Auto Pay screwup

[tractor]

I used to think auto bill pay was the way to go, until today. Last week in an attempt to get everything taken care of, I inadvertently entered an extra 0 at the end of a payment amount, fast forward to this morning and I overpaid my electric bill by $3,000!

No problem I thought, I’ll just call them and they will transfer the overage back, WRONG!! They will have to cut a paper check and it will be at least 14 days before they are able to process it. So in the meantime, I will be overdrawn and several checks will be bounced.

So, trying to be a responsible adult, I go to my bank today, explain the situation and ask for a loan with a 30-day note, to cover the mistake. I planned to pay them back in one lump sum when the utility sends me the refund. However, since it will be one lump sum payment of $2,500, they denied the loan because my debt to income ratio is too high. Idiots, all around (including myself), so even with a 790 credit score, at 50 years old, with almost $140k income, I’m going to have to borrow money from my mom.....

😞

[sesfw]

Dang ………. what a shock to your financial system.

DH would love to have auto bill pay and I always say no.  I don't want anyone to have that much access to our checking account. 

Several years ago a pest control company wanted auto billing/pay for their services or we would be charged an additional $1.50 per bill otherwise.  We found a different company to do business with.

[souldoubt]

I did this by mistake with a water bill about two years ago.  Called the city/vendor and they told me they couldn't refund me the difference and I would just have a credit going forward.  Since I paid with my CC I called my CC, told them what happened and they ended up voiding the transaction.  I know it was an error on my part but telling me they couldn't refund the difference still didn't sit well.  Not long after that the website where you pay was updated and they automatically populate the amount to pay with the amount due.    

[saveinla]

Sorry for your troubles tractor. At least your mom is in a position to help you.

Recently my online banking screens have a warning if my payment is a little different from the usual amount. They ask if the amount is correct and that my last payment was xxx and to verify if I was entering the correct amount.

[oped]

This is why I keep 10k liquid in an EF that doesn’t make much money. So I don’t have to call Dad and fess up if I have a boo boo.

I can’t believe the bank was so stupid. I’d be moving my accounts.

ETA most of my autopay go to cc only a few draw from bank... all of them Draw From the outside entity so go in the amount due. None Draw From my bank.

Actually, I guess it’s not automatic you are talking about since you scheduled it...so you are actually talking online bill pay?

[Blonde Granny]

I have all my bills on auto pay except the CCs. I want to verify before I issue a payment. I've done nothing but auto pay for close to 20 years and never had a problem....except the last credit card when I made a mistake and issued the same payment twice on the same day. For now, I'm just using the balance up little by little. But it was certainly MY mistake, not something that auto pay caused.

[tallguy]

Jun 10, 2019 10:57:13 GMT -5 tractor said:

I used to think auto bill pay was the way to go, until today. Last week in an attempt to get everything taken care of, I inadvertently entered an extra 0 at the end of a payment amount, fast forward to this morning and I overpaid my electric bill by $3,000!

No problem I thought, I’ll just call them and they will transfer the overage back, WRONG!! They will have to cut a paper check and it will be at least 14 days before they are able to process it. So in the meantime, I will be overdrawn and several checks will be bounced.

So, trying to be a responsible adult, I go to my bank today, explain the situation and ask for a loan with a 30-day note, to cover the mistake. I planned to pay them back in one lump sum when the utility sends me the refund. However, since it will be one lump sum payment of $2,500, they denied the loan because my debt to income ratio is too high. Idiots, all around (including myself), so even with a 790 credit score, at 50 years old, with almost $140k income, I’m going to have to borrow money from my mom.....

😞

I set all of mine up to automatically bill to my credit card on their due date, and then the bank automatically pays that from my checking account right before its due date.  I do nothing.  Works wonderfully.  I don't have to remember dates and there is never a chance of entering a wrong number, plus I get rewards on the CC.  It works especially well now that I spend so much time away from home.  That being said, how with that income do you not have $3000 liquid savings to cover the mistake?   

