I also had been a customer of Paytrust since 2000, over nine years. So I know of what I speak.

Yes, in theory, it's a great service to have your bills sent somewhere and scanned, so they are never lost, and are always available online. In reality, many billers simply do not want to send their bills to some p.o. box in South Dakota. Therefore the paper bills do not stop. And I don't understand at all how you think that Paytrust stops you from getting junk mailings.

Second, many of the large billers, like credit card companies, frequently change their billing addresses. It will still be up to you to pick up those changes by comparing the billing address you have entered online to the current billing address on the bill. So forget about the fantasy of being able to pay your bills with a few clicks, without actually thinking.

Third, some of the billers will set up electronic billing. That will not be as many as you would expect. And, it might add, you can set up the same electronic billing through one of the many free online bill paying services available through banks and credit unions.

I found the Paytrust website interface to be well designed and easy to use. But not more so than the current free online bill paying service offered by my credit union.

Paytrust is an automated, unthinking operation when it comes to getting its own fee paid. Understand that by signing up, you are giving them authority to write electronic checks in your name on your account, payable to Paytrust. If for whatever reason, the electronic check is denied NSF, Paytrust will automatically keep writing electronic checks at least three times, that will keep bouncing and generating fees, both from your bank, and from Paytrust too. The total fees and penalties from this can easily exceed a year's worth of Paytrust monthly fees.

On the whole, I would recommend that anyone considering Paytrust, instead use a free online bill paying service from your bank or credit union.

I saw the previous review saying that this site looks home-made, so I signed up to voice my strong disagreement.

I have been with PayTrust since 2000, which gives me about 8 years with the service.

The single best feature this site has is that they give you a *mailing address* for your bills. This means you tell your credit card company, insurance, and even mechanic down the street who doesn't even have a computer to mail your bill there. They collect your bill, scan it in, and keep it online for you to review. They will send you email reminders that it has arrived if you like, or you can set it up to pay a particular bill automatically. Each bill is configurable this way.

The main reason I like it is... guess where the junk mail goes? Not MY house!

No bills on the refrigerator, and you don't need to file them when they are paid. If you move, you don't need to call up any of your creditors.

You can do your bills from anyone's computer (and even look at that handwritten bill from your mechanic online) - which means.. no file cabinet.

To me, that means they are being my bill secretary. so for $14.95 a month, I get a P.O. Box and a secretary that collects my mail, opens it up, and stores it. No bills come to my house. To me, that's a steal. (btw, they do EFTs and electronic billing too, so never fear.. )

At the end of the year, you can also get a CD with all of your scanned in bill images on it..

now If something gets accidentally sent to them, such as a credit card, etc, then it will be sent to your home address which they keep on file (you update that on the site). This used to be a problem at first, but only from my insurance, State Farm, who insisted that my billing address be the same as my mailing address, however, they changed that a few years back, and I haven't had problems with any creditor since..

Interface:

Yup. It is a very simple interface. That is what the previous poster was complaining about. What's most important is that a system has the features I want, and it works. The interface has changed once since I first started in 2000, however, it still looks a lot like it originally did. My grandmother can pay the bills with it, and I, a computer programmer, can do the same. For me, its like complaining about the interface of a toaster, or a bicycle. it does what it needs to do, and thats it.

I would rather a site (that handles tens of thousands of dollars of my $$ per year) pay more attention to the task of handling my money, answering my questions, and keeping my records than to look like SharePoint or Google Gadgets.

So, to review, (and to add in a few things not listed above):

I pay $14.95 a month for:

- A Simple interface (think toaster)
- A P.O. Box
- A secretary that collects all my bill mail (including handwritten bills from my mechanic - find another service that does *that*)
- The ability to send a check to *anyone*, including the same grubby mechanic
- connecting to my bank & reconciling my account with my payments
+ the same kinds of billing stuff you'd expect from any other bill payment service

Paytrust.com to me seems like this site is not fully developed, this site look like it is missing vendors maybe due to the limited amount of customers on this site. You have to pay a fee which this is unlikely on other sites and even your bank. In other words do not waste your time with this company or site since you have to pay a fee and there are other sites that you can do the same thing for free.