Tangerine's bill payment function is inadequate | Tangerine Bank | Discussion forum

AltaRed said
I know this isn't helpful for this situation but why don't you have pre-authorized debit on all your payments, i.e. a pull rather than a push via Bill Payment? I have not used Bill Payment for years, i.e. on any of my recurring bills. Most of the debits take a day or two to show up AFTER the pull has already been credited to my account.

I am even on pre-authorized debit with CRA for my quarterly installment payments.  

I appreciate what you're saying, but I don't like using standing PADs for bill payments because, among other reasons, that would require me to commit to and continually fund a particular hub from which the standing debits are drawn. That's not flexible enough for my purposes.

I also fundamentally dislike giving anyone auto-debit authority on my accounts for any reason. If a dispute ever arises over something, I don't want what little leverage I might have in the dispute (i.e. withholding payment) to be undermined by some standing auto-debit that's already given a third party the right to raid my bank account and take the money anyway.

My distaste for auto-debit goes back to my younger starving underpaid office worker days when the cable company would "accidentally" overbill me, or take 2 months in advance without any warning (that's a big middle finger from me to the old Metro Cablesystems in Toronto, and yes, I still vividly remember). Gas company overcharges. Hydro overcharges. Like many other people I've experienced the gym membership debit that wouldn't die, and also an insurance company that wouldn't stop collecting premiums even after I had long cancelled the policy. Still to this day my solution for avoiding repetition of these types of headaches is to never again allow auto-debit in the first place

AltaRed said
London guy, when it comes to most recurring bills such as utilities, credit cards, etc., the obligation is to pay on time and dispute certain charges after the fact. Every reputable vendor has a process for that. It is an old wives tale to believe you have leverage before payment.

My bro still believes in that too. I think it is more of a psychological belief of being in control.

Yes, I do understand the gym membership saga but those are not reputable vendors. Consumer laws have also changed for the better too.

Regardless, I do understand the preference by some to engage in a lot of work to pay bills via Bill Payment. When I used to do it that way, I did it like Alexandre. Pay it as soon as it comes in. Problem solved.

Added: Since some will say one is giving up interest paying bills too early, let's assume on average bills are paid 2 weeks early. Assume that is for $5000 per month and interest is 2%. That is 2wks by 12 months by $5000 by 2%.... for a grand total of less than $50 per year interest before tax. Is it worth several hours of your time every year for $50BT?  

Red, I appreciate the feedback and I don't want to belabor the point, but it's also the inflexibility I dislike. Since I have a lot of different bank accounts and suffer from irregular cash flow (self-employed) and also can't always direct $ to wherever I want without incurring some kind of delay, sometimes it's just easier and faster to pay certain bills from where cash happens to be at the moment, rather than be obliged to constantly fund a central account where those standing debits have been registered.

Beside, this topic wasn't created to debate the pros & cons of using auto-debits anyway. It was intended to highlight to the unwary (of which I was one) that Tangerine takes too long to reliably process bill payments, or at least too long compared to what I'm used to and expect.