Being in the wiki typically means someone tested this and discovered said situation. However I know that sometimes things in the wiki can be partially false.

What about loading it onto Bb card via WM? Does that work?

Probably. But then you'd have to go to WM...

Did you ever try this? If so what was the outcome. Thanks!!

Thanks for the reminder. Yes, I did try it, and the system accepted two payments to the same biller. So it's not getting blocked at the point of submission yet. Not sure if the payments will go through in September - although I would expect that they would.

Does a free promo code (e.g. the $10 one last week) count against the 4 payment count?

Exactly. Essentially this change is to kill those folks who were using it to pay off mortgages. However the majority of the normal bills even car loans are <= $500/month which can still be useful.

Obviously its not as lucrative as it once was when there was no payee amount cap which is ludicrous to me especially those that were dumping $200 VGCs to pay off a $3K mortgage. I don't really understand Evolve's business model since I can't understand how revenue can be generated by providing this service to pay bills for free (not counting the express payment fee which I am sure no one really uses if they took even 5 mins to do some sort of planning to avoid it).

The question now is, will there be another bill payment service out there that can emulate Evolve money but come up with a business model so that they are earning revenue so they don't have to resort to neutering its service. I am sure people will be willing to pay a small fee ($1 - $1.50) per transaction in order to keep the 4 payments per payee/month.

Their trajectory is interesting.

Unlimited payments! OK - that isn't profitable.

4 payments per month! OK - still not profitable.

Let's try 1 payment per month!

Feels like a buyout is their only real goal, and they'll just trying to keep from burning out of cash completely before they get an offer.

There will be no profit without fees. If they impose fees, they cannot attract customers away from checking bill pay unless they start credit card payments for a fee.

To me, transition from unlimited bills to 4 per month to one per month within a span of 3 months is an externally forced one and not self imposed.

Let us hope that lower profits drive a greater sense of urgency for new services like credit card bill for a fee.

Actually, I disagree in part.

Plenty of us would pay a fee to use debit and gift cards also. I think that's where the sweet spot is.

There are numerous other companies offering bill pay via credit card for a fee. And none are very popular because the economics just don't incentive people to use those services.

But if Evolve can figure out a fee to use debit and gift cards for bill payment where they make a little and still engage customers, we have a long-term model.

Exactly. Add billpay to CC w/ fee. There is no other sustainable long-term model for them.

And what do you propose is the appropriate fee amount for debit/gift cards for bill payment? I think $1 - $1.50 is an appropriate fee amount which is what they currently charge for express payments. If they just made it applicable to all transactions that would help. Not only that but I don't think $1 - $1.50 is too much compared to what others pay out there for bill payment services (Kmart charges $1.50 and WM charges $1.88 for BP).

I'm a bit confused about how to use evolve with the changes. I have a loan payment of around $900. Am I still able to get two giftcards and load them on the same day and make the payment and have that one payment of around $900 go through? I notice when I load the card it wants to know what bill I am paying. Do I load one card and select the loan provider and then load the second card immediately thereafter and do the same thing and both amounts will count towards the same payment or am I stuck with just using the $500 from the gift card?

I am pretty sure you can't use two gift cards for one payee and never have been able to.

Yes - that's the problem with the changes from Evolve. Now, any bill over $500 can't be paid with GC, unless you can magically come up with GC > $500. Each time you hit the pay bill button, it counts as 1 transaction. Since they will now be limiting you to only 1 transaction per biller per month, you're out of luck. Unless, of course you use something like the Buxx cards, but then you're still limited to between 500 and 1000. Makes it much less useful to use the service.