Electronic Payments

Account settings are brutally complex when something in your financial network changes. Case in point: merger of existing financial institution with another institution. Our debit cards were replaced with another system. Now the real fun began.

Which programmed automatic payments were made directly from my checking account, and which were made against my debit card?  I did not know the answer to this basic question. So, I had to create a list of all auto payments I could remember.

Lease payment for apartment was first. It was directly from my checking account, but the amount needed to be adjusted upwards. I followed account instructions and made the changes. All set to go.

Then my cell phone account. After a tedious process I learned how to change my account settings, found the old debit card, eliminated it and replaced it with the new one. So far so good.

Then Comcast: learned from the cell phone provider and repeated it. Successfully changed the account settings. Comcast should get their outrageous payment on time and in full.

Next Allstate Insurance: same as Comcast; successfully reset account settings.

Target was a little more complicated, but I persisted and successfully removed my old debit card connection from our Red Card at Target and replaced it with the new one. Should be good to go.

Freshly prepared meals was faster and smoother. Wish their delivery was as good. But the account settings did not need to be changed; they take funds directly from my checking account.

Am now on the phone (answering line queue, actually!) to make desired changes to my Walgreen's account. I am a frequent user of Walgreens and have a discount reward relationship with them. We also have an express pay arrangement based on our debit cards. We need to remove the old debit card and replace it with the new.  [Walgreen's successfully finished the call after 32 minutes; all set to go!]

With this call over I’m done until the middle of the night when I will no doubt recall still another account relationship that I had forgotten! Think about it. We have a lot of repeat account relationships and most of them are connected to our debit card. Now we have to remember to change the settings each time we use those businesses.

Shouldn’t there be an easier method available?  Just asking?

March 5, 2021