Is Autopay a Blessing or a Ploy to Get You to Pay Less Attention to Your Bills?

You ever wonder why some utility providers incentivize automatic payments so much? Is it because people genuinely forget to pay their bills on time or is it because when consumers are enrolled in automatic payments they neglect checking on their bills tend to just let them get paid passively? It might come down to both things since some utility providers incentivize autopay so much so that they now give a discount on consumers that enroll in automatic payments.

Automatic Payments

A large part of the issue with automatic payments is the notification timing of many utility and bill providers however they do help you to avoid missing bill payments. If you are enrolled in autopay you still get a notification that your bill is ready to be paid. This is quite counterintuitive and actually causes consumers to put it off the notion of checking into their bill and statement since they’re receiving a notification when the bill is ready but automatic payment typically can come days and days afterwards. If you remind someone that a bill is ready to be paid but automatic payment comes out days later it makes them feel like the bill is already paid, when in fact it is not. Autopay is typically setup to run towards the end of the billing cycle and this can make us passive towards allocating our attention towards our bills and more closely watching our spending, energy usage, water usage, etc.

Not a Net Negative

Automatic payments are not a net negative for everyone, some consumers will undoubtedly see a benefit and would simply prefer to keep their bills out of mind, out of sight and paid on time. There’s nothing wrong with that but it’s not going to work for everyone and many consumers are great at catching discrepancies, which there isn’t always a shortage of. However, for some consumers that prefer the old school route of payment they might be better off sticking to their routine and paying their bills when they come due instead of automatically. Breaking a routine isn’t always an easy thing to do and if the process is going to simply confuse you, you might want to reconsider it, even if it saves you time. Saving time is great but your current method of paying your bills isn’t broke, maybe don’t be to gung-ho to fix it.

What’s Your Preference?

How you prefer to pay off your monthly bills is really up to you but for the most part there will always be a manual nature to some part of bill payments. There is no automatic payment for property taxes and many other types of bills that come due throughout the course of the year. For some consumers there will always be a manual part of this process. It’s a part of the process and that manual part of the process also keeps us on our toes and makes sure we’re taking notice for what we’re being charged and how to be on the lookout for service increase charges. With autopay you are adding convenience to your life, which may very well be an important factor for you. However, this doesn’t mean that using automatic payments is suitable for everyone.

For example, paying your bills off manually might allot you some benefits like being able to more quickly notice a water leak in your home. A spike in usage could set off a red flag and had your bill been set on automatic payment you would have surely not seen the usage report as early as you did (or not until it caused serious visible damage). Consequentially, paying your bill earlier and manually allowed you to save a lot of money and helped you avoid havoc that could’ve damaged your property. This scenario is not so far off from what has undoubtedly happened to other consumers.