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I've been a long-time user of PayTrust. The idea behind the service is great: I can receive bills through PayTrust, view them online and set up payment rules to pay them automatically. However, Intuit (its parent company) has allowed the service to decay to the point where it has become simply unbearable: e-bill retrieval fails silently, paper bills are wrongly assigned (or not at all), the system fails to follow payment rules. I've had enough, and I'm cancelling my PayTrust account.

What are my alternatives?

So far, I see these options:

  1. Billpay through my bank: It's free, but it doesn't receive bills for me. I would have to go to the payee's websites each month to find out how much I owe, or I would have to receive paper bills in the mail (something I definitely don't want). My bank does support e-bills; however, none of my payees are on their list.

  2. Auto-pay through the payees: Many payees, especially credit card companies, offer a service to debit my checking account automatically each month. I don't feel comfortable with this option. I'm concerned that I lose leverage in the event of fraud or a merchant dispute. Since the payees already have my money (via a direct debit authorization), they're less inclined to resolve a billing dispute.

I'm looking for a way to pay bills automatically, but in a way that still allows me to intercede in the event of fraud. In essence, a service that tells me that I received a bill for $1,000 from my MasterCard on the 5th, and if I take no further action, it will be automatically paid from my checking account on the 20th -- just what PayTrust does today, but in a reliable way.

Any suggestions?

Chris W. Rea
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Tony the Pony
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5 Answers5

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Paytrust seems to be the only game in town. We've changed banks several times over the last 15 years and I can tell you that using a bank's bill pay service locks you in, big time. I loved paytrust because I could make one change if we changed banks. If you're using a bank directly for your bills, the ides of recreating your payee list is daunting.

ScottK
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An old question... but the recent answer for me turned out to be Check (formerly Pageonce)

https://check.me/

(NOTE: Check was recently purchased by Intuit and is now MintBills)

The only thing Check doesn't do that PayTrust did was accept paper bills from payees that couldn't do eBill... but that's a rare problem anymore (for me anyways). I went through each of my payees in PayTrust and added them into Check, it found almost all of them... I added my security info for their logins, and it was setup. The few that Check couldn't find, it asked me for the details and would contact them to try and get it setup... but in the meantime I just added them to my bank's billpay system with automatic payment rules (my mortgage company was the only one it couldn't find, and I know what my mortgage is every month so it's easy to setup a consistent rule)

Check does so much more than PayTrust will ever do... Check has a MOBILE APP, and it is really the centerpiece of the whole system... you never really log into the website from your desktop (except to setup all the payees)... most of the time you just get alerts on your phone when a bill is due and you just click "pay" and choose a funding source, and bam you're done.

It's been awesome so far... I highly recommend dumping PayTrust for it!

FYI: Check is clearly winning at this point, but some of the competition are are http://manilla.com (not sure if you can pay your bills through them though) and DoxoPay ( https://www.doxo.com/posts/pay-your-bills-on-the-go-with-mobile-doxopay-new-android-app-and-an-updated-iphone-app/ )

Nicholas Franceschina
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Something you may want to consider if you are still choosing a bill-paying service is the contingency policies of the service.

I just suffered an extended stay in a hospital and my officially (in writing) designated Power of Attorney was NOT granted access to my PAYTRUST account. Thus they could NOT take care of my finances easily. After my discharge, I contacted PAYTRUST and they had canceled my account and would not reactivate it. This is after over fifteen years of loyalty.

Needless to say there was much financial chaos in my life due to their negligence. They were staunch in their policy and said officially that if they need to acknowledge a Power of Attorney, the ONLY thing they will allow the POA to do is close the PAYTRUST account. How's that for customer service?! Caveat Emptor. I am now seeking another service and will be asking about their POA policies.

MrChrister
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AC Gauthier
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Ally bank has a free billpay service where you have the option of paying bills via eBills.

Though I use Ally's billPay service (and I write about my experience with Ally in my blog), I haven't used eBills, but from reading your question, looks like this is what you are looking for.

From Ally's site:

What are eBills? An eBill is an online version of a bill or statement that can replace a traditional paper copy. Many large companies, like your electric, phone, cable and major credit card companies have the ability to send you eBills.

To receive eBills at Ally, you must already receive your bill online at the biller's website. Ally will ask for the biller's website credentials to set up an eBill.

Hope this helps.

MoneyCone
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(Six years later...)

I've used CheckFree for over 20 years, and my uncle started using it back in the early 1980s through a 300 baud modem. It has e-bills, EDI bills that you schedule yourself, and will also mail checks to people and small businesses.

You can make your payments from an unlimited number of banks, can schedule multiple recurring payments for the same bill (I find that useful for when buying large/expensive items by CC: I create a different payment schedule for each), plus ad hoc payments.

RonJohn
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