I’ve been using a checking account at Ally Bank to pay bills for several months. Up until this month that has been working fine.
While reviewing my account transactions I noticed that the amount paid via their bill pay feature for my home electricity bill was incorrect. After looking at it more closely I realized that the amount they sent was exactly the same as the amount of my electricity bill for December. So I called them up, told them that it looks like they made a mistake and sent the amount for the December bill again, even though I entered a different amount to pay the January bill.
They said they would look into it, but in the meantime because I was essentially short on the amount due for my bill this month I should send another payment to make up the difference and that they would call me in 2-3 business days with an update on this issue. I wasn’t thrilled, but I also didn’t want my electricity bill to not get paid either, so I sent another payment via bill pay again. Fortunately my January electricity bill isn’t due until the January 18th, so I had some wiggle room.
Four business days later and Ally still had not contacted me with a follow up on how they messed this up. Just so happens I needed to pay another bill so I was reviewing the checking account transactions and noticed that my ‘make up’ payment showed, up – for the same amount I paid in December!! At this point the pattern was clear, it didn’t matter what amount I asked them to send for my electricity bill they always used the amount from December. Oddly enough, none of the other bill pay items on my account have had this problem, it is only on my electricity bill.
So I called them again. This time I was very firm in my demand that they need to fix this and make this right, other wise their service is less than useless. They offered to pay any late fees, etc. but that isn’t good enough. I have never, ever, ever paid a bill late. My credit report reflects that. If they mess this up and it shows up as a late payment on my credit report then paying the late fees on my electricity bill is only just the beginning of what they need to do make it right. They said they would fix it and contact me with an update with in 2 business days.
That was yesterday, January 6th, so they should be contacting me by Monday at the latest. But they didn’t bother to do that after the first time I talked with them, so I’m expecting I’ll have to call them on Monday.
Be warned, if you are using the bill pay feature from Ally bank you need to double and triple check every single one to make sure that they sent the correct amount. Their system apparently does not verify that the amount you requested matches the amount they send, so you can not trust any bill pay transactions until you have verified them individually yourself.