$162.02 penalty fee for rejected payment from TWC!?

[Red Squirrel]

Get overdraft protection. Always. It will pay for itself the first time it's used. Not to mention save you from having hits on your credit score. I like the way my bank does it, it just takes the money from the credit line. When I get paid I then pay it off. Been a while since I've had an overdraft though. I try to always keep at least 1k in the account and since I took a break from working on the basement that's been easier to do.

 

[cronos]

😕

You're doing it wrong.

Come on, you know it was an exaggeration based on the OP's "$162 in penalty fees. WTH!!!??" thing.

I know for a fact that I've never done it wrong, as I don't believe in autopay and always do my bills manually and therefore I've never gotten any fees.

Maybe my one hour per month total doing this worth much less than most of you. That's fine, I have no problem with it.

 

[MrPickins]

Come on, you know it was an exaggeration based on the OP's "$162 in penalty fees. WTH!!!??" thing.

I know for a fact that I've never done it wrong, as I don't believe in autopay and always do my bills manually and therefore I've never gotten any fees.

Maybe my one hour per month total doing this worth much less than most of you. That's fine, I have no problem with it.

I know it was an exaggeration, the problem is that it was a gross exaggeration. I've probably spent 2 hrs in the past 5 years dealing with autopay mixups, and have paid no late fees.

If you have a stable income and your accounts aren't in a state of flux, automatic payments require almost no effort or time.

Also it reduces the risk of late/missed payments due to misplacing a bill or having the payment lost in the mail...

 

[Brainonska511]

Get overdraft protection. Always. It will pay for itself the first time it's used. Not to mention save you from having hits on your credit score. I like the way my bank does it, it just takes the money from the credit line. When I get paid I then pay it off. Been a while since I've had an overdraft though. I try to always keep at least 1k in the account and since I took a break from working on the basement that's been easier to do.

How would that have helped the OP at all? He didn't overdraft.

As for overdraft protection: You can also just keep track of how much money you actually have (and not float checks or other payments).

 

[cronos]

I know it was an exaggeration, the problem is that it was a gross exaggeration. I've probably spent 2 hrs in the past 5 years dealing with autopay mixups, and have paid no late fees.

If you have a stable income and your accounts aren't in a state of flux, automatic payments require almost no effort or time.

Also it reduces the risk of late/missed payments due to misplacing a bill or having the payment lost in the mail...

Like I said, for some people the convenience of autopay worth the relatively small risk (for them). I understand, you don't have to convince me.

I never used mail or write paper checks either, as they're prone to mistakes and therefore risk of penalties/fees. I pay all my bills online. It's a smart thing to do. I just don't believe in autopay and do it manually.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

Like I said, for some people the convenience of autopay worth the relatively small risk (for them). I understand, you don't have to convince me.

I never used mail or write paper checks either, as they're prone to mistakes and therefore risk of penalties/fees. I pay all my bills online. It's a smart thing to do. I just don't believe in autopay and do it manually.

That's not a problem. I understand the point of paying manually - I'm assuming it's because of the unlikely event of a $10,455.75 water bill next month magically coming and then automatically paying it from autopay.

 

[John Connor]

ISPs are schmucks and so are a lot of people in this thread!

 

[MrPickins]

Like I said, for some people the convenience of autopay worth the relatively small risk (for them). I understand, you don't have to convince me.

I never used mail or write paper checks either, as they're prone to mistakes and therefore risk of penalties/fees. I pay all my bills online. It's a smart thing to do. I just don't believe in autopay and do it manually.

There was no reason then to wildly exaggerate and basically claim that people that use autopay are morons, just because you prefer to do things manually.

 

[Markbnj]

If you have a stable income and your accounts aren't in a state of flux, automatic payments require almost no effort or time.

This, but I believe a lot of ATOT posters are not in this category, and automatic payment debits could cause those folks a lot of trouble. I think you got the criteria just right. This is something that saves a lot of time and effort once you have settled down.

