paying bills online

I consider myself to be technologically advanced in many ways, but I lag behind when it comes to paying my bills. I either have the money withdrawn directly from my account or I use the ol’ stamp. I considered using an online bill paying service, but most of the advertisements I’ve seen claim the great thing about it is that you don’t have to pay for envelopes or stamps. Well, you pay $4.95 a month for the service and I don’t have 12 monthly bills, so buying envelopes and stamps remains the most economical method for me.

Yahoo, however, has a free bill pay service but I’m leery of something being free, especially when my own bank charges $4.95. I tried finding the catch, but came up empty. Yahoo’s premium service only allows 12 bills. Anything above 12 is $0.40 so it too is more expensive than a stamp. The only difference I found between the free and premium plans was the number of billing agencies. The basic plan has 100 and the premium has 200, so maybe they’re trying to lure you in first.

Does (or has) anyone use(d) an online bill-pay service?

Comments

 (Post a comment) | Comments RSS feed
  1. I pay online but not through a bill paying service. I go to the respective company’s websites and do it there. I have links to all of them on my “My Yahoo” page along with the approx day of the month they are due by. For example: Chrysler Financial – 17th.

    This is free and has worked out well for me. Plus, you can frequently schedule more than one payment, so you’re covered for a couple of months.

    Comment by Renee on August 1, 2003 @ 7:16 am
  2. Like you, I work with technology but for some reason I have a hard time trusting it when it comes to money. I like writing checks and seeing them come back with my bank statement the next month. I still prefer paper transactions in this aspect, whether it’s cash or check.

    Comment by jason on August 1, 2003 @ 8:03 am
  3. I’ve mentioned before that my Credit Union rocks, and it still does; this time by offering a completely free bill-pay service. That said, I don’t use it. In managing an apartment for the past 4 years, I’ve had many bills to pay and I’m pretty careful about getting them paid. I used to call all the places on my way to work (40 minute commute) and have them charge my debit card, but then they started charging “convenience” fees. From there I went online for a couple of them, but most are by post (heh, I’m a poet). I don’t use the billpay service because I like to be in control of my money.

    Comment by Cameron on August 1, 2003 @ 8:09 am
  4. My credit union offers a free bill pay service, and I have been using it for a long time. It used to be $3/month, but recently they made it free. Since it has become free, I haven’t noticed any catches or anything like that.
    I love this service. I set when my bills are paid, and how much comes out of my account one time, and every month it is done for me. It is really convenient and has probably saved me some trouble. (I tend to be a little forgetful at times).

    Comment by carlene on August 1, 2003 @ 8:43 am
  5. I’m on the side of the last two comments. My bank used to charge $0.37 per bill pay. A couple of months ago I noticed that it was changed to free bill pay. So started by just paying a couple of smaller bills with it first to make sure it actually worked and now all my bills are paid with this service.

    I hate writing checks.

    Comment by Chad on August 1, 2003 @ 10:26 am
  6. Now I’m curious to try it out, just to see if I like it, and especially if my bank offers the service for free.

    Thanks for all your input.

    Comment by dan on August 1, 2003 @ 11:01 am
  7. My bank offers free bill pay for 2 months, but then it’s $6.95/month. I’m going to stick with the stamp and envelope approach for now.

    Comment by dan on August 3, 2003 @ 12:20 am
  8. I see Google accepted your personal page. There’s a string of bill paying service ads on here today. I wonder what kind of ads your posts on eyeball exercises will produce…

    Comment by Renee on August 4, 2003 @ 8:01 am
  9. You’ve piqued my interest. I’m going to check out Washington Mutual and see what their policy is. They’ve seemed pretty progressive up to this point I’m really hoping it’s free.

    Comment by jason on August 4, 2003 @ 8:02 am
  10. Renee: Actually, they didn’t accept it, but their FAQ says that they only give out one login since you can put the code on any page you want. I just put the code on my blog. I also e-mailed them to make sure it was okay, but haven’t heard back yet.

    The ads are usually quite relevant to the subject. It’s kind of cool.

    Comment by dan on August 4, 2003 @ 9:20 am
  11. I figure it’s the same thing they do on Blogspot since it says “ad by google” on my blog. It is generally quite relevent. Except one time last week, under “related searches” which is listed below the banner ad, it said “2 live crew”. Yet I could not find a thing related to crude 90s rap anywhere on my page.

    Comment by Renee on August 4, 2003 @ 11:38 am
  12. I haven’t yet figured out why it is showing online bill pay ads on this entry. This page hasn’t been indexed yet though, so maybe it just uses the main page’s ads.

    Comment by dan on August 4, 2003 @ 11:58 am
  13. check out mycheckfree . com

    and yes it’s FREE

    Comment by j.l on October 21, 2003 @ 7:42 am
  14. OKAY! WHATEVER! IT’S SAYING IT’S FREE?! YEAH RIGHT! IT’S ONLY FREE FOR THE FIRST 3 MOS. THEN $4.95 A MO. AFTER THAT… I’LL GO SOMEWHERE WHERE THEY’RE NOT TRYING TO GETCHA!

    NO THANX!

    Comment by JAMIE on October 23, 2003 @ 8:19 am
  15. I use bill pay at my local bank its free if you have your statement sent online instead of through the mail, saves them time and money and me time and money as far as not having control I have complete control I send the bank all the information and do a quick pay every month it saves me on late fees that occur either when the post looses it or I forget to send it seven days in advance.The best part is its my local bank and when there is a problem I can still drive on down there and talk to a human!!

    Comment by Thumper on December 6, 2003 @ 8:08 pm
  16. I just found-out that I can pay my bill online. That’s great, Thanks!!!

    Comment by Porfirio Gonzalezduran on January 28, 2004 @ 8:40 am
  17. Best Buy charged a friend of mine $15 for each payment made “by phone.” It is called a “direct check fee” … Be careful

    Comment by sue on March 5, 2004 @ 12:51 pm
  18. I get free billpay at Bank of America and it rocks! And it’s really free, no strings attached.

    Comment by Rick Johnson on February 2, 2005 @ 11:05 am

Comments are closed