you forget to send a payment it is your
fault. If they forget to pull the money it is their problem. Now I
don't have to worry whether the payment gets there on time.


So I put my account on "autopilot" and someone pulls a lot more than
they should how do I deal with that separately?

One of the best things that ever happened to prevent forgetting to pay
bills is online banking. As bills come in I simply log on to the bank
and post them instead of putting them in a pile. If someone sends a
bizarre bill it doesn't get posted.

George wrote in :

So I put my account on "autopilot" and someone pulls a lot more than
they should how do I deal with that separately?

That would warrant calls to bank and whoever did it. Has never happened to
me, so far knocking wood.

One of the best things that ever happened to prevent forgetting to pay
bills is online banking. As bills come in I simply log on to the bank
and post them instead of putting them in a pile. If someone sends a
bizarre bill it doesn't get posted.

That's fine if you don't go on vacation or off to help your kid with a
family problem (happy or not). I'm sometimes away for more than a few
days. Also, I keepmy money in my checking account for a longer period if I
do the pull method. With the push you'd better pay a few days early to
avoid problems with late payments.

--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

On Sat, 04 Jun 2011 12:25:47 -0400, George
wrote:

On 6/4/2011 11:56 AM, Josh wrote:
On Sat, 04 Jun 2011 11:36:04 -0400,
wrote:

I just added Emory Hospital as an automatic payee. Wells Fargo has no
caller ID lookup so the chances of finding the address, city, state
automatically is 0. (I suggest adding this feature every time it
comes up but all I hear are crickets)

Also automatic payments has no way to send the exact amount of the
bill. I can set up payments, and I have the option of sending them
forever until I stop them, or sending xx number of payments. South
Trust had the option of "send until you pay $$$.cc."

Because all of my bills recur monthly, I rarely have to add payees so
the amount of trouble to switch banks is more trouble than to put up
with this, so all I can do is complain.

M. I. C. K. E. Y. M. O. U. S. E bank

This is why I've always used the "pull" method of automatic payment
(where you authorize the utility/school/credit card/etc to initiate an
ACH transfer each month for the bill amount), instead of the "push"
method of these bill-pay systems. I'd see if the hospital can set
that up if these are ongoing bills.

I've done this for all my recurring bills for 15+ years and never had
a problem with a bad withdrawal -- on the contrary, the one time I
tried to use "bill pay" several years ago with my credit union to pay
the rent I couldn't have autopayed via pull, on the third month they
took the money out of my account...and never sent it to the rental
agency. They did take responsibility, and refunded it along with the
late charge I paid the agency immediately, but I gave up after that.
Too much room for error/finger pointing, where with ACH withdrawal, if
the statement says "PG&E ACH $16.85", that's proof that PG&E received
that amount.

In the end, if the company pulling the money is legit, they're only
going to take what they should. If they're not...well, anyone with
your account and routing number (including someone you "bill pay" to)
can initiate a fraudulent payment anyway, so you don't really have any
more protection.

Josh

I would never ever give anyone the keys to my bank account. All
disbursements are made by me and I can think of a number of occasions
why that makes sense.

Anyone you've ever written a check to has the "keys to your bank
account" already -- the routing number for the bank and the account
number. The vendor doesn't send anything beyond that (and the amount,
of course) to the ACH system; they keep your authorizations on file,
of course, but that doesn't prevent unauthorized transactions until
it's done, you complain and your bank investigates.



We use natural gas for heating/cooking/water heating. The highest bill
we ever had was ~ 160.00 There was bad weather so they didn't read the
meters and delivered estimated billing. Only little problem was they
delivered a bill for almost $700. If they could take whatever money they
wanted they would have caused other payments to fail since I only keep
sufficient money to pay bills in the account. Since I am in control of
my checkbook I called them and asked how much I really owed them and
they played the part of the 900lb gorilla and told me $690. I refused to
pay unless they gave me a reasonable estimate so the "supervisor" had a
powwow with someone and decided $150 would work.

I always receive a bill to review showing the amount to be pulled,
either online or paper -- the "pull" doesn't happen until the due date
a few weeks later. If the amount isn't correct, there's time to get
the utility etc to correct it, or to call the bank to get them to
block that specific ACH attempt (or just empty your account :-)

Josh

Josh wrote in
:

I always receive a bill to review showing the amount to be pulled,
either online or paper -- the "pull" doesn't happen until the due date
a few weeks later. If the amount isn't correct, there's time to get
the utility etc to correct it, or to call the bank to get them to
block that specific ACH attempt (or just empty your account :-)

Indeed.

--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

On 6/4/2011 11:56 AM, Josh wrote:
On Sat, 04 Jun 2011 11:36:04 -0400,
wrote:

I just added Emory Hospital as an automatic payee. Wells Fargo has no
caller ID lookup so the chances of finding the address, city, state
automatically is 0. (I suggest adding this feature every time it
comes up but all I hear are crickets)

Also automatic payments has no way to send the exact amount of the
bill. I can set up payments, and I have the option of sending them
forever until I stop them, or sending xx number of payments. South
Trust had the option of "send until you pay $$$.cc."

Because all of my bills recur monthly, I rarely have to add payees so
the amount of trouble to switch banks is more trouble than to put up
with this, so all I can do is complain.

