I am a bit irritated with American Express right now, and most likely this is just a me problem!
I realized last month that I did not receive my ebill for my Amex Blue Everyday card to my bill pay service with my credit union. I did receive an emailed statement, so knew the bill was due, so ended up paying it manually on time. Checked my bank and I was indeed still set to receive the ebill, so thought maybe there was a glitch. Same thing happened this month, so I called the bank; all good on their end. Called Amex and after a bit of time, I was told they don’t send ebills, but I could set up autopay.
The woman could not tell me why or when this stopped; I have had ebills sent for almost 10 years on this account. My other Amex card, as well as my mother’s all still come into the bank, it is only this Blue Cash Everyday card. As it is a no fee card, with a decent cash back for groceries and online purchases, that is what I use the card for. It was originally opened for my daughter’s wedding so all expenses would be on one card, and it had I believe 18-24 months no interest.
Now that I know this card will not come into my bank’s bill pay service, I will set the bill to pay when I receive the emailed statement. It would have been real nice if Amex had notified me that they would no longer be sending to my bank. Because I am type A, I didn’t miss a payment, but it would have been real easy to miss as I expected to have it show in my bill pay.
Is this unusual for a credit card not to send ebills, or is this a one off? My only other vendor that does not do ebills is my water bill which only comes every 2 months by mail only. I have missed a payment on that once as I might not have received the mail. Luckily they just added the balance to the next bill!
I had received ebills (through my bank) from my Macy’s credit card for years and years, until suddenly I didn’t. Because I was accustomed to being billed that way and every other piece of snail mail correspondence from them was always junk…I apparently tossed out the mailed bill two months in a row. That put me 60 days delinquent on the account, and the $14.99 I owed turned into nearly $50, with late charges and interest and put a big ding on my credit report for seven years Very frustrating and upsetting, especially as someone who is scrupulous about paying off balances in full each month. As a precaution, I have since set up all of my accounts to at least make a minimum payment by the due date, so that in the event I somehow miss something, at least I won’t get hit with penalty fees or bureau reporting.
I do not autopay anything. I do have bills sent to my chase as a backstop but pay all my bills before they are due. With my credit cards I pay whatever I owe on the days I am paid (twice a month). I just prefer to do it this way and it takes just a few minutes. I do have my electric bill paid automatically but alway check on all my bills on the date my paycheck comes to my bank account. When I told my husband this he looked at me like I was crazy and was acting like we lived paycheck to paycheck. We do not. I keep a ridiculous amount of money in my checking account because it makes me feel better. I enjoy paying my bills twice a month and then sending whatever is “excess” over the amount I like to keep in there (an amount which my husband is slightly appalled by but does not argue about) to our fidelity money market where our advisors can then deal with it.
I have heard people refer to the amount people (who are fortunate enough to have the funds) like to keep in their checking accounts as their “personal zero balance.” I know many people like me who consider going below a certain large amount (into 5 figures for me..yikes…i know, i know), their personal “zero” -----like they do not want to ever go under that amount.
I had a similar issue- also with Macy’s– and made one phone call to the Attorney General’s office of my state (their website has a “consumer finance complaint hotline”) and the charge was reversed! Gave the rep who answered the phone my name, address, Macy’s account number, then promptly forgot about it until I got a refund check.
There are consumer protections available- go see if your state has an easy-peasy way to complain.
That sounds odd, but would not be a problem for me, as I always use autopay. I’ve never had an issue with credit cards payments, utility payments, mobile payments, or anything else when I set to autopay. What is the reason why you prefer manual payment with ebills instead of autopay?
I just prefer to have my statement land in the same place for record keeping. While My checking account has more than enough to cover months of payments, I like to know what day each payment is made, a date I might change each month once my statement arrives.
I took over handling the bill payments after my husband passed away over 2 years ago; I also inherited my mothers accounting as my husband also did hers. Once I got into a routine, I hate to deviate, and find my system works for me. That is not to say I have never used auto-pay, just prefer how I handle the bills we currently have.
When we started living in 2 places (going back and forth every couple of weeks), I switched all of my bills for everything to autopay and made everything paperless. I pay all my utilities, my rent, and my credit cards on autopay. I love it!
I got mad at MACYs many years ago when they changed (without asking me) my credit card into an AMEX - cancelled that.
