“and they want to CHARGE me to pay by computer!!!”
I would be interested to hear under what circumstances you would be charged to pay this way? I do this for a living, and set this up for most of my mortgage customers and have never seen a charge.
You should not be charged to do this.
I actually just logged into my personal WF online banking account and saw no circumstances I would be charged to make an online payment.
The only time I have seen a fee charged; is if someone needs to pay by phone.
I kid you not, they charged for regular bank payments. Upthread someone said that they stopped recently. I use good old Mr Mailmanto send my payments.
Online or electronic payments usually/always won’t be charged a fee provided the bank is the same as the one servicing or owning the mortgage.
But let’s say I want to pay online from another bank... Then yes!
As far as what bank to use, generally a smaller, local/hometown bank is a no brainer. It is much preferred to know the people, be able to sit down and talk with them in person. If there’s a problem it’s much easier to get handled that way, versus navigating a computerized phone bank offsourced to golly knows where.
For people who have a lot of money, in excess of 100,000 (nice problem to have, I suppose), the old timers would spread their accounts around to numerous banks.
Creates problems for heirs at best.
There is a CDARS program for those lucky folks that will do this utilizing participating banks, and receive a consolidated statement. The rates aren’t the best but they aren’t very good right now anyway.
If it’s absolute safety at the individual or family level (and it sounds as if many people are considering that angle) why not bypass the banks altogether, for perhaps a portion of deposits, and deposit directly with the Treasury?
You can with the TreasuryDirect program. They got a website, it just takes a little time to set up an account. Both US citizens and “entities” can deposit as little as $25 (there is no upper limit for US Treasury afaik) in a zero interest account, or EE or I savings bonds, 10 year notes, 1 year T-bills, various maturity TIPS, and even notes ranging in maturity of a few weeks to 30 years.
No, I don’t work for them but it’s surprising to me that more people don’t know about this. There’s no commission when buying direct from Treasury, too. Older, paper savings bonds can be converted to electronic entry and sold from computer if desired.