[jitterbug]

I am curious why the bank didn't just offer you overdraft protection, where you are automatically granted a "loan" to cover any overdrafts?  We keep extra money "hidden" in our checking account to do our own protection - but I thought that was a pretty common bank offering. Yes, I believe you pay a fee to have this in place - but it's cheaper than bouncing checks!

I am a little cautious about auto pay ever since Verizon got my account mixed up with someone else's (after billing me correctly for years) and it was a struggle to get it corrected. And I got the good end of that stick, since the other account owed less than I did!

[chiver78]

this all sounds painfully familiar.

I will be closing my old checking/savings accounts this week after a similarly themed f*ckup on the bank's part. I needed to wait for a couple things to sort themselves out first. that's all set now. I expect to have a very loud argument in a branch about how I am not paying the overdraft charges for the items that bounced because of their screwup. as of now, those have not been reversed. but, when a temporary credit was yanked earlier than expected, the account is now negative as I moved most things out already. so in closing the account, I need to bring it current - short the $105 in OD fees, just on principle. if they hadn't f'd up, those three items wouldn't have bounced. 

I echo oped in suggesting you move your accounts. if you were a deadbeat customer that this was your regular jam, then sure. expect to get treated like shit and get no exceptions. if I can ask, which bank is it? I'm happy to say I am finally leaving Bank of America. 

[chiver78]

oh, and I'm confused why people think autopay allows access to your checking account. both BofA and the CU where I'm going have a billpay feature through their own sites where YOU set up the payees (account info, amounts/dates) and the bank sends out the payment. it's not that the payee has to initiate it. am I missing something?

[resolution]

Jun 10, 2019 10:57:13 GMT -5 tractor said:

So, trying to be a responsible adult, I go to my bank today, explain the situation and ask for a loan with a 30-day note, to cover the mistake. I planned to pay them back in one lump sum when the utility sends me the refund. However, since it will be one lump sum payment of $2,500, they denied the loan because my debt to income ratio is too high. Idiots, all around (including myself), so even with a 790 credit score, at 50 years old, with almost $140k income, I’m going to have to borrow money from my mom.....

😞

Your mom is probably very happy to have the chance to help you out. The Bank of Mom and Pop loves you and has your best interests at heart. 

I also manually key my bill pay into the bank site. The mistake I made a few years ago was that I transposed two numbers and came a few cents short of paying a credit card in full, which started up a three month cycle of interest payments. I ended up paying drastically more than the amount I was short on my payment. I changed credit cards after three months of interest payments because they wouldn't forgive my mistake based on being a good customer.

The idea of automatic deductions by the creditors sounds simple and easy, but I am just too paranoid to give anyone permission to withdraw whatever they want from my account. I use a Vanguard money market account as a buffer for emergencies. The yield is around 2.5% and I can have the money in a few days if I need it. That lets me make a small amount on the money but still have it available if something comes up.

[resolution]

Jun 10, 2019 12:46:49 GMT -5 chiver78 said:

oh, and I'm confused why people think autopay allows access to your checking account. both BofA and the CU where I'm going have a billpay feature through their own sites where YOU set up the payees (account info, amounts/dates) and the bank sends out the payment. it's not that the payee has to initiate it. am I missing something?

I think there are two ways you can set it up. If you set it up on the bank site you type in the amount and the bank sends the money electronically or cuts a check for that amount. If you go to the creditors site, you enter your routing information and they take whatever the bill amount is directly from your account.

[chiver78]

Jun 10, 2019 12:53:41 GMT -5 resolution said:

Jun 10, 2019 12:46:49 GMT -5 chiver78 said:

oh, and I'm confused why people think autopay allows access to your checking account. both BofA and the CU where I'm going have a billpay feature through their own sites where YOU set up the payees (account info, amounts/dates) and the bank sends out the payment. it's not that the payee has to initiate it. am I missing something?