 

[justoh]

Ok, so I have my Time Warner Cable bill setup for autopay. Monthly bill is $137. Bank of America sent me a new debit card a couple weeks ago because they said there had been a potential fraud issue. Unbeknownst to me I had linked my TWC bill to my debit card instead of my checking account like all my other bills. I catch this mistake a few days after the bill was due, and manually make the payment online.

Just got my new bill for next month and it is $300. At first I thought the manual payment had not gone through properly until I read through the bill:

Credits/fees
05/18 Credit Card Payment Rejection or Denial 81.02
05/18 Credit Card Payment Rejection or Denial 56.04
05/18 Returned Payment Fee 25.00
Total credits/fees $162.06


How the F*CK do I get charged $162 for ONE rejected payment? Is that typical? I have never heard of such an absurd fee for such an offense.

They probably should have charged you $50, not $25, since the 137 is apparently split and charged separately?

 

[FelixDeCat]

They won that money fair and square.

Pay them.

 

[danzigrules]

Unbeknownst to me I had linked my TWC bill to my debit card instead of my checking account like all my other bills.

You didn't know that YOU set up autopay to YOUR debit card, and now you're complaining that they are charging you fee's.
:whiste:🙄

 

[jlee]

Just call them and tell them the card number changed. They'll probably waive the fee.

 

[jlee]

This, but I believe a lot of ATOT posters are not in this category, and automatic payment debits could cause those folks a lot of trouble. I think you got the criteria just right. This is something that saves a lot of time and effort once you have settled down.

Yeah, I love autopay. I have so many other things I'd rather be doing than going through bills.

 

[cronos]

There was no reason then to wildly exaggerate and basically claim that people that use autopay are morons, just because you prefer to do things manually.

Huh, I never made such claim in the bolded. In fact what I said is exactly the same thing you confirmed later, that it will depend on one's income level whether or not doing bills manually is worth your time (or whether doing autopay is worth the risk, depending on where you're looking from).

You were the one who accused me of 'doing it wrong', and I said nope, I'm doing it perfectly right for someone in my position. In fact, trusting autopay in my position is absolutely irresponsible.

 

[MrPickins]

Huh, I never made such claim in the bolded. In fact what I said is exactly the same thing you confirmed later, that it will depend on one's income level whether or not doing bills manually is worth your time (or whether doing autopay is worth the risk, depending on where you're looking from).

Fair enough, I got you mixed up with another poster.

You were the one who accused me of 'doing it wrong', and I said nope, I'm doing it perfectly right for someone in my position. In fact, trusting autopay in my position is absolutely irresponsible.

What I meant was that if you're incurring hundreds of dollars in penalties, you're doing it wrong, which was why I bolded that section.

 

[OCGuy]

OP fail

 

[dainthomas]

Unfortunately this.

If your time is so valuable then a couple hundred dollars of fees/etc every other month or so from auto payments gone bad (or from hiring someone to do it for you) are chump change. If not, do it manually on a set date every month. Put it on your calendar, it takes an hour tops.

Exactly what I do. All my bill dates go on my Google calendar. Also helps avoid OD fees. If you're in that kind of situation you can usually flex the payment date a little.

 

[Newell Steamer]

It's TWC,.. did you expect anything different/better?

 

[alkemyst]

Yeah, I love autopay. I have so many other things I'd rather be doing than going through bills.

QFT.

99% of the time there is no interaction needed, should one discover an error; it's not as if the creditor/biller can tell you to go pound sand.

The biggest danger/problem people have is blaming their auto-pay on overdrafting their accounts.

Only one time did I have a trainwreck caused by this, back around the mid-90's my gym put through like 50 drafts for membership fees. Basically what happened was those 50 memberships had my account information added internally by error.

Without a back up credit card I'd have been screwed as I was out on the road on business travel.

That has been the only dramatic issue. Recently one company did put 270.00 through instead of 27.00 as my auto payment. They actually caught this before I did (it was the first auto payment). They not only credited me the 270 back that day, but told me the next two payments are on them. They aren't making any interest on me either. It's a 0 percent transfer that I got a $100 gift card for to begin with 🙂