air360

Just curious if anyone has opinions on if it is safer to push or pull payments from your bank account. Like most people here we put nearly everything we can on credit cards...I usually simply log into each credit card once a week and pay off whatever balance has posted...so if you log into our main bank account you see our automated deposits from our work and then almost every other line item is "chase epay", "discover e-payment", "Amex epayment". It has been like this for multiple years and not a peep from the bank (WF). Just wondering if I should be using their "Bill Pay" option to push instead of having straight pulls....sure there is some MS involved...but 90% of it is paying off real life credit spend....also, sorry if this is the wrong section...I wasn't sure where else to put it, and no one would know more about best practices of paying the CC than the seasoned MS'rs

dukerau

In terms of risk of CC closure, I don't think there's a difference. Some people don't like pull payments because you give the CC company access to your checking account, and once they have that they could theoretically take whatever they want. IMO with the regulatory protections that exist for customers in the banking industry, this is hardly a risk.

air360

Yeah, I was/am thinking of more concern about possibly off WF for basically doing constant pulls.

8illy

I personally always push payments from my banks' bill payment service mainly for the security aspect of not giving my routing and acct number to so many different financial companies. While very low, any breach could expose my routing and account number. Naturally, every time I give another financial institution my routing and account number for pull payments I am increasing my risk of breach exposure. This is simply not worth it in my opinion. Also, my bank's bill payment system allows me to download all of my pdf statements for electronic payments so it is very convenient to have one place where all of this is stored rather than have to login to perhaps 20 different credit card websites.

air360

Good explanation and reasoning! Thanks for the input!

Phantom707

I pull payments by initiating the transaction from my credit card companies. In the event that anything happens, the card company should have a record of the transaction and know that I had actually initiated the payment.

Contrast the bill payment features. They often do have some form of guarantee, but I always figured that it would be easier to deal with the card company so that they don't charge a fee [for late payment] as opposed to dealing with the bill payment service to get them to reimburse me.

Ram Trucks

Honestly, I wasn't even aware of this "push" option. I always thought the only way was to Pay at the CC company's website. That's how I always do it.

Phantom707

From your other posts, you've indicated that you've mailed in checks or money orders to your credit card company. That's technically a form of a push payment. The difference is that that was paper instead of digital.

ff.volker

I always have auto-pull enabled. Even if I would prefer manual "push" pay I would still allow minimum auto-payment. This will always make sure that I never miss a (minimum) payment which is crucial.

Ram Trucks

I was referring to Paying online. Sure, I've mailed MO's, but I was under the impression that the only way to Pay a CC bill online, was through the CC company's (e.g. Discover's) website. Whenever I did online Payments, thats how I did it, and I assumed that was the only way.

DataPointCharlie

Push and pull.. Keep em thinking

air360

Hahaha
That gave me a visual of a group of bank or credit card employees all crowded around one computer screen in anticipation and placing bets with each other on what the next transaction will be...a push or a pull. Then half jumping for joy when you make a move and the other half disappointed and upset they lost the bet.
Sorry...slow afternoon lol