The short of it. I've tried several times to activate Wachovia Bill pay. I do have download activated, but was using Quicken bill pay. If I turned off Quicken buill pay and turned on Wachovia bill pay, it would activate but fail when I connected.
Yesterday (see the shaggy dog story below if you care) I deactivate both Quicken and Wachovia on my checking account. I then reactivated Wachovia, and to my surprise both download and bill pay were turned on. And bill pay now works. I have no idea if they are going to charge me - no indication of charges for personal use on the web site but who knows. They have the new $5.95 charge - but I have an exempt account.
The shaggy dog story and a hint about mysterious red flags.
This started when the red update flag appeared on my checking account. No outstanding downloads to accept. No bill pays to upload. I flailed for a while, including turning off bill pay and account down load.
I then realized what happened. I have joined the social security crowd, and had added a scheduled transaction to put my direct deposit in 21 days in advance of its expected receipt. But I failed to convert this to an automatic entry. The red flag appeared 21 days before the scheduled date to reminding my to enter the scheduled transaction!
I have now also discovered that if you hover over the red flag it may tell you what it's warning about.
Ain't computers fun :-)