I got mad at KOHLs a few years ago when one of their physical bills got lost in the mail and they piled on late fees - cancelled that.
I no longer have any store specific credit cards. I do have an Amazon visa, which gets me 5-6% on Amazon purchases (but it is really a Chase card).
I do a lot of auotpays (to credit and from checking account). Not familiar with the ebill term. Oh, just electronic statement (not payment) - I have plenty of those. But a few things I’ve intentionally kept as paper statements, most autopay… except Visa (they are big, need to ensure checking account has sufficient balance; can make it happen from my ipad when travelling.)
Google/AI:
eBill (electronic bill) is a digital version of a paper statement, allowing you to securely receive, view, and pay bills directly through your bank’s online bill pay service, a company’s web portal, or email. It reduces paper clutter, often includes email notifications, and allows you to control payment dates and amounts. [1, 2, 3]
I pay my own bills online with my bank account. I can set the date and the amount to be paid myself each month or reoccurring, my choice. It’s really easy to do so.
I have a variety of autopays at my checking account. I do loose track of which are Push (set up at vendor website - like utility bill, kohls etc) and Pull (set up on credit union website - perhaps none anymore, now that our mortgage is paid off).
Ugly Memory - Years ago, our credit union changed online systems. I thought I was supposed to redo the autopay setups. Argh - somehow the mortgage got paid 2x that month. It was a hassle sorting it out. (Still all lots better than the old day, with mortgage coupon book and snailmail.)
All of my utilities and insurance payments are on autopay. I track when everything is due, amounts, etc in a simple excel spreadsheet. ( I’m a retired accountant, this is how I roll). I track the due dates of my credit cards and set up payments a few days in advance of the due dates. It’s really easy and I can track everything on my phone if I’m traveling.
I have a spreadsheet to show “Regular Expenses”. One tab is for things like insurance, utilities etc. The other tab, with just as many rows, is various subscriptions. I note payment method of each (most are checking/autopay or Visa autopay). Each January I make updates on amounts spent. I don’t use it to drive my bill paying, but I am glad to have it for tracking / reference. It’s actually a google drive doc, shared with my husband in case he ever needs to reference it (or learn more if I predecease him).
I still worry what will happen in Widow Scenario…. to all of those Visa autopays if he (primary cardholder) were to die. No biggie over subscriptions/streaming. But for things like home and auto insurance, Verizon cellphone, Apple even cloud photos… it could get tricky. A relative died a few months ago, and phew… we had his cellphone and passwords, were able to switch payment to another credit card.
I have my utility bills on autopay - back when I could pay with a cash back credit card without a fee, I charged to my credit card. A number of years ago, I had to close my card/get a new one due to a fraudulent transaction. Somehow, I didn’t put the gas bill on the new card. This was during a time when my life was chaotic, and I didn’t realize that I wasn’t getting charged for a gas bill (our gas bills are very low in summer). One day, there was a cutoff notice hanging on our front door … they put it there on a Friday afternoon, and the cutoff was scheduled for Monday morning. I ended up getting it straightened out before they cut it off, but I was livid that they didn’t do more to contact me before the cutoff notice. I learned my lesson, though, and I set up reminder texts and emails on all of my bills. Now that my life is less chaotic, I have a system for my finances that is much more in keeping with the way I prefer to stay on top of everything.
@Colorado-make sure you have a list of all passwords. I’m assuming you have another credit card in which you are the primary. You can go into the accounts on line and switch the payment method. Contact insurance companies ASAP. I still have H’s cellphone because a few of the accounts have a 2 step verification and won’t let me change the phone number to mine ( most would).
Good reminder = thanks. I have to check on access to husband’s passwords. Yes, I do have another credit care where I’m primary. It’s the Jetblue family rewards account (4 cards) that I arranged when one kid went to college in Boston. Last year I seriously considered cancelling it for simplification and $40/year fee… but I kept it.
That put me 60 days delinquent on the account, and the $14.99 I owed turned into nearly $50, with late charges and interest and put a big ding on my credit report for seven years 
Very frustrating and upsetting, especially as someone who is scrupulous about paying off balances in full each month. As a precaution, I have since set up all of my accounts to at least make a minimum payment by the due date, so that in the event I somehow miss something, at least I won’t get hit with penalty fees or bureau reporting.