M. I. C. K. E. Y. M. O. U. S. E bank

This is why I've always used the "pull" method of automatic payment
(where you authorize the utility/school/credit card/etc to initiate an
ACH transfer each month for the bill amount), instead of the "push"
method of these bill-pay systems. I'd see if the hospital can set
that up if these are ongoing bills.

I've done this for all my recurring bills for 15+ years and never had
a problem with a bad withdrawal -- on the contrary, the one time I
tried to use "bill pay" several years ago with my credit union to pay
the rent I couldn't have autopayed via pull, on the third month they
took the money out of my account...and never sent it to the rental
agency. They did take responsibility, and refunded it along with the
late charge I paid the agency immediately, but I gave up after that.
Too much room for error/finger pointing, where with ACH withdrawal, if
the statement says "PG&E ACH $16.85", that's proof that PG&E received
that amount.

In the end, if the company pulling the money is legit, they're only
going to take what they should. If they're not...well, anyone with
your account and routing number (including someone you "bill pay" to)
can initiate a fraudulent payment anyway, so you don't really have any
more protection.

Josh

I trust you have told your bank to NOT link that account to your other
accounts, so if a fubar'd or fraudulent transaction comes through, it
can't snatch ALL your money? Don't laugh- it has happened- bank tries to
be helpful, and ends up aiding a crook.

I am glad it works for you, but the only way I would trust letting
outsiders tap my account on their own, is via a sacrificial account in a
separate bank, and never keep more in the account than I can afford to
lose. Rationally I know you are correct, and it works 99.999% of the
time with no problem. But I seem to be a lightning rod for that 0.001%.
Besides, writing those checks reminds me it is real money, and I need to
be frugal so I don't outlive it. Automatic payment is worse than using
plastic- it doesn't FEEL like spending money at all.

And unless you have your account set up for pull payments, how can
anyone remotely tap it? Isn't that a flag on the account? And don't the
pull payment orders have to be from specific banks/accounts/IDs?, with
the vendor presenting YOUR bank with an image of one of your checks and
some sort of an authorization audit trail, at least the first time? That
is what all the vendors I deal with imply, in their incessant pleas to
get me to start using auto-pay.

Yeah, I'm a luddite- I'd rather use cash for everything. But that isn't
really possible any more, no matter what the law says.

--
aem sends...

On Sat, 04 Jun 2011 19:17:42 -0400, aemeijers
wrote:

On 6/4/2011 11:56 AM, Josh wrote:


In the end, if the company pulling the money is legit, they're only
going to take what they should. If they're not...well, anyone with
your account and routing number (including someone you "bill pay" to)
can initiate a fraudulent payment anyway, so you don't really have any
more protection.


I trust you have told your bank to NOT link that account to your other
accounts, so if a fubar'd or fraudulent transaction comes through, it
can't snatch ALL your money? Don't laugh- it has happened- bank tries to
be helpful, and ends up aiding a crook.

Our checking account is linked to a savings account that has some
money; I agree that we probably shouldn't have them that way, but it's
not all of our savings.


I am glad it works for you, but the only way I would trust letting
outsiders tap my account on their own, is via a sacrificial account in a
separate bank, and never keep more in the account than I can afford to

All "outsiders" need to tap your account is the information on one of
your checks -- the routing number and account number. If you write
someone a check, you're giving them all the info they need.

lose. Rationally I know you are correct, and it works 99.999% of the
time with no problem. But I seem to be a lightning rod for that 0.001%.
Besides, writing those checks reminds me it is real money, and I need to
be frugal so I don't outlive it. Automatic payment is worse than using
plastic- it doesn't FEEL like spending money at all.

And unless you have your account set up for pull payments, how can
anyone remotely tap it? Isn't that a flag on the account? And don't the
pull payment orders have to be from specific banks/accounts/IDs?, with
the vendor presenting YOUR bank with an image of one of your checks and
some sort of an authorization audit trail, at least the first time? That
is what all the vendors I deal with imply, in their incessant pleas to
get me to start using auto-pay.

Nope, you don't set anything up on your account beforehand -- all the
vendor needs is your bank's routing number (the first set of numbers
on your check), the account number (the second set), and the amount
they want to debit.

You do submit a signed authorization to the vendor, but all they do is
keep that on file (most used to require a voided check just to make
sure the numbers are correct, but many don't require that anymore). If
you had a dispute, the bank would ask the vendor for their documents,
but that's after the fact. I'm sure the banks have some fraud
detection, and would start blocking "Josh's SuperDuper Service"
charges after a few complaints, but that's a different issue.

Josh

On Jun 4, 11:36*am, Metspitzer wrote:
I just added Emory Hospital as an automatic payee. *Wells Fargo has no
caller ID lookup so the chances of finding the address, city, state
automatically is 0. * (I suggest adding this feature every time it
comes up but all I hear are crickets)

Also automatic payments has no way to send the exact amount of the
bill. *I can set up payments, and I have the option of sending them
forever until I stop them, or sending xx number of payments. *South
Trust had the option of "send until you pay $$$.cc."

Because all of my bills recur monthly, I rarely have to add payees so
the amount of trouble to switch banks is more trouble than to put up
with this, so all I can do is complain.

M. I. C. K. E. Y. *M. O. U. S. E * bank

--
O'Neil to General Hammond:
For the record Sir, I wanted to blow it the hell up.

How DARE you talk down to the almighty and powerful Security Forces Of
the Church of the Supreme Court LLC