SunTrust vs. Bank of America Online Bill Pay Question
I've narrowed our choice of new banks after the move down to SunTrust and Bank of America, but now I need your help. One of the critical features that I'm looking for has to do with automating our online bill payments. Ever since we signed up with our currrent bank (US Bank), we've been able to have their bill pay service fetch our credit card bills and pay them automatically. BUT... The auto-payments could only be for the minimum amount due. If I wanted to pay in full (which I always do), I had to manually go in and schedule the payment. Not a huge deal, but it's been somewhat inconvenient. As it turns out, they've just upgraded their bill pay service such that you can now choose to have it automatically pay the minimum amount due or the full outstanding balance, but we're moving and they don't have any local branches on the other end. So here's my question to all of you SunTrust and/or Bank of America account holders out there...
When you login in and go to set up an automatic online bill payment, do they give you the option of setting it up to pay the bill in full every month as opposed to having it just make the minimum monthly payment? I know that some (most?) banks do allow for this, but this is a real deal breaker for me and I don't want to be disappointed. If one bank can do it and the other can't, then our decision has been made. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to tell based on their online banking demos, and to be honest I trust y'all more than I trust a random customer service rep.
On the off chance that both banks can do what I want, I'd also like to hear general opinions on these banks (especially about what you don't like about them) from current or past customers.
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"SunTrust vs. Bank of America Online Bill Pay Question" was first published at fivecentnickel.com
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BofA does not allow you to make automatic payment for the full amount. You will have to do that manually. Paying the minimum amount, a more useless feature, is allowed.
Are you sure? The reason that I ask is that a commented over at my main site pointed out that their demo shows three possible modes for automatic payments -- minimum due, full balance, and set amount. Thus, it appears (at least according to their demo) that they allow this. Maybe they recently changed?
I may be wrong. They now have the feature "Always pay the account balance as indicated on the e-Bill", which I have not tried.
I tried hard to setup full payment before, failed, and complained to them for not being able to. I was told to submit a feedback online (as if telling the problem to a human is not enough), a scheme apparently means that they do not wish to hear about it. I did not receive any reply on the feedback.
Here are their current options for automatic payment:
* Always pay the minimum amount due as indicated on the e-Bill: Click this option to pay the minimum amount as noted by the payee in the e-Bill. Keep in mind that the minimum amount due for some payees, such as credit cards, could leave a balance that may result in finance charges on your next e-Bill.
* Always pay the amount due as indicated on the e-Bill: Click this option to automatically pay the e-Bill for the amount due. Note: For some e-Bills, the amount sent from the payee can be the minimum amount due, which can be different than the account balance. Please make sure you review your e-Bills and automatic payments. For payees that send the minimum amount, you might need to make an additional payment to pay the account balance.
* Always pay the account balance as indicated on the e-Bill: Click this option to pay the account balance for the e-Bill.
* Only make payment if the amount is less than or equal to $: Click this option to set a maximum amount that is paid automatically. Then, enter a maximum amount in the box. Any e-Bill with an amount due over this limit is not paid automatically. You receive notification so that you can review your e-Bill and schedule the payment separately. Unpaid e-Bills appear in the Incoming e-Bills box.
* Always pay X dollars regardless of amount due: Click this option to automatically pay a fixed amount, which you specify, toward this e-Bill each month. You might select this scenario if you're making payments larger than your minimum balance due, for example, to pay down a mortgage or credit card debt.
