Online Payment Mistake

I would first of all contact Verizon by phone and confirm that they did not receive the payment (payments and letters can pass each other) so I would do this before I go any further. If they confirm they are not showing the payment I would then contact your bank. If you have internet access to your account this would be easiest so you could view your account activity to confirm there is no suspicious activity. If you don't have internet access to your account I would call and talk to a customer service representative and they should be able to confirm whether that amount was deducted and if so whom the payment went to. You hear all the horror stories about stolen identities and so forth, but I have been doing all my banking online for 3 or 4 years now and have never had any problems related to the online payments. In fact it is in my opinion easier to manage my accounts and get copies of checks/payments and so forth easier when there is some sort of dispute.

try checking your online history for proof and did you record your confirmation number,without that you are pretty much SOL. I pay everything online and never have issues with it.

I always pay my verizon cell bill on line but that has happened to me once or twice. There is a screen that comes up after you enter your payment information. It looks like a blank screen with "payment confirmation" or something along those terms on the top of the page. But if you scroll down there is an option to confirm your payment and you have to click there in order for the payment to go through. I would try to dispute the late fee.

First, is it your checkbook register that shows the payment taken out, or your actual account balance as stated on your bank statement? I pay everything online and have never had a problem with it. You should call Verizon and see if they will waive the late fee, you can pay by phone as well. If there is a fee for that, they might wave that as well. Then, you need to reconcile your statement with your checkbook register and see where the discrepency is.

I would assume that either the payment wasn't processed, or if your account balance is short by exactly the payment amount, it was probably flagged for the payment, it just hasn't posted to the account yet. I use Bank of America, and if there is an instance where the transaction hasn't cleared, but they info has been received, there is a special section on my statement to show me that. Try calling the bank, they should be able to help you.

Good luck!

Did you make the payment on the Verizon website or did you make it using online bill pay through your bank? If you made it through your bank it can take several days before Verizon gets it but it would take the money out of your account right away. If you paid it on the Verizon site it should be effective for the day you made it unless you made it after a cut off time or a non business day in which case it would show the payment the next business day but it would take a couple of days for your bank to show the charge. If for some reason Verizon never gets the payment but the money is gone from your account you should call your bank and dispute the charge.

Check to see how long it takes to post an on-line payment. Sometimes, the vendor has it take several days to "post" (even though, imho, it should be fairly instantaneous). It may be that the payment was still late but the funds were "locked" for transfer at your bank.

If you call Verizon and tell them what happened (would be better if you had your confirmation number, but try it anyway w/o it). Some companies will waive a late fee once for "online payment error" (don't expect them to do again, though, they keep records that you requested this before). I would just tell the CSR that you talk to you that tried to make the payment and thought it went through and, according to your bank records, it has and ask about what can be done about the late fee.

I hope that helps. It's such a horrible feeling when these things go wrong. I pay just about everything online. Two tips I would have are: Some websites have you press a "Submit payment" type button and then have you press a "confirm" button on the next page before your payment is actually submitted, so make sure you read the page that you get after you hit the submit button and also that you should print out the confirmation page or write down the confirmation number (or copy/paste it into a doc to hold such numbers... that's what I do), so that you have it in case something goes wrong.

Good luck.

P.