The online billing here is all screwed up.

A payment may get bounced for reasons other than a block or stop-payment on an account or anything related to the actual bank account itself. For example, it may get rejected if the account is mistyped. And it may be considered mistyped for reasons as silly as having the wrong number of zeroes in front of it. (Seriously, Bank of America once kicked back one of mine because my account has two zeroes in front of it which I thought were unnecessary.)

Your bank won't even be able to tell you when this happens, since we never get to touch YOUR account.

One has to be very careful when entering a checking account number online. Unfortunately, checking accounts don't have a universal mathematical checksum like credit card numbers do, so automated payment systems can't reject bad numbers until they try to debit a payment, and checking account payments don't debit instantly like credit card payments do. This isn't a problem unique to our system.

However, we can review the issue if you'd like to email your account info to CoxHelp@Cox.com and reference this forum post.

Actually I never made a mistake in typing the routing number and checking account number. I made sure that I was holding my check book when I typed in those numbers. So Let's rule out that possibility. Just to let you know whenever I pay my cell phone bill with AT&T and go to their kiosks located at their stores. I always type in my routing and checking account number and I never had any problems. I tried paying online a week ago for my cox hsi and lo behold it is the first my payment did not go through considering I typed in the right numbers. So basically you could rule out the mistyping of those numbers. The problem is with the online system.

If you want you can look into my account. toyotasiconxd@cox.net is my account with cox.

Could you check that email address again?  I can't seem to find it active on any account.  I'm wondering if that may be an issue.

Macbookproi5 said:

Actually I never made a mistake in typing the routing number and checking account number. I made sure that I was holding my check book when I typed in those numbers. So Let's rule out that possibility. Just to let you know whenever I pay my cell phone bill with AT&T and go to their kiosks located at their stores. I always type in my routing and checking account number and I never had any problems. I tried paying online a week ago for my cox hsi and lo behold it is the first my payment did not go through considering I typed in the right numbers. So basically you could rule out the mistyping of those numbers. The problem is with the online system.

If you want you can look into my account. toyotasiconxd@cox.net is my account with cox.

I don't know why more people don't take advantage of their bank's bill payment service. Just the initial account set-up, then to pay all of your bills from one site, just enter the amount and click "SEND." In most cases, it's an electronic transfer. I've been paying my Cox (and electric, and phone, and insurance, etc.) bills this way for over 5 years. Any rare non-payment disputes are handled by the bank. I don't have to wait on hold for hours to try to straighten things out.

Man I just tried it for the first time. Cox Billnig Dept. was not able to get my check on time. So I thought my payment got lost in the mail. Of course it's already current because I paid off this month's balance. But if you're gonna take a look at my account there is a return payment fee here. Anyway, you guys should just remove that option of typing in your account number and routing number. It did more harm than good.

Macbookproi5 said:

Man I just tried it for the first time. Cox Billnig Dept. was not able to get my check on time. So I thought my payment got lost in the mail. Of course it's already current because I paid off this month's balance. But if you're gonna take a look at my account there is a return payment fee here. Anyway, you guys should just remove that option of typing in your account number and routing number. It did more harm than good.

Using your bank's Bill Pay, there's no checks, no mail, no typing in account number every month. Just enter the amount and click send. Very simple.

This works very well for many customers however there are a few things to keep in mind using this method.  Nearly always the bank simply mails a check using this bill payment method.  This is the main reason why they say you can pay nearly anybody and there's usually a few days lead time to process a payment.  Also payments made using this method may not always successfully reach us or be processed correctly if say for example they have the address wrong, mail is lost, or the account information is incorrect on the payment.  In those situations we simply have no way to verify the payment process so it would be up to the customer to resolve the issue with the financial institution should a payment not be received or applied correctly.

ChrisL said:

This works very well for many customers however there are a few things to keep in mind using this method.  Nearly always the bank simply mails a check using this bill payment method.  This is the main reason why they say you can pay nearly anybody and there's usually a few days lead time to process a payment.  Also payments made using this method may not always successfully reach us or be processed correctly if say for example they have the address wrong, mail is lost, or the account information is incorrect on the payment.  In those situations we simply have no way to verify the payment process so it would be up to the customer to resolve the issue with the financial institution should a payment not be received or applied correctly.

Not entirely true. The vast majority of the Bill Pay bills are paid electronically. NINE out of the ELEVEN of the monthly bills (including that for Cox) are paid electronically the next business day. Checks are sent to others, like my gardener, who are not set up for electronic payment. A confirmation number is given for each transaction, and the BANK, not me, chases down any "non-payment" problems. Painless.

Indeed mileage may vary by financial institution, I know the ones I use though simply send paper checks.  The point remains still that with this type of arrangment whether it be electronic or paper check we have no ability to track it from our end if payment isn't received.

ChrisL said:

Indeed mileage may vary by financial institution, I know the ones I use though simply send paper checks.  The point remains still that with this type of arrangment whether it be electronic or paper check we have no ability to track it from our end if payment isn't received.

Electronic payments are confirmed at time of transfer and need no "tracking." Very few, if any, banks still use only paper checks in their Bill Pay systems. BTW, many banks are now using electronic transfer for paper check payment.