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But really, what were the advantages of paying bills online? By the time you bundled up your bills, remembered the due dates, sat down in front of your PC, and then typed in orders authorizing payment -- heck, you might just as easily have written the stinking checks. Now comes Paytrust (www.paytrust.com), one of the new generation of Internet-based "bill presentment" services that promise a better way. And for the most part, Paytrust really is an improvement over traditional bill-payment services. The biggest difference: Paytrust delivers your major bills via e-mail, allowing you to approve payments with a simple mouse click or two. For good measure, Paytrust will even nudge you with daily reminders as each bill's due date draws closer. So whether you're simply a procrastinator like me, or a road warrior weary of returning home after weeks away to find a mailbox full of overdue bills, Paytrust comes closest to making the business of paying bills a passive activity. CREDIT WHERE IT'S DUE. Here's how Paytrust works: To set up an account, you simply log on to Paytrust's Web site and complete a series of online forms authorizing Paytrust to receive your bills. If creditors such as your phone company, car-finance firm, or mortgage holder go along -- and some, particularly credit-card issuers, may balk -- they'll forward your bills to a Paytrust processing center in New Jersey, South Dakota, or California (San Francisco). One task that can't be performed online is authorizing Paytrust to debit payments from your bank account, since Paytrust needs your signature for that. Paytrust will mail you those forms, or you can download them and fax them back if you're really itching to get going. Some Paytrust customers who have used this accelerated sign-up system report being cleared to pay bills in as little as four hours. This is where it gets easy, at least in theory. As it receives each bill from the creditors you've designated, Paytrust sends you an e-mail alert with a hyperlink back to Paytrust's site. There, you can view a scanned-in image of the original bill and, if all is well, a simple mouse click will authorize payment. If you don't respond to Paytrust's initial alerts, the service sends daily reminders as due dates draw closer. If there are fixed-sum bills you'd like Paytrust to pay automatically -- like your mortgage or car payment -- you can authorize those as well. And you can use Paytrust to write cyber-checks to anyone not on your list, from Aunt Minnie to the lawn service. CHECKS AND BALANCES. Paytrust is easy, but new users should know it's not always fast because it has electronic connections to only a few thousand billers. For other bills, Paytrust cuts a paper check and mails it, which takes time. That means you probably shouldn't leave it too late when making payments because it may take up to five days for snail mail to get your payments to creditors. And if they arrive late, of course, you're still on the hook for those pesky late fees. Another plus: If your bank provides account access via the Web, you can configure your Paytrust account to display your current checking balance(s) whenever you log on, minimizing the chance that you'll overdraw. I say "minimize" because Paytrust will still make any and all payments you've authorized even if you don't have enough money in your bank account. It's up to you to make sure they don't bounce. The cost for all this: $8.95 a month for up to 25 payments (additional transactions aren't cheap at 50 cents each). Paytrust also offers a less expensive service without those e-mail alerts for $5.95 a month. You just log on to the site and manually authorize payments, which isn't as attractive since you can find comparable deals on basic bill-paying at Yahoo! and even the U.S. Postal Service. THE FINE PRINT. As good as this sounds, Paytrust isn't without its flaws: For one, longtime users complain that Paytrust's scanning service isn't perfect, meaning that the fine print in some bills can be fuzzy. And if you need a copy of the original, it will cost you $4 if you request it within the first three months. After that, you're out of luck because Paytrust destroys the originals. What's more, the site can be a tad quirky: One Paytrust user complained the site couldn't find an address, or send a payment, to USAA Savings Bank when "USAA" was entered in capital letters. But when the customer thought to type in "usaa" in lower case, Paytrust suddenly sprang to life. Another complaint: If you try to make two car payments on the same day, you'll have problems because Paytrust doesn't allow more than one transaction to go to the same biller on the same day for the same amount. Plus, having all the bills sent to Paytrust results in petty, hard-to-foresee inconveniences: For example, banks send new credit cards upon renewal to billing addresses, meaning Paytrust has to forward your new plastic to you. It's the same in some cases for insurance-renewal cards. Users grouse that Paytrust is often slow to forward mail other than bills, despite assurances that everything is passed along immediately. Such headaches will become fewer, one hopes, as more billers embrace the concept of online bill presentment. Despite its flaws, Paytrust seems a big improvement over writing checks by hand. Who knows? Maybe someday we'll all pay bills this way. Foust is Business Week's Atlanta bureau chief Daniel Northington, an editorial assistant for Business Week in Atlanta, contributed to this review |
