Caution: Bill Pay Errors
When setting up recurring bill pay, be sure to enter the correct stop day or you may be facing fees to fix it after the fact.
I miscalculated the daughter’s orthodontist bill and ended up sending in an extra payment. I thought this would be simple to correct — I was wrong.
The orthodontist office kindly called and left a message telling me they had a check for $100 and a previous balance of $0. They wanted to know what they should do — void the check? Since their office is closed, I called my bank to see what steps to follow to remedy the situation. The real problem is that while they are holding a $100 check sent to them from my online bill pay, my account has already be debited $100. Bill pay checks are not the same as regular checks, no waiting until deposited for your account to be debited.
To answer my question, my bank referred me to the bill pay service and they kindly informed me that I had only two options: 1) apply a “stop payment” on the check or 2) wait 90 days and a stop payment will automatically be applied.
Now — my bank charges for stop payment orders to the tune of $18. This doesn’t seem reasonable, nor does waiting 90 days for the auto-stop payment — which I’m unclear wether or not I would be charged the same fee.
So, my third option is to speak with the orthodontist and ask them to process the payment and then provide me with a refund. This doesn’t sit well with me either, but it looks like it is the only way I’ll get all of my money back in a (hopefully) reasonable time frame. Thankfully this error was with a friendly office; I can’t imagine trying to solve this with a large, faceless organization.
While I could have avoided this, I am still nervous about using my online bill pay. Of course, when the alternative is going back to paper checks — I’ll just make it a point to pay closer attention to what I’m paying online.