How can I find a credit card that is less punishing of late payments?

[Forgets]

Hi financial forum,

I'm absent-minded and rather disorganized. I can afford to pay my bills but often forget to do so, resulting in late payments. Credit card companies, more than any other, LOVE to gogue me for this. I feel like they are just eagerly waiting to take advantage of my forgetfulness. I'm trying to improve organization, but let's go under the assumption that I will continue to make 2 or 3 late payments a year. Here's my questions:

- Is there any credit card company that will take automatic payment from my checking or savings account? Autopay has been a godsend for me with other bills (rent, utilities, etc.)

- Failing that, is there any one that will give really good notification when you are about to miss a payment (phone call or email)?

- I kind of suspect there is no company that will do either - they love charging me for forgetting too much. So, final question - how can I find out which cards are least punishing of missed payments? My current main card costs me at least $40 every time I miss one, and is threatening to increase rates if I do it any more often.

Thanks in advance for any advice

[kork13]

There are PLENTY of options available for you to overcome forgetfulness.

What credit cards do you have? Do they have websites with which you can access your credit card account? If they do, you need to explore those sites and you'd probably be surprised with the features you have available to you.

All of my credit cards allow you to set up automatic payments to pay the full statement balance, which is set up through the websites. Also, most of my cards allow you to set up (again, through the website) notifications for when a payment is coming due, whether by email or text message. The standard seems to be 10 days before the due date. You should also sign up for paperless billing. You'll get an email every time your statement is ready, so when you get that email, you can go online right then and pay your bill.

The last option, if somehow NONE of those other options are available, is to just set aside one day every month to pay your bills. If you make it a habit to ALWAYS pay ALL of your bills on the 5th of the month (for example), it'll be easier to remember. To make this even easier, you can call all of your CC companies and ask them all to change the payment due date to a single day of the month, and normally they're happy to accommodate. I did this, had all of my cards due on the 1st, and it makes my life SO MUCH SIMPLER.

[disneysteve]

All of my credit cards allow you to set up automatic payments to pay the full statement balance, which is set up through the websites.

Same here. Check the websites or call customer service and ask how to set it up. Shouldn't be a problem at all.

[Like2Plan]

Hi financial forum,

I'm absent-minded and rather disorganized. I can afford to pay my bills but often forget to do so, resulting in late payments. Credit card companies, more than any other, LOVE to gogue me for this. I feel like they are just eagerly waiting to take advantage of my forgetfulness. I'm trying to improve organization, but let's go under the assumption that I will continue to make 2 or 3 late payments a year. Here's my questions:

- Is there any credit card company that will take automatic payment from my checking or savings account? Autopay has been a godsend for me with other bills (rent, utilities, etc.)

- Failing that, is there any one that will give really good notification when you are about to miss a payment (phone call or email)?

- I kind of suspect there is no company that will do either - they love charging me for forgetting too much. So, final question - how can I find out which cards are least punishing of missed payments? My current main card costs me at least $40 every time I miss one, and is threatening to increase rates if I do it any more often.

Thanks in advance for any advice

There are bill paying services which will do what you describe. Here is how Paytrust works. You link your checking account to them and you have your bills sent to them (either electronically or the bill is actually mailed to them). They send you an email with the particulars when they receive a bill. You log onto your account and schedule payments from your checking account. If you don't do anything, they will send emails to nag you.
At the end of the year, you can order a copy of all your bills on CD for your records, so you don't have a whole bunch of paper cluttering up your house. This is also a great service if you are on the road a lot--you can pay your bills in Pittsburg, Peoria or Paradise--all you need is internet access....

Can you monitor your credit card online and schedule your payments online? Most CCs have this. I check mine almost daily to make sure there are no billing irregularities. I generally schedule payment online 2 days after the billing cycle closes out and well before the due date so I don't have to worry. I then follow up to make sure it has posted.

[neatdesign]

With respect, you really need to accept personal responsibility on this. The credit card companies aren't causing you to forget to pay your bills on time. You're either receiving your credit card statements electronically or by mail. Those ARE the credit card companies' reminders to you. But it is YOUR responsibility to make your payments once you get those statements.

Second, if you assume that you're going to "make 2 or 3 late payments a year" then you've already excused your lack of follow-through and let yourself off the hook. You can't act irresponsibly and then turn around and get annoyed about being charged late fees and/or higher APRs. Instead, you should set out to make ALL of your payments on time, because that will get you into the mindset of doing so.

Third, have you logged into your bank and/or credit card companies' websites to see what kinds of bill-paying services they provide? From the questions you're asking, it doesn't appear that you have. I don't know what credit card companies you're dealing with, but I have credit card accounts with Bank of America, Citibank, Discover, American Express, and USAA:

- ALL of them offer free automatic payment options, drawing directly from my checking account; AND
- ALL of them provide free electronic notifications telling me when my payments are due, and how much is due

It might take you some time to look into these things and set up your payment preferences, but it's worth the investment. Good luck.

[snafu]

You are responsible for paying bills even if you don't get a statement. Choose to pay electronically and choose the date the sum is withdrawn from your account. Why not set a goal to pay your bills on payday or 1st of the month. Most bills are due the same day of the month, if that falls on a weekend pay 3 days earlier.

Should you choose to continue to be late, pay the fees + higher interest and back to the date of purchase without complaint

[HistoryChick]

Ditto previous advice. Also, many companies have free text message alerts that go right to your cell phone. Since most of my payments are electronic, I have auto alerts sent to me if I'm w/in 10 days of due date and payment has not yet been applied.