I think there are two ways you can set it up. If you set it up on the bank site you type in the amount and the bank sends the money electronically or cuts a check for that amount. If you go to the creditors site, you enter your routing information and they take whatever the bill amount is directly from your account.

yes, but setting it up through your bank doesn't allow the creditors access to your checking account. I guess I'm surprised the posters haven't encountered that sort of billpay. 

[oped]

Jun 10, 2019 12:53:41 GMT -5 resolution said:

Jun 10, 2019 12:46:49 GMT -5 chiver78 said:

oh, and I'm confused why people think autopay allows access to your checking account. both BofA and the CU where I'm going have a billpay feature through their own sites where YOU set up the payees (account info, amounts/dates) and the bank sends out the payment. it's not that the payee has to initiate it. am I missing something?

I think there are two ways you can set it up. If you set it up on the bank site you type in the amount and the bank sends the money electronically or cuts a check for that amount. If you go to the creditors site, you enter your routing information and they take whatever the bill amount is directly from your account.

This. I always set it up with the creditor to bill my bank account or cc automatically.

[Deleted]

I'm in the group confused by the use of "auto pay" by the OP.  To me, auto-pay means a bill gets paid by the bank without your having to do anything.  That can be done either by your authorizing it (I have my mortgage sent out on the first of every month) or by a creditor pulling it from your account after you give them the appropriate bank account information.  I HATE the latter but my gym and my health insurer require it.  What the OP describes is, to me, on-line bill payment where you find out the amount of the bill and manually enter commands for the bank to pay it.

At any rate, I agree that the bank was stupid.  Sadly, people at bank branches aren't empowered to do much anymore beyond push papers and parrot policies dictated by HQ.  I'd close my account, too.

[tractor]

OK, for a little clarity, it’s more like a bill pay than auto pay, I entered in the amount to pay like I do every month, I just added an extra “0”, that was on me. The problem comes in how long it’s going to take to get the overpayment refunded to me.

I do have an overdraft account, but it’s only $1k, not enough to cover the extra $3k. And yes, I should have a better emergency fund, but I’ve been putting lots of $$$ into my retirement accounts and towards my two boys college bills. I’ll never admit to being a poster child for the right way to do things, but every $ has an assigned place every month, when something like this happens (first time), it really throws off my financial system.

It will all work out, if I could get rid of the kids, my father (who lives with us), and my wife, I’d have plenty of extra cash, although I’d be terribly depressed. I just wish the utility could return the money as fast as they can take it out of my account.

[Tiny]

Well, I am less annoyed with my clunky, old fashion, local Savings and Loans website. In the past, I've fatfingered the amount by adding an extra number when paying on a bill and the S&L's website has politely asked if I really wanted to pay that much because the amount was so much more than I'd previously paid (and it even showed me the last amounts I had paid).

[Deleted]

Jun 10, 2019 14:50:57 GMT -5 tractor said:

OK, for a little clarity, it’s more like a bill pay than auto pay, I entered in the amount to pay like I do every month, I just added an extra “0”, that was on me. The problem comes in how long it’s going to take to get the overpayment refunded to me.

I do have an overdraft account, but it’s only $1k, not enough to cover the extra $3k. And yes, I should have a better emergency fund, but I’ve been putting lots of $$$ into my retirement accounts and towards my two boys college bills. I’ll never admit to being a poster child for the right way to do things, but every $ has an assigned place every month, when something like this happens (first time), it really throws off my financial system.

It will all work out, if I could get rid of the kids, my father (who lives with us), and my wife, I’d have plenty of extra cash, although I’d be terribly depressed. I just wish the utility could return the money as fast as they can take it out of my account.

I did this.  If you hit a comma instead of a decimal, it makes it into thousands.  So I accidentally "paid" my utility company $11, 855.00.

