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How to Pay Recurring Bills Automatically

Does this sound familiar? You remember that a routine bill is due, and rush to get the check written, into an envelope and into the mailbox in time to avoid a late fee. With luck, you make it, but it doesn’t take much to derail this process. You’re out of stamps, out of town, or mail delivery has been slowed due to a holiday you’d forgotten was coming.

Eliminating duplicated effort: A quick look at your checkbook will tell you that many of the bills you receive for goods and services recur, some each month, others quarterly or annually. For these bills, the solution is to set up an automatic billing arrangement with your charge or credit card issuer and eliminate a lot of time and aggravation from your personal bookkeeping.

A growing number of consumers and the businesses they deal with are benefiting from this payment option. Here’s a brief list of the kinds of service providers that make it available to their customers:

• Bus and train tickets; annual memberships in warehouse clubs and health clubs; home and office security systems; telecommunications: wireless, long distance, paging/messaging services; cable or direct TV; internet service providers; toll pass fees; magazine and newspaper subscriptions; express shipping, electronic speed passes for gasoline purchases.

You may also want to check out a longer list that shows specific merchants arranged according to the different categories they represent.

Arranging to participate: If a merchant who sends you regular bills doesn’t already offer automatic billing, you can contact the establishment directly about setting it up. When you call, be sure to have on hand the most recent statement you have received from that establishment, as well as your cardmember information. (Some providers may require a signature from you.)

Simplifying record-keeping: All of your automatic billing payments will appear on your charge or credit card statement. In addition, most service providers will send you a file copy of their bills marked “do not pay.”

Managing your account: After you sign up for automatic billing, it may take more than one billing cycle for charges to appear on your statement, so continue to pay invoices individually until you have received notification that the bill will be charged to your card.

If you have a question about an amount that appears on your card statement, you should call the particular merchant directly. However, if you have been billed by a provider you don’t use, call the card issuer to work it out.

If your charge or credit card helps you earn reward points, you will receive credit for the amount billed automatically, applied to your reward told a short time after the bill appears on the card statement.

If your card is lost or stolen and replaced with a new account number, it is your responsibility to inform the merchants with whom you have made an automatic billing arrangement that your account number has been changed.

October 11, 2001

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