Tell me your experience with automatic payments

I recently took out a personal loan from Discover for $15K. I immediately paid back $2500 of it.

The interest rate is 10.99% I used it to balance transfer an existing (and very bad) Bank of America loan that was at 22.99%.

BoA refused to negotiate a lower interest rate with me (despite a credit score of 770 and never a missed payment… BoA’s loss!)

The loan will be paid off in 24 months and I will be 100% debt free.

Anyway… When I signed up for the Discover loan, I took the automatic payments deducted from my checking account so that I could select my due date.

I do not think I was offered a lower interest rate because of this, as the CSR had already told me the rate PRIOR to asking me about the auto payments.

Today I got a document from Discover saying that the auto payments will stay until Discover terminates them. Indicating that I can no longer opt out of automatic payments. My roommate thinks that this means I got the rate I did because I took the auto payments. :confused:

I’ll call them in the morning but if anyone happens to see this before then…

I’m quite nervous about the auto payment process.

I always keep enough $$ in my checking account to cover 2 months worth of expenses, so I’m not worried about not having the money to cover the minimum.

What I AM worried about is a scenario where they fail to deduct the autopayment, or their system glitches and having Discover then try to tell me the payment was late, hence raising my interest rate.

Paranoid? Yes. But I have heard more than a few horror stories.

I also just feel weird not having complete control over when I make the payment. I generally make my online payments the day the statement is available online, well before the due date. I always pay almost double the minimum. But there may be a month here and there where I only pay a little bit over the minimum.

Any experiences with these types of payments?