Automatic Payments

I know that a lot of people like to sign up for automatic payments for bills they pay regularly.  I do not like to do this, for several reasons. One is because automatic payments should occur at certain dates, but due to holidays, weekends and what ever vagaries of electronic fund transfer, sometimes automatic payments happen when they are not expected. If someone keeps a small amount in their checking account, this can result in insufficient funds, and either overdraft fees, or overdraft protection being used, but even overdraft protection can be subject to fees. And, if someone has unexpectedly had other expenses, they could not be planning correctly to cover the automatic payment.

Another reason that automatic payments are not good, is that people can overlook what the payment is, when it is made. So people are less likely to notice if the payment changes, and believe me, these payment changes can catch us unawares, and again, without sufficient funds in our account. More importantly, the automatic payment change might be a mistake, or at very least, as happened to me, can be reapplied to a different service plan to decrease the amount of the regular payment. 

Another scenario is automatic payments that occur for items that happen once a year. If  someone forgets that that automatic payment is due, again, they may not budget for it before it occurs.  Last year, I had an "automatic" payment taken out of my account, when I did not expect it.  I was able to cover the funds, but I had not given permission for this automatic payment, and was pretty much indignant that it occurred.  So much so, that I did not renew the service this year.