>>As is happens I just got nailed last month with a bogus late fee. My checking account is with Chase and I pay all my bills electronically using their online banking service. When the bills come in I go to Chase's site and set payment up for the due date (or the Friday before if it's a weekend or holiday). Usually when I get done paying the bills I check through the list to make sure the ones that were supposed to be paid did get paid, then throw the paper bills away. Works pretty well. Last month I went through this routine to pay off the balance on my credit card, which is issued by Citibank. When the subsequent credit card bill arrived I saw a $39 late fee plus $20 or so interest on the previous balance. Looked into it on both online sites. According to Chase's site it was paid on the due date. According to Citibank's it was paid the next day, i.e. one day late. So I call them up. It can take a day or two for the transaction to be processed, the guy says. I said give me a break -- it takes a day or two for money to move electronically between two of the world's biggest banks? He agreed to reverse the late fee and interest charge "as a one time courtesy." Big of them, huh? I'm sure they would have done that anyway if I hadn't called (eyes rolling madly).
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>They'll Chase you until they get you.
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>My credit union has a good calendar based on statistics, so when I make electronic payment, I click on it and as I hover over a date, it highlights that date and the date when the check would pass. For my local utilities, that's generally two days. For some others (like the long distance phone I had) it was four or six days. And I still set the payment a day or two before that, to quote that guy Justin Case.
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>Years ago I had the dance you describe, with Wachovia and my water bill. I set the check to go four days in advance, it took six. On my side, the money was gone off my account right on time. The amounts were ridiculous - $7 late fee on a $15 bill. Next month, $7 more because I paid only the 15. After a couple of months I made the phone call to the billing company (the county has outsourced (!) water billing to a company in Georgia or Florida or somewhere) and explained that I have paid on time and that I refuse to pay any fines until there's proof that I've done anything wrong. And I have the bank statement with the date of my payment four days ahead. They offered me an one-time fee waiver ($7, that is), which I refused (I don't care - I want a clean bill, not your arbitrary fee applied only three times instead of four). After 11 months, I finally got sufficiently deurinated to gain that deeper understanding of the process, phoned the bank, they only asked how much of fines were accumulated by the time, and just made the $63 (these guys did waive the first $14 regardless of my protests) appear on my account the next day. Implicitly, they confessed the screwup.
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>And, of course, the leasing office sent me a warning too, for which I made a minor scene, to find a month when my rent check arrived late. No, it's the water bill, they said. Yeah? What's it to you? You aren't selling water, county is. And that was bank's doing, not mine. After which they saw I was more trouble than what it's worth, and gave me a clean bill of health, i.e. when we moved we got a good characteristic sent to the next leasing office (kind of the personal characteristic which followed every Party Member throughout their career; one always knew there was a thick envelope following them in the background, where a lot depended on what it says there, but weren't even allowed to know what's inside).
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>But you see, the system is rigged so that sooner or later you must slip somewhere, or they'll make it slip for you, so you become their favorite Mr Negligent Payer, the main source of their wealth. The tricks are many. The main reason I canceled all my phone except local is the billing. I make very few long distance calls - most of our communications are emails. Our combined bill for long distance and international calls was rarely above $40, at least $10 of which were various fixed fees, taxes etc. It's not the money, it's the sneaky tactics - they'd always take about ten days to send the bill, so when it would arrive I would have about six days to set a payment. Then four days. Then three days. Then it came to day or two - when we just jumped ship and switched to Skype. I prefer pre-paid, so they owe me. Yep I know, only subscriptions and prostitutes are paid in advance, but at least these guys keep it simple.

I had a client who processes electronic bank transactions (ACH). Someone there made the statement that the "perfect check" is one that bounces twice, then clears. They hit you with an NSF fee of $25 or so the first two times, then the check clears without them having to spend money on collection, which is expensive.