I don't understand why your bank didn't return the payment unpaid since you didn't have enough OD coverage.  Mine tapped into $5000 worth, but it wasn't enough.  So I only had to work with the bank.  It never made it to the utility company.   There was actually extra $$$ in my account since they didn't pay the $11,000+, which meant no overdrafts . . . just the associated fee.  They waived that but made me pay the fee to tap into the OD protection (really a cash advance on a linked CC) and the few days' interest before I could repay it.

Your bank paid the $3000,  I gather, even though you didn't have that much OD coverage.  I guess you should be grateful, but I wouldn't be.

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

My bank did something similar.  The only difference was that all the money stayed within USAA.  A $600 payment on my credit card became a $6000 payment.  The results with that is that my USAA Visa had a $5400 credit, they emptied my checking account and took another $1000 out of savings.  This was their goof....I had the email that they sent me where ‘you paid $600 on 12/30/18 out of account number xxx’.  $600=/=$6000!

Everything was back to where it should should have been within 24 hours of my phone call.

[tractor]

Jun 10, 2019 20:01:03 GMT -5 @bamafan1954 said:

Jun 10, 2019 14:50:57 GMT -5 tractor said:

OK, for a little clarity, it’s more like a bill pay than auto pay, I entered in the amount to pay like I do every month, I just added an extra “0”, that was on me. The problem comes in how long it’s going to take to get the overpayment refunded to me.

I do have an overdraft account, but it’s only $1k, not enough to cover the extra $3k. And yes, I should have a better emergency fund, but I’ve been putting lots of $$$ into my retirement accounts and towards my two boys college bills. I’ll never admit to being a poster child for the right way to do things, but every $ has an assigned place every month, when something like this happens (first time), it really throws off my financial system.

It will all work out, if I could get rid of the kids, my father (who lives with us), and my wife, I’d have plenty of extra cash, although I’d be terribly depressed. I just wish the utility could return the money as fast as they can take it out of my account.

I did this.  If you hit a comma instead of a decimal, it makes it into thousands.  So I accidentally "paid" my utility company $11, 855.00.

I don't understand why your bank didn't return the payment unpaid since you didn't have enough OD coverage.  Mine tapped into $5000 worth, but it wasn't enough.  So I only had to work with the bank.  It never made it to the utility company.   There was actually extra $$$ in my account since they didn't pay the $11,000+, which meant no overdrafts . . . just the associated fee.  They waived that but made me pay the fee to tap into the OD protection (really a cash advance on a linked CC) and the few days' interest before I could repay it.

Your bank paid the $3000,  I gather, even though you didn't have that much OD coverage.  I guess you should be grateful, but I wouldn't be.

Actually the problem was I did have enough money in my account to cover it, however that money was supposed to go to cover other bills due in the next two weeks. It probably would have worked out better if I didn’t have the money in there, then the transaction wouldn’t have gone through.

I’m pulling cash from a couple reserve accounts/credit lines to cover the short term shortage, and hopefully I will have me refund check before the end of the month so I can make me mortgage payment. Worse case scenario I can pay my mortgage on the due date, but will pay it within the 14 day grace period instead. However, in my mind, paying within the grace period is still “late” but it might be my best option at this point.

[Tiny]

Jun 10, 2019 13:04:13 GMT -5 chiver78 said:

Jun 10, 2019 12:53:41 GMT -5 resolution said:

I think there are two ways you can set it up. If you set it up on the bank site you type in the amount and the bank sends the money electronically or cuts a check for that amount. If you go to the creditors site, you enter your routing information and they take whatever the bill amount is directly from your account.

yes, but setting it up through your bank doesn't allow the creditors access to your checking account. I guess I'm surprised the posters haven't encountered that sort of billpay. 

