Setting payment date with Wells Fargo

Han, presents to my grand-nephews are, indeed, about the only use for cheques that I have. IF they lived nearby, I would give them cash, probably. However, due to the distance, cheques work and I don't have to pay ANY service charges to use them, unlike interbank account to account transfers which, in Canada, are usually free to the RECEIVER but not the sender.

Good to hear that, Tim. Checks and/or third-party bill payers, such as Quicken, are going the way of the dodo bird!

Well, Cy, I'd like to hear valid, cogent reasons exactly WHY you are oh, so sure that it wouldn't work for "many of us"!! Surely, you do still HAVE a bank account or credit card?

Some payees are not set up to take EFT, like many local businesses. My doctor isn't, for example.

Are we really going to do this again?

Your way works great for you. Others may prefer a differnt method for wahtever reason.

They've been given to you over and over again. You just dismiss them and ignorant and press your method again.

Why do you have aproblem with people doing things they way that THEY want to?

I haven't noticed any difference between Wachovia and Wells Fargo for payments through Quicken. The minimum lead time for a payment may have changed, but I haven't really been looking for it.

} > } I went to make an online payment, as I've done hundreds } > of times. So I } filled out everything and, as I usually } > do for ASAP payments, I didn't } bother touching the } > "dates" and that generally just works.

} I think the details are largely up to the individual billpayer, but you } should be able to see what the minimum lead time is for each online payee } by looking at the Quicken Online Payee list. } } Tools > Online Payee List - in Q2011.

So you're saying that for *EVERY* "asap" bill I pay, I need to go to the payee list and look up the lead time, then go back to the onlinepmt page and put in that date [guessing about holidays and such to get it right]? UGH!! Didn't that used-to-work all automatically pre-Wells-Fargo?

/Bernie\

} I see. And Bernie is saying that you get debited for the check amount on } the date the check is processed even though the money is not delivered } for (in my case) 4 days?

I believe that that's what the info I got for the Wachovia->Wells Fargo changeover say, and I can see that there's an indication that that's what's happening: when I make a payment, I set the delivery date but when it is uploaded and its status is changed from 'sent' to entered, the date is changed to the *processing* date. I don't know [and can't very easily tell] *exactly* when the funds are actually pulled out of my account, but as far as Quicken is concerned, those funds are pulled on the processing date.

} In this day of electronic communication, there's nothing -- except greed } -- stopping a bank for making an electronic delivery on the day they } process your check.

It isn't clear to me that every merchant with whom I do business has an accessible account to transfer to. I know the plumber and the guy who just fixed my dishwasher and the feed store and a bunch of others don't seem to have any 'electronic' financial presence I can see: AFAICT either I or Quicken has to send them a check to get them paid.

/Bernie\

} I will repeat here once more that I prefer to give the payee } authorization to "pull" the payment.

I know and we've discussed this before. I'm *VERY* leery about allowing random third-parties to make un-approved withdrawals from my bank accounts. Now, running to my credit card is fine: I do that and that's not a problem. But allowing direct-withdrawals is just too dangerous for my tastes. One slip or misunderstanding and I would be in for a world of hurt trying to get everything sorted out, fees paid, credit rating repaired, etc. You're willing to trust in the accuracy of dozens of random merchants not to mis-bill and so mis-withdraw from your account, I'm not. That's a separate debate/philosophical battle than the question of getting billpay to work..:o)

/Bernie\

} Using paper checks at ANY state of bill payment is oh, so 19th } century!!! Whether it's done by YOU or by ANY financial } institution. Ditto for them paying you. EFT is the way to go, as } far as receiving payments, e.g. pensions.

Might be 19th century, and indeed, most "payments" I receive come in via EFT these days but very few of the local merchants I deal with are set up to take payments via EFT. I don't know exactly how that works, though: how _do_ businesses get set up to accept EFTs? I got a bill from Jim's Appliance Repair; so I told Quicken "pay him". I assume that given that neither Quicken nor WF have any idea who Jim's Appliance Repair is, the only thing they can do is USMail them a check. Now, do they include something along with the check asking if there's some direct-deposit routing/acct numbers for the company so that they could do an EFT next time? Or will payments to Jim always have to go by mailed-check until Jim actually does something [what might that be]?

/Bernie\

} I'm another Wachovia refugee. For me, the verified facts about bill } pay are: } } If I schedule a payment via the Wells Fargo web interface, the debit } my account on the send date, as much as 4 days before delivery. } } If I schedule a payment using Quicken, the debit occurs on the deliver date.

I think you got that backwards, from what I saw of the WF information: if you use *WF* to make the payment [via their website], they debit on the delivery date, but if you use Quicken they hit you on the processing date [at least, that's what Quicken tells me, since the date of the transaction is changed from delivery to processing in my register as soon as I uplod the payment to WF. I have *NOT* then hopped online and checked via the WF online banking site if the funds were actually removed [even though Quicken says that they were].

/Bernie\

It's not clear that you are interpreting what you see correctly.

Quicken may be (and, in my case, is) changing only the "transaction" date (the date you entered the billpay transaction). I have sent a billpay transaction to my billpayer 25 days before the delivery date; my Quicken transaction date was 25 days before the delivery date ... but the transaction did not clear my checking account until the delivery date.

You need to verify what date your transaction clears your real-world billpay account.

No, I'm not saying that.

I'm saying that if you can't get the payment scheduled as soon as you want, and you want to know why, double check the lead time against your calendar.

I haven't once said that I use Wells Fargo, or that my posts could tell you exactly how Wells Fargo would handle things. I've just tried to point out the general concept.

But it does seem to me, at least one other poster in this discussion has said it works pretty much as it used to work. I'll leave it to you and that poster to sort out the details. But, as I already noted in response to another of your recent posts, the transaction date is not necessarily the same as the date the transaction "clears" your account. And in my experience, it's never the same as the date cleared for billpay transactions since I always have, at least, a one day lead time.

"John Pollard" wrote

I should have mentioned that when I do that, if I have selected a date that does not have sufficient lead time, Quicken pops up a mesage telling me I can't use that date, and changes the date to the earliest allowable date.

Bernie Cosell wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@library.airnews.net:

Hi Bernie, your phrase "random third-parties" is exagerating just a tad. I don't do that with just anybody, just selected companies, and I monitor what they are going to do with eagle eyes ...

That is not what Quicken tells me. It says the funds are debited on the Deivery date, not the processing date. If I click on the check number in Quicken, a "Status" icon appears. Clicking on that icon gives me the following message:

"Payment processing begins on the processing date; and funds are withdrawn from your account no earlier then the delivery date"

Here is an example: On Aug 5 I set up a payment that was due on Aug 15. On Aug 12, according to Quicken, the payment processing began. On Aug 15, the payment appeared on my Quickn register. I checked the bank and the check was debited to my account on Aug 15.

Based on what Quicken tells me and my actual experience sited above, WF debits on the delivery date, not the processing date.

Sharx3335 has written on 8/23/2011 4:50 AM:

I don't think you do. I think you just want an opportunity to "prove" that your way is superior and the rest of us are fools.

Bernie gave a good reason for not allowing any company direct access to his bank account. I concur.

Hi Bernie - To feed your paranoia, look at

I agree with you with payments that can 'float' from month to month. I do allow some companies that have a fixed amount come out each month (insurance payment) to automatically debit.

But NEVER for phone companies!!