I have personal and small business accounts with Bank of America. For both, I have taken advantage of their BillPay service, where you instruct Bank of America to issue a check by mail to a person or company. I received three inquiries in the past 4 months, from individuals and companies to whom I issued checks, regarding payment.in every case, the matter was a mystery to me, because after a few days of directing the check to be issued, my account was debited.
In the last investigation, I realized what the underlying issue was: Bank of America debits my account after a few days, even when my payee does not receive a check.in fact, in one case I had the wrong address, but Bank of America went ahead and debited. It was only after the payee asked for an investigation that Bank of America agreed to reissue. (In the meantime, of course, the debit remained on my account.)
I considered the astounding implications of this: All of those debits of scores of checks I have issued may or may not represent true payments. Some less organized merchants and individuals may have received a check or not, thrown it away, not deposited it, etc. If I did not tell them a check was on the way, they may still have me as delinquent in their records. Moreover, this is the case for tens of thousands (who knows how many?) BillPay checks people issued but were never received or deposited.
I do not know who pockets the money for lost checks, but it seems logical that Bank of America does.in addition, Bank of America clearly benefits by debiting an account for the check well ahead of when a payee receives it. One time, they indicated a delivery date of the 15th of the month, posted the debit to my account that day, and, after I inquired why my payee had not received the check and yet it was debited, they said to wait until the 24th and check back. This meant Bank of America was happy to hold about $1000 of my money for 9 extra days.
Advice to Bank of America BillPay Customers:
1. Always communicate independently with a payee letting them know a check has been issued. Tell them the amount, and what Bank of America claims to be the "delivery date."
2. Ask your payees to confirm when they have received the check.
3. If your payees do not receive payment by the delivery date, inquire with Bank of America's BillPay inquiry service. (Just click on the entry in your transactions and follow the links.)
4. If your payees do not receive payment for whatever reason after a reasonable period of time, ask Bank of America to reverse the charges.
5. NEVER assume that any of your BillPay debits means that the payee has deposited the check.
6. Weigh the benefits and convenience of BillPay against the assurance provided by older systems, where you write a paper check, send it, and can tell from your statement or transactions that the payee has received the check and deposited it. Or for that, newer methods where you pay your bills through a payee's website.
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