While the Star Reviews team worked on our online bill paying reviews, a light bulb went off and we pondered how great it would be if you never had to receive another bill in your mailbox again. We thought our dream might be too far-fetched until we found Pay Trust. At first site, Paytrust’s website interface impressed us with its professionalism and user-friendly navigation tools. Read on to learn more about what set Paytrust apart from similar services.
What’s New?
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Three levels of service available
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All bills redirected to the Pay Trust Processing Center – no paper bills delivered to your home again
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You can pay anyone (not available at all service levels)
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Email overdue bill alert
Star Reviews Favorite Feature:
By far, the most interesting feature of Pay Trust is the ability to receive virtual bills from anyone. Even if your payee doesn’t normally send bills electronically, Pay Trust will scan your bills so you’ll have an Internet accessible copy to view.
Pay Trust Online Bill Paying Features:
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Integrates with a number of accounting software programs, including Quicken and Money
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Make payments from any account which includes check-writing privileges
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Pays either electronically or by issuing a check on your behalf
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Email confirmation of your payments to help you keep track of your records
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Pays any late fees you incur because of problems with their service occurring through no fault of your own.
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Set automated recurring payments
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Online notes for payments
About Pay Trust's Online Bill Pay:
Pay Trust is actually part of Intuit, the same company handling Quicken's online bill paying service and responsible for developing QuickBooks, so they do have an association with one of the most respected names in personal accounting software.
Navigating the Pay Trust's Online Bill Pay Site:
Getting around the Pay Trust web site is fairly simple. From the main page, you can click on either “Learn More” or “Enroll Now” depending on what you need. You can also use the tabs at the top of the page to move through the different sections of the site. Unlike some other online bill pay services, Pay Trust's web site spells out everything so it's easy to find and understand details about the service. On the left side of the screen, you'll also see a link to a demo that will provide additional information about Pay Trust's service.
Using Pay Trust's Online Bill Pay:
The Pay Trust interface is very easy to use. You’ll be notified when one of your bills arrives, then you visit the secure web site to view the bill and to arrange your payment. You’ll be able to choose whether the bill is paid manually or automatically, then you can schedule days for those payments and select the account from which you want those funds pulled. Because you can attach as many accounts to your Pay Trust service as you want, you’ll easily be able to manage bills for personal, business, and other expenses. At the end of the year, you can also request a CD-Rom version of your bills for that year which is a convenient and space-saving way of maintaining your recurs. We definitely appreciated this unique feature.
Pricing:
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Bill Pay Plus - $2.95 per month – 0 free transactions - $0.50 per additional transactions
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Complete Bill Management a la carte - $4.95 per month – 0 free transactions - $0.50 per additional transaction
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Complete Bill Management Standard - $12.95 per month – 30 free transactions - $0.50 per additional transactions
Keep in mind that receiving the bill and paying the bill count as two separate transactions, so you’ll only be able to pay 15 bills per month using the upper level of service. Comparable services, such as Quicken's online bill paying, charge only for payments.
With the lowest level of service, your service is very limited. You won’t be able to pay just anyone, you won’t be protected by the late payment guarantee, you can’t integrate your records with accounting software, and you can’t set up automatic recurring payments.
Customer Support:
When we started exploring Paytrust's customer support options, we were pretty impressed with the large number of FAQ's available on the site. Most of the questions we had could be answered by just referring to those responses. That was good news because we were disappointed by the rest of the site's customer support.
We decided to contact Paytrust by email and phone. By email, a “personalized response” was promised in two to four days. Our response came much faster than promised, but it wasn't personalized. Instead, we simply read a cut and paste sales pitch that didn't even answer our question.
Next we called their customer support number. Our question was answered, but the customer service representative was not friendly and did not seem interested in providing us with help. This definitely left a bad taste in our mouth, which isn’t how the customer support experience should be.
Upside:
Receive bills online from all of your payees. Covers your late fees if payment is missed because of the service.
Downside:
Price is high. Customer support by email and phone are unimpressive.
Summary:
Star Reviews liked what Pay Trust offers, overall. Having all of your paper bills sent safely to one address and then made accessible to you via the Internet is both convenient and time-saving. The site is also easy to use and allows you to plan all of your bill-paying details the way you want to, such as including personal notes in your payment history. On the down side, the customer service wasn’t all that great.
If you’re going to trust them to handle your bill paying, then you should receive more than a cookie-cutter email response and unfriendly phone support. Plus, the price is pretty high, especially when receiving and paying the bill counts as two separate transactions. This means that if you had to pay 30 bills each month, you’d end up spending more than $20 monthly just to pay those bills online. While Pay Trust does offer some nice features, their features aren’t necessarily worth the price. They receive 4.0 Stars!