Rete

That is not a bank issue but an issue with your landlord. Mine will not allow electronic transfers either and will only accept a check which I have authorized my bank to do on such and such a date for a set amount.

Longy

Yeah I believe you can setup a direct payment if the landlord gave your their account and routing number, but people are not likely to do that over here as it is very easy to access people's account with this information, whilst in the UK although you can do stuff with this, its a lot harder.

So I guess you are just putting in your landlords name and address and the billpay then sends them a cheque. Not great, but to be honest I don't get why this bothers people so much, it gets paid and the actual method of payment is fairly irrelevant.

To the OP, most banks have an online billpay section where you can find other companies to pay. You would find your credit cards in the list they have, put in your account number and normally with credit cards you can setup electronic bills so that the bill automatically appears in billpay. You can then set it up to pay that bill automatically each month, or pay a fixed amount.

If your bank doesn't do billpay then I would get another bank.

You can setup payments from the credit card (or other billers) site to pull the payment from your bank, but people seem very distrustful of this method as I believe once they have your information it can be very hard to stop them pulling the money. This is probably more a problem with utilities who decide you owe them more money after you disconnect.

Tracym

This is a separate service - called Paytrust.

Many banks (including mine) offer some of this - certainly the payment part. But this receives the bills in addition.

I get no paper bills at all - if a biller can send the bill electronically to Paytrust, they do so. Otherwise, the billing address is just changed to Paytrust, and the paper bills are mailed to their center. Paytrust scans them in, so I still only see the electronic version. I can print them out of I want, and also can (for a minimal fee) get all the bills for the year on a CD.

When a bill arrives, Paytrust sends me an email.
If a bill that should arrive doesn't, they send me an email.
If I haven't scheduled a payment a week before it's due, also an email.

I can set up a fixed recurring payment.
I can say pay a bill automatically, if it's below a certain amount.
Of course, I can elect to pay bills manually.

I am also notified by email whever a payment is made. Payments are made electronically whever the biller allows it, otherwise (rarely) Paytrust mails a check.

It's worked practically flawlessly for me for years - and the customer service is terrific whenever I've had a minor issue. It's great if you travel - don't have to worry at all about receiving your bills in the mail.

lj2

How much does it cost Tracy?

Longy

Hmm, I am gonna ask the question as their site seems to have been down for the last hour.

How does this work with credit cards when ordering things online? If the billing address is paytrust do you have issues with some sellers who insist on delivering to the billing address (some certainly insist on the first purchase going there)?

MsElui

looks like its 4.95 a months with a 50cents fee for every transaction (recieving bill and paying bill = 2 transactions), or 12.95 a months with 30 free transactions.

Rete

Versus receiving your bills at your home and setting up recurring payments online through your bank at no fee.

DollyLlama

www.paytrust.com

MsElui

lot of the utilities we use at the moment seem to have schemes like direct debit. Our electric utility company already takes the cash each month from our bank account and just sends the paper bill for info.(they sent a little brochure in one of our bills for the scheme) we are trying to set this up with the other utilities where possible - snag is they all call it different things so its a faff trying to explain it to the various utility company phone operators who think I am a weird foreigner as soon as I open my mouth!

Longy

Yep - I can't see what the justification for the cost is - surely all banks have billpay and most credit card companies have automatic bills.

Poppy girl

Can't say I have had a problem all my bill's are paid by direct debit from my credit union.

Tracym

As others have posted, the cost seems to vary on how many transactions a month you'll do. I seem to have a discount as I've been with them for years - but I wouldn't think people would be likely to go over the 30 transactions at the $12.95, so I'd think generally that'd be the most.

The site is working fine for me - dunno what happened.

Credit card companies pretty much all send electronic bills - so for them, the billing address remains your home address and the bills just go electronically to Paytrust, so there is no problem with purchases from merchants.

Changing the billing address generally only happens with small companies (like for example my water softener company) who aren't set up for e-bills. And utilities like that have a service address and a billing address, so it isn't any problem.

chicagojlo

I'm with BOA and we use their billpay online service, all the bills come in electronically and the billpay sets up the payments depending on how I've set it up, either the whole amount, the minimum amount or a fixed amount.
We don't pay our credit cards that way however because we pay them on a bi-weekly basis as that's how my husband gets paid. We only have a couple so going onto the card site and setting up a one time payment is easy enough.

Elvira

For anyone considering setting up Direct Debits in the US:

There is no protection as in the UK - you are allowing the company to take your money on their say-so.

So not a good idea...

chicagojlo

Anytime I tried to fight anyone about a direct debit in the UK it fell on deaf ears anyway so there's little difference as far as I am concerned...

There is also a service called MyCheckFree which is a free billpay service. I use it for the two lines I have that aren't covered by my banks billpay service.