Now that banks can't charge certain fees, they make up for that by deducting money from your account long before they have to make the payment. Check with other banks to see what lag they require for online bill paying.

It's your bank, not your credit card that's demanding the payment.

Who issued the Visa card? Maybe there's something explaining this on the issuer's site?

I've never seen this 'expedited' payment thing before. Very curious! (Well, it is clear that some company's trying to make up for fees they can't charge.)

I'm sure you'll be calling the Visa issuer and the bank for some explanations, so I look forward to your next posting!

Wow, I'd be mad too. $15 is a huge fee for one transaction.

If it is Visa demanding the payment, I can't understand why they'd slap a late fee on a payment that arrives 11/22 that isn't due until 5pm on 11/23.

I would be very interested to know which bank 'holds' your Visa account. Fifteen bucks is a pretty steep fee!

Pull out your money and put it in a credit union.

Why do you think 1000's upon 1000's of people said SCREW YOU BANKS and switched to Credit Unions on Bank Transfer Saturday! The 5.00 a month Debit card fee they wanted to charge put a lot of people over the edge and the CU's have made out like a bandit because of it.

I've banked at a CU for over 20 years and haven't had to compromise any of the benefits I may have had with a bank. 1,000's of participating FREE ATM's, On line access, free checking, free bill pay, free free free!! I really don't understand why people are so willing to pay all those fees.

Many Credit Unions have loosened up their membership requirements too, with ours, we just had to be a resident of the county we're in. If you really are mad and sick of being nickle and dimed by the banks, please look into giving one of your local Credit Unions a try!

That is steep! I just go directly to my CC company's site and pay there (if I'm paying online). Payments made by 4PM on the due date are ok.

Citibank is the Visa card issuer. I have a feeling the fee is coming from them, if my bank can deliver the money to all other accounts on the 22nd but Citibank's. I'm going in to talk to my bank today to find out who is demanding the fee.

And if it's my local bank demanding the fee, then, yes, it's time to start shopping for a credit union.

I want to write a letter of complaint to my congressman & the state attorney general about this added penalty for what should be an on time payment. Evidently, my payment "isn't on time enough."

Make sure you have the correct address for the payment. I went through something similar a while back with my Discover card. My payments were always 1 day then jumped to 5 day and I didn't catch it until I got hit with a late fee. Discover had changed their payment address and because I never paid attention to that on the statement, didn't change it in my bank payment system. In my case, Discover was willing to refund the late fee. If it's your bank working the system, I'd switch. And you should be able to make a same day payment by going online directly to your CC company website as moonshadow said.

From what you have written, it sounds as if the charge is from your bank for expediting the on-line payment. Some payments go through quickly - in one day - some can take 4 days to process.

I would call the bank and ask them the reason for the time lag in funds getting to the company that handles your Visa card.

I always pay my Citicard online on their website, that way it's always posted to the account at the time of the transaction and I'm not depending on a 3rd party to do things correctly.

I agree with lukkiirish, I always pay the bill from the creditor's website, not my bank's, as then I have instant acknowledgment from them that they got the request to pay. It might take few minutes more, as I have to log on to each and every account, but oh so worth it.

Although you go in online to pay your bills, not all of your creditors may accept electronic funds transfers from your bank. In some cases your bank is actually issuing a paper check and mailing it to your creditor. Citibank may be one that operates that way. My thought is that it is your bank that is adding the charge, and probably to any of your payments that are issued via paper check rather than via funds transfer (a new fundraiser as mentioned previously. Couldn't they just have a bake sale?). Because I don't see how your creditor could demand an additional fee through an unaffiliated bank.

Click deeper through the billpay section of your online banking page and see if you can tell how each creditor is paid. Then I would call the bank and ask them what the heck is going on. They'll probably tell you that they told you all about it in the flurry of fine-print pamphlets that have been coming out over the last six months.

Thanks for the comments, all. jakabedy, this is the first time in 5 years of using our bank's online service that I've seen a surcharge, and I have been late occasionally in the past in paying the Citibank Visa payment. Seems to me that if they were being paid by check, where lag time is greater, I would have encountered this surcharge before when paying late (I'm rarely late, but nobody's perfect!). I'm sure it's a new gouge fee.

Still, the fact that my bank can get funds to all other accounts in two days, but suddenly can't get them to Citibank despite 3 days' lead is suspicious, especially since Citibank Visa is the most punitive of all our accounts for late payments (we always pay in full, too, but no leeway for that).

Wrapping up tasks then will call the bank after lunch.

jakabedy, I saw in another post you're starting up a business. Hope all goes well for you!

The bank says they're using a new bill paying service. The old one paid the Visa bill electronically, the new one is paying by check. That sucks. So I'll sign up to pay directly via Citibank's web site in the future.

Thanks, everybody, for your comments and suggestions & letting me vent.

It almost sounds like Citi is affiliated with your bank. H would your bank know when the Citi payment is due? I dint have those issues with my bill pay (I've been with my CU for over a decade). But I do recall that Citi gave me problems with payments so I did mine directly thru their website and not my bill pay. I don't use that card any more.

DH ran into an issue today, he went to close an account at Chase bank because they charged him $10/mo if his balance went below $5,000. So one day it dropped $20 below and he was charged, even tho the next day it was back above. He finally had enough and went to close the account today. A teller and 2 managers tried to convince him not to leave and even flat out lied that 'hundreds of people are leaving the CU and going there'. HA! I pay NOTHING to my CU. Even cashiers checks are free, as well as designer checks! No minimum balance, free bill pay, they don't even charge foreign ATM charges (the other banks do charge fir use of their ATM tho). Oh, and they don't charge to make 'excess deposits' like Chase did. Yeah, we'd be charged for depositing too many checks at one time! More than 3 checks in a single deposit was a fee.

"How would your bank know when the Citi payment is due?"

Hmmm, very good question. I'll bet the check paying service retrieved the payment cycle info from Citi so as to create a pop-up & rake in those expedited check fees (bought the info from Citibank, iow). Still, now you have my curiosity up, pesky!

I apologize in advance if this is a bit off topic, but I think it's still relevant to the conversation.

Years ago, I worked in the mortgage dept of a very large Credit Union who's members were primarily Engineers. At the time I worked there, a recession resulted in a lot of job losses for hundreds of these Engineers and the Credit Union didn't foreclose on one home. Instead, of enforcing the notes, which was our right to do, we organized a Mortgage Assistance program to help members stay in their homes. We did everything from payment reductions, loan modifications or even payment deferrals. The goal was to help make an already stressful situation less stressful. Of course this was long before our current housing crisis, but when I see what's happening today with our banks, their general business practices and/or refusal to help their borrowers, I think about it often.

On the flip side, I also work with the foreclosures a lot right now and I seldom ever see a property financed by a Credit Union foreclosing. They may not have participated in some of the riskier loan sales, but local unemployment rates are higher than the national average and it's not unreasonable to assume their average foreclosure rates are high(er) as well. Foreclosure is really the last resort for them even on the loans they service through Freddie and Fannie.

I will never go back to a bank.