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You will save time (and probably money) using Electronic Bill Payment.Nov 25 '00 Write an essay on this topic.I've been banking online for years. I discovered it in college when I switched to First Interstate bank and, except for a brief flirtation with another bank which promised by online banking, I've been with First Interstate (now Wells Fargo) and banking online ever since. I would shred my statements as soon as I got them each month because they were already so outdated. I could log in several times a week and reconcile the online statement with Quicken and know instantly if there were any problems. But I had never bothered to really look into paying my bills online. My paychecks were deposited electronically and in some weird, perverse sort of way, I enjoyed sitting down in front of the laptop and the TV with the checkbook to pay bills on a regular basis. Then one day, Wells Fargo sent me a coupon for two free months of Bill Pay to see if I liked it or not. (They ultimately waived the charge for 3 months. Fortunately, that's the only mistake I've ever witnessed them making.) With Wells Fargo Bill Pay, they are simply doing the check-writing for you. Wherever possible, they will pay the other company electronically, but if that's not an option, they cut a check and drop it in the mail. You don't know how the money will get there, but you don't have to worry about it, as long as you make the payment 5 days before the due date, as recommended by BP. BP costs $5.00 per month for the first 25 payments and 40 cents for each additional payment. If you pay 15 bills a month, it will cost you 33 cents. (You're already ahead because it's quicker and you don't have to buy checks as frequently.) At 20 bills a month, it's 25 cents a payment and at 25 bills a month, it's 20 cents a payment. (If you keep a minimum balance of $5,000 with Wells Fargo -- checking, savings, whatever -- they waive this fee.) Because of Bill Pay, I write one check in a typical month -- my rent check, because I get paid the same day rent is due each month, so I don't have time to use Bill Pay for it. I am building up my savings at Wells Fargo, so once I have enough, I will be able to transfer the rent amount from savings, use Bill Pay, and then 5 days later, put the money back in savings from the paycheck. (A box of $200 checks can cost up to $13 from your bank, so each time you pay bills manually, that probably could cost you 39 to 40 cents.) To make a payment, you first create a payee. A payee can be a company or a person. You type in the first three letters of the payee and they check their database for a match. If they find one, all you have to do is select it and enter your account/customer number with that payee and an optional nickname. If they don't find it, they ask you you enter the company's name, mailing address, your account/customer number, an optional nickname, and their phone number. People at Wells Fargo regularly go through the payees and make minor corrections to names and confirm addresses with payees. Your payees go into the collective database, so most likely you're going to find the payee already in the system because chances are another Bill Pay-er also owes the same company money that you do. After you've created a payee, you can immediately make a payment, or go back to the list of payee's you've created. You can check a bunch of payees and hit "pay bills". It then presents a list of all of the payee's you've elected to pay. It has a date box (default date already filled in as the next day) and a box where you enter the amount. Go down the list typing in the amounts and hit "Pay Bills" and in a few seconds a list of reference numbers are returned to you. (I enter those all into Quicken.) I rarely opt to have a payment scheduled for any time in the future because the money is not deducted from my account and there is no record (unless I go back into "Pending Payments") that the payment is happening. This is my biggest complaint about Bill Pay. I wish there were someway to note those pending payments on my online statement. Another option I have not yet started using is the automatic payments, where every month it makes recurring payments automatically (like car payments, rent, etc.) I will start using this once I have more saved up. I have only had one problem with a payment since I started using the service. I got a statement from my dentist for my deductible that I knew I had paid. I called them up and told them I had paid and they went through everything but couldn't find it, so I called Wells Fargo. They looked it up and told me that I had entered the address wrong and that the check had been returned to them, and that they had since contacted my dentist's office, confirmed the correct address, fixed it in the database and then re-issued the check. I called the dentist's office back and apologized profusely and explained what had happened. They called the next day to tell me the check had arrived. Fortunately, it wasn't a credit card so I didn't get a late payment fee and Wells Fargo didn't charge me either for having to call the dentist's office or remail the check. I know this is very Wells Fargo-centric, but Wells Fargo is what I know. What used to be an activity that took at least an hour several times a month is now a process that takes just a few brief minutes several times a month. I definitely appreciate the time it's saved. The money I'm saving is an added bonus. If the service you use or are thinking about using is comparable to Wells Fargo, I highly recommend it.  |
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