Biller will charge a $5.oo transaction fee

Robert Ralyea

I tried to pay LoanCare and I received a message that they now charge a $5.00 transaction fee. I called them and they said no way.

Any one have an explanation for this.

jrich75

Actually LoanCare does have a history of charging fees for phone or online payments of certain types of bills.  Have you tried going on to their web site and making an online payment yourself?  If you are referring to a payment using QuickPay, any fees that would be charged for you to complete an online payment would be passed through to you.  QuickPay makes all payments using the online bill payment services provided by the biller web site.

Quicken Anja

Hello @Robert Ralyea,

Thank you for reaching out to the Community about your issue, though I apologize that you are experiencing this.

First, could you please provide which version of Quicken you have currently running?

• Help > About Quicken

Also, if you don't mind could you please provide a screenshot of the message you receive? How long ago did you start receiving this message?

Thank you!

Chris_QPW

I personally setup all my bills for automatic payment at the biller's sight (I would never trust Quicken Bill Manager to do this for me) and I have found that at some sites it depends on the funding account if you are going to get charged or not.  As in checking account, no charge, credit card, extra fee.

By setting the payment yourself you will know all the details instead of having Quicken Bill Manager blow through all the warning and conditions that you might see and give you the "default".

Robert Ralyea

My version of Quicken
R29.20
27.1.29.20

I paid the bill so unless I cancel it I wont be able to get a screen shot. It said the biller will add a $5.00 charge to the bill. I emailed the biller and asked them why all of a sudden they have a $5.00 fee for paying through Quicken which I have been doing for years.

Thank you all for your reply's

Chris_QPW

Robert Ralyea said:

My version of Quicken
R29.20
27.1.29.20

I emailed the biller and asked them why all of a sudden they have a $5.00 fee for paying through Quicken which I have been doing for years.

EDIT for clarity.

There is no possible way you have been paying this way for years, since Quicken Bill Manager didn't exist before this year.

Quicken Bill Pay and Quicken Bill Manager don't work the same way.

Quicken Bill Pay was setup where you would specify an account(s) that you authorized this service to make ACH transfers out of your account(s) to pay your bills (transfer starts at financial institution account).

Direction of payment "push".

Quicken Bill Manager on the other hand accesses the biller's website and sets up an automatic payment (biller starts the transfer).

Direction of payment "pull".

And definitely some billers treat these two different ways of paying the bills differently and that might involve a charge for the service.

Robert Ralyea

I have been paying my bills for years via quicken and Bank of America. I have had no issues with fees until I used Quicken Bill manager. I have contacted the biller awaiting a reply.

Chris_QPW

OK paying through Quicken through a financial institution's bill system is also a "push" system, and as such what is charge can be different than Quicken Bill Manger.

Why did you switch from paying through Bank of America to Quicken Bill Manager?

Only Quicken Bill Pay went away.  Paying through your financial institution should still work as it always did.

Robert Ralyea

I had no choice Quicken discontinued my ability to pay via my bank. About 3 weeks ago I had a major problem with Quicken and the last 3 backup files became corrupted. I spoke with Q for hours and it was deterred that I needed to start over from scratch. I no longer had the ability to pay via Bank Of America. I have had a few issues with the new bill manager such as used all my check pay for the month and two banks have 6 challenge question which change all the time where I get failed payments. For years never had problems with Quicken now I am just about ready to pay my bills via Bank Of America. I actually paid a few via the bank but then I have to enter them in the check register since they no longer down load if paid on the Bank of America web site. I think Q takes to much of my time to stay on top of things making sure my bills are paid on time and not having enough quick pay and check pay per month. Sorry for the long reply.

Chris_QPW

There are (were) three different ways to pay bills through Quicken.

1. Through Direct Connect.  For this the account has to be setup for Direct Connect not Express Web Connect, and the financial institution has to support paying through their bill pay system using Direct Connect.  (And some financial institution charge a monthly fee for this).  One of the "hallmarks" of this system is that because it is using the financial institution's bill pay system.   You could see your bills either in Quicken or at the financial institution's website.
2. Quicken Bill Pay (this is the one that recently was stopped).  The connection method could be either Direct Connect of Express Web Connect.  It worked by using ACH transfers to pay bills.  It typically cost $10 month, but I believe that Quicken Premier users got some amount of free transactions per month.  Since is wasn't using the financial institution's website you couldn't see bills in their system.  You either saw them in Quicken or at the Quicken Bill Pay website.
3. Quicken Bill Manager (this is the newly added one to replace Quicken Bill Pay, it does affect #1).  It works by logging into the biller's website and setting up the bill payment there.  The biller may or may not charge for this.  I actually don't know if you can see this automatic payment on that site or not.  I would think you would.  There isn't any other website to see the full set of bills.  The only place for that is Quicken.  This is a "pull" system where the biller pulls the amount from your financial institution account.

Now speaking about Bank of America.  I don't have an account there and so maybe someone else has more details, but here is what I have heard.

For long time users that were using Direct Connect they were grandfathered in, and can continue to use it.  Given that is true, Bank of America also allows for paying bills through Direct Connect.  And as far as I know I believe they charged a fee for Direct Connect/Bill Pay, but waved that fee for certain kinds of accounts and such.

So the very first thing you need to check is if your Bank of America account(s) are setup for Direct Connect.  Once that is done then in the Account Details -> Online Services tab then you should have an "Activate Bill Pay" button, which is labeled by this text "Not enabled for Online Bill Pay".  Notice is say "Online" not "Quicken".  This is the bill pay through Quicken/Direct Connect to the financial institution's bill pay system.

Robert Ralyea

Chris_QPW thanks for your response and sticking with me on this issue.

4 weeks ago when I started from scratch I enabled online bill pay with Bank Of America but when setting up payees the bank did not show up so I migrated to bill manager thinking that's the way it was. You stated that I should be able to still pay via my bank direct connect. I tried it again and I was able to select my bank. Looking back at a previous update I think Q fixed that issue. Bank of America is free no fee like wells fargo and others. Once again thank you for your detailed posts and the others who replied.

Chris_QPW

@Robert Ralyea Your very welcome.  I'm glad you got it sorted out.