What to do about a late fee that I incurred?

[East Coast Sue]

I have paid my bills on-line for five years through my banks on-line bill pay option. I've never had a problem and they do guarantee payments are sent on-time. So, this month when I check my account I see that the check for my phone/internet service has not cleared at the bank. I checked my web bill pay and it says the payment was mailed on May 13th. I ordered the check for payment by May 16th (but the actually due date on my bill was May 19th- I back it up a couple days just to be sure it is received on time). So, I call the company and am told that the payment arrived on May 22nd and I owe a late fee. What! What are my rights? My bank assures me that the payment was mailed on May 13th. The phone/internet company states that the payments are received in a near by city (Dallas) and opened, processed, recorded the very day they arrive. This just can't be true because looking back this bill has always just been recorded by the company on the last day of their "grace period" despite me having the bank send it about 10-12 days before it is due. The manager at the phone company said, "Well, it must be the postal system is taking 2 weeks to move mail from San Antonio (the location of my bank) to Dallas. Please, is there anything I can do, aside from not using the computer to pay bills?

 

A not so satisfied customer,

Sue in TX

[Ahwahnee]

You might talk to the online portion of your bank by email. My bank did the same thing once and they resolved the whole issue for me.

[jmgconner]

Call your bank. I had a similar situation and the bank took care of everything.

[chai]

I had something similar happen even though it was all electronic. I talked to both the bank and the company. The company should take off the late fees if this is your first time your check has been late. If the rep won't do it, ask to talk to a manager and keep going up the chain.

 

Make sure that your bank is sending the check early enough. Perhaps they need to send it a little earlier. Can the bill be paid electronically?

[KS_]

I had something similar happen even though it was all electronic. I talked to both the bank and the company. The company should take off the late fees if this is your first time your check has been late. If the rep won't do it, ask to talk to a manager and keep going up the chain.

 

 

 

I agree - call the company and ask that the late charge be removed since this is the first time it happened. I've had similar issues happen before, and most companies are willing to take the late fee off.

[melissel]

Here's a question for you. When you signed up for online billpay and entered in the biller's information, did it call up a different address than the one you have on your bill/payment coupon? I used to have the exact same problem with a bill I paid via Citibank--it would take almost two weeks for payments to get processed and considered paid. Interestingly, it was also a phone bill, but they didn't charge late fees, so I never worried about it.

 

When I finally realized that it was happening EVERY month, I went back in and manually entered the biller's mailing address and account info. In theory, that was supposed to take longer than if I had sent payment through the account the bank's online system automatically pulled up, but because it went directly to the biller, the direct address was faster in that case.

 

I hope that all made sense! Otherwise, I agree that you should try talking to your bank, and then to the biller directly because it was a first-time thing.

 

Good luck!

[LND1218]

I had a company do this to us regularly. We always paid on time, but they always got it late. They claimed it was opened and posted the day it was received.

 

So I personally mailed it return reciept or something where they had to sign for it.

 

Sure enough it was late. But I have proof it was signed for on time. I called them and sent them a copy of the reciept saying they signed for it 5 days before they posted it, and it never happened again.

 

But in this case I would start with calling the bank.

[Mom2GirlsTX]

billpay and had this happen one time. I emailed WellsFargo and they took care of it, and had the late charge removed. Contact the bank, they have more leverage than you do with some of these companies.

[Tammyla]

:iagree: Especially since it sounds like your banks error.

 

billpay and had this happen one time. I emailed WellsFargo and they took care of it, and had the late charge removed. Contact the bank, they have more leverage than you do with some of these companies.

[teamturner]

I had something similar happen even though it was all electronic. I talked to both the bank and the company. The company should take off the late fees if this is your first time your check has been late. If the rep won't do it, ask to talk to a manager and keep going up the chain.

 

 

 

:iagree: A few times companies have removed the fees when they look and see that we historically pay on time. You can also threatened to take your buisiness elsewhere. They typically don't want to lose a customer just to get some kind of late fee.