There are indeed two ways... but NOT every creditor makes it easy to have their payment initiated from your financial institution. My most recent car loan with Toyota was a pain in the ass to pay by paper check or to have the payment set up at my bank. The loan company wanted to pull the payment from my account every month on a specific day. My property manager's policy (and it's in the lease) is that the rent is paid automatically with a pull (initiated by the PM) from the tenant's account.   The tenant can't really 'withhold' rent -- unless their checking account is empty. 

[nidena]

I'm a big fan of online billpay (pushed by me out of my account) but I refuse to set up any autopay (pulled by payee out of my account) transactions.  I'd much rather schedule the payments myself--even if that means that I set them up to pay automatically every month--than let some outside entity reach into my account.  Not even my large balance payees--mortgage, vehicle--get an autopay transaction.  I set them all up for automatic billpay.

[oped]

Jun 11, 2019 8:07:33 GMT -5 tractor said:

Jun 10, 2019 20:01:03 GMT -5 @bamafan1954 said:

I did this.  If you hit a comma instead of a decimal, it makes it into thousands.  So I accidentally "paid" my utility company $11, 855.00.

I don't understand why your bank didn't return the payment unpaid since you didn't have enough OD coverage.  Mine tapped into $5000 worth, but it wasn't enough.  So I only had to work with the bank.  It never made it to the utility company.   There was actually extra $$$ in my account since they didn't pay the $11,000+, which meant no overdrafts . . . just the associated fee.  They waived that but made me pay the fee to tap into the OD protection (really a cash advance on a linked CC) and the few days' interest before I could repay it.

Your bank paid the $3000,  I gather, even though you didn't have that much OD coverage.  I guess you should be grateful, but I wouldn't be.

Actually the problem was I did have enough money in my account to cover it, however that money was supposed to go to cover other bills due in the next two weeks. It probably would have worked out better if I didn’t have the money in there, then the transaction wouldn’t have gone through.

I’m pulling cash from a couple reserve accounts/credit lines to cover the short term shortage, and hopefully I will have me refund check before the end of the month so I can make me mortgage payment. Worse case scenario I can pay my mortgage on the due date, but will pay it within the 14 day grace period instead. However, in my mind, paying within the grace period is still “late” but it might be my best option at this point.

Just call people and explain you made an error. I did this when I had my second child, granted 17 years ago. I got prorated checks the whole way through with son, but because my leave with daughter went a month into a new year they stopped paying me and I hadn’t adequately prepared. I called several bills and they all made accommodations, changed my payment due date or something similar. If you always pay on time they will work with you.

[chiver78]

Jun 11, 2019 19:21:14 GMT -5 oped said:

Jun 11, 2019 8:07:33 GMT -5 tractor said:

Actually the problem was I did have enough money in my account to cover it, however that money was supposed to go to cover other bills due in the next two weeks. It probably would have worked out better if I didn’t have the money in there, then the transaction wouldn’t have gone through.

I’m pulling cash from a couple reserve accounts/credit lines to cover the short term shortage, and hopefully I will have me refund check before the end of the month so I can make me mortgage payment. Worse case scenario I can pay my mortgage on the due date, but will pay it within the 14 day grace period instead. However, in my mind, paying within the grace period is still “late” but it might be my best option at this point.

Just call people and explain you made an error. I did this when I had my second child, granted 17 years ago. I got prorated checks the whole way through with son, but because my leave with daughter went a month into a new year they stopped paying me and I hadn’t adequately prepared. I called several bills and they all made accommodations, changed my payment due date or something similar. If you always pay on time they will work with you.

 

this. I did this when my bank f'd up, and everyone else was beyond gracious about it. one CC actually got screwed up a 2nd time while I was overseas for work last week. I hadn't been able to set that one up in the new account yet b/c I was waiting on a new card to be mailed out. I immediately got on chat and explained that it was related to the previous issue, and they are waiving all the fees associated with the screwup. 

I was shocked that just calling and explaining the mess would get the reaction it did. but, like oped said, it's not like I'm a deadbeat that does this all the time. you will likely find the same result. good luck.