I understand returned payment fees for checks, but I’ve never been charged for having a credit card decline.
Stupid of me to sign up for auto-payment when I use my credit card for gas, I guess.
I understand returned payment fees for checks, but I’ve never been charged for having a credit card decline.
Stupid of me to sign up for auto-payment when I use my credit card for gas, I guess.
I’m decades old. The lesson I learned over decades is to NEVER sign up for autopay. NEVER. THERE’S NOT A COMPANY OUT THERE THAT BUGS YOU FOR AUTO PAY THAT WON’T ABUSE YOU.
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Just spend the ten minutes once a month to pay from your bank using the payment service.
“Just”
Thanks I’m cured
It is non-trivial to set a reliable reminder for some, and not due to laziness, just how brains are wired. Set a calendar reminder, you start ignoring it after a few months. Start an alarm, you start snoozing it early. Put a note on the fridge, it eventually becomes invisible. Not impossible to overcome, but also, as I started, non-trivial to solve.
Bill pay pushed from your bank account is okay – you can get even set up limits where it’ll cancel the payment if a bill is unexpectedly large.
Letting creditors pull from your bank account is what isn’t okay.
I really like SEPA mandates for this. Yes, they’re pull, but you can cancel them with one click within 52 days, and the money is back in your account in a few hours (if not instantly).
Most companies that use it are very clear, since auto-pay by law needs a reminder or the refund is an automatic legal cancellation of the contract. (Of course, this is sometimes disguised as an upsell, mostly by telco’s or “disruptive startups”).
And they work across Europe, so my German cloud provider can use debits to pull the money from my Durch bank account.
The US not having such a consumer friendly system is really unfortunate, but not surprising.
Well, they’re consumer friendly, so of course the US won’t have them.
Yeah, this is a hard lesson everyone should take to heart.
Edit: to add, most banks will allow you to set up automatic payments to go out to companies. This is a far better method because it doesn’t put your finances in the hands of an unscrupulous corporation. (Well, other than your bank but those are the dice we roll)
What if I’ve been paying for years without incident? There’s a thing where I can do autopay for mobile (Canada) where it’s $10 off the bill. I always hate the idea of autopay but they’ve never overcharged a bill…so far. By years I mean it’s been over a decade now.
Mostly curious if your stance still says no to this situation as well. I’ll guess yes, but still it’s $10 a month so adds up to almost a fast food meal these days lol.
For no perks I definitely agree, I pay my crap on time and takes like 5 mins a month to pay online.
Yeah, I was thinking of editing my comment regarding this - lots of companies have started charging fees if you DONT use autopay. (They can call it a discount all they want, but the price you’re paying with autopay is the price. They’re really charging you a fee if you don’t.) Practically speaking, it is likely cheaper if you pay 1 overdraft fee a year than paying $10 a month for manual payment. But, I’m a crotchety old stubborn man who somehow has the idea he can change a giant corporation by giving them a fake middle finger.