Addie
Chef Extraordinaire
Addie, giving a company permission to take the amount of a bill from your account every month is one way of dong automatic payment. Another is to use the bill payer function your bank offers.
The difference is who initiates the payment. In the first option, the company automatically takes the billed amount from your account every month and you never have to do a thing.
With the second option, you have to receive the bill and go to your bank's online bill payer service and enter the amount to be paid and the payment date each month. If you forget, you're payment wont get made. This what I do.
The second option gives you a little more control. You can examine your bill for errors before you commit to paying that amount. The first option is a "set it and forget it" option.
I don't use the first option so I don't know a lot of details. I would assume you can stop the auto withdrawals anytime. I don't know how long that takes or what the process is.
Thanks Andy. The three bills I have, the amount will never change except for one. And that is Comcast. They sneakily make a quiet increase at least once each year. One is my life insurance premium. That will never change. I will do it through my bank. I feel safer that way. First thing Monday morning I will give them a call. Unfortunately I have to pay my rent by check. I am going to look to see if Metro Management accepts automatic payment. I doubt it though. They are hell bent and determined to make our lives more difficult here. My rent won't change until August. Any increase I got from SS in January doesn't affect my rent until my rental anniversary. And that will be only no more than two or three dollars a month.
I will work it out and let you know how I am doing. Sounds interesting. I have been a customer of my bank since the late 80's. They love me.
I used to mail my deposits and do other banking only by mail. One day when I had my daughters settlement check in hand it was well over $20,000 and I had to go in town to make a deposit. When I gave the check to the teller with the deposit slip, she yelled out, It's 602, its 602. (my member number) Everyone came running to see what I looked like. My member number will tell you that I was one of the very first who joined when the Credit Union was first started.