[Forgets]

I already pay all of my bills online, and have scoured the site pretty thoroughly looking for an autopay option for my main card (Capital One). I'll look more closely for one on backup card (Citi).

More helpfully, could anyone say a bank that they know for sure offers an autopay feature for free or reasonable cost? "Plenty of them" and "most of them" don't help me as much as a specific name of a bank would!

As for the "take responsibility for yourself" advice . . . isn't that what I'm doing? Does looking for a card that allows autopay not count as attempting to solve my problem? With due respect, "just toughen up and be a better person" is very morally superior advice, but for practical results it hasn't worked too well. A more creative solution would be better.

[kork13]

More helpfully, could anyone say a bank that they know for sure offers an autopay feature for free or reasonable cost? "Plenty of them" and "most of them" don't help me as much as a specific name of a bank would!

I have cards with USAA, Pentagon FCU, Charles Schwab, and Discover. All of them except Schwab has both automatic payments and payment due notifications. All of them offer electronics statements. In all cases, none charge any fees for those services.

I don't know about Capital One or Citibank, but I looked around at both and they do allow you to schedule your payments in advance. It seems that a good solution for you would be to go online and schedule your payments as soon as you receive your statements each month. Sign up for electronic statements, and you'll get an email as soon as they're ready. If nothing else, call both of them. I'm sure their customer service reps would be able to tell you what options you have, and may even be able to set up automatic payments for you.

Another option may be with your bank. Where do you do your banking? Do they have a website? If so, most banks also offer free online bill-pay services, which you can generally set up as monthly payments or as one-time payments. Once again, you can call them and they can help you in setting it up.

[Forgets]

Alright, Capital One apparently does offer some kind of automatic payment option, even though their website shows no trace of it. It sounded like it had a lot of restrictions and hoops to jump through but I couldn't tell for sure because the guy on phone support had a thick Indian accent and seemed to be reading off a card. Might or might not have been the right card for the situation.

Anyway the upshot (I think) is they're sending me something in the mail. I think I have to return a cancelled check to them and wait two months. Kind of odd since everything else is online these days, but I'll do it if it works. I figure I'll read the terms and restrictions off whatever they send me, as the guy on the phone wouldn't have been able to explain that very clearly. But I thought he said they wouldn't take an autopayment of more than $1,000 - can that be right?

If it isn't satisfactory I'll probably switch to Discover.

[Like2Plan]

IMore helpfully, could anyone say a bank that they know for sure offers an autopay feature for free or reasonable cost? "Plenty of them" and "most of them" don't help me as much as a specific name of a bank would!

Speaking for myself, when I said "Most CCs have this", I thought it would prompt you to further investigate your own CC. My thought is that it would be a lot easier to tweak the card you have right now rather than to set up a new card.

I don't have a CC with Capital One, but I did a google and came up with this link:
(Capital One Online Banking support

One of the first links on that page is
Log in or enroll to:
Pay your credit card bill

I did not have to provide a voided check to set up online payment when I set up my CC, but they did ask for me to input the routing number and account number (online) and I believe it took a day to authenticate. I am surprised that Capital One requires a voided check in the mail. But, maybe you could further investigate through that link.

The max autopay of 1,000.--I don't know. I would think you would want to have some max limit in case there was a bogus charge on your CC bill which might end up overdrafting your checking account... (especially if you are not real vigilant about checking your charges). But, I've never used autopayment. It wouldn't work for me as I sometimes draw money from different accounts to pay the balance--there is no limit that I am aware of when I schedule the payment myself.

[neatdesign]

More helpfully, could anyone say a bank that they know for sure offers an autopay feature for free or reasonable cost? "Plenty of them" and "most of them" don't help me as much as a specific name of a bank would!

If you had told us which banks/credit card companies you're asking about, we could've provided specific answers. But you didn't, so we couldn't. There are hundreds of credit card companies out there, and thousands of banks. We cannot read your mind and know which ones you're asking about.

I already pay all of my bills online, and have scoured the site pretty thoroughly looking for an autopay option for my main card (Capital One). I'll look more closely for one on backup card (Citi).

HOW do you currently pay all of your bills online? Through your bank (where your checking/savings is), or via the payees' websites? If you aren't able to pay automatically through the payee's website, then your next step is to look at your own bank.

Does your bank offer an online bill paying service? This should be very easy to determine. If it doesn't, then you should consider dumping your bank and opening a checking account to a bank that offers those features (which are pretty standard these days).

For example: With the exception of my monthly rent, ALL of my bills are paid using USAA bank's online bill paying service: Credit cards, phone/internet, car payment, auto and renters insurance, DirecTV, cell phone, water bill, electric bill, etc. I'm able to manage ALL of my outgoing payments in one place and it's free. Also, I'm not limited to the number of payments I can make per month, or by how much, which I am if I pay via the individual credit card companies' websites.

If it isn't satisfactory I'll probably switch to Discover.

I have a feeling that switching to another credit card company isn't going to solve your problem. It seems clear from your posts that you're having trouble with understanding the basics of online banking. I don't mean that as an insult, just an observation. Applying for a new credit card -- which involves a credit check which is wholly unnecessary for what you're trying to accomplish -- should be your last resort.

I honestly think your best bet is to contact your bank and talk to them about how you can go about setting up automatic payments to various vendors. If their services aren't satisfactory, then find another bank that fits the bill.