No. The checks are really drawn on the credit card company (a business),
not on your personal account. They are in same category as cashier's
checks, money orders, and travelers' checks. ACH can only do personal
checks.

Hopefully the application that receives your keyed MICR data will catch it.
Otherwise it'll enter the system and get rejected along the way. That means
a reject fee for your now unhappy biller and probably a late fee and bad
payment history for you.

"Jeff P" <jeffpNO[at]SPAMruralramp.net> wrote in message
news:11crsl1opa6f948[at]corp.supernews.com...
- quote -

This is off topic in that it doesn't specifically relate to Microsoft Money.
However, I figure you guys are more likely to have experience with this sort
of thing than the population at large, so I hope you don't mind me asking
this here.

You know those cash advance access checks that your credit card company
sends you? I'm wondering if anyone has attempted to use the routing number
and account number from the MICR strip at the bottom of these as though it
were your own checking account to make ACH payments rather than writing a
check.

Reason: I want to eliminate the time I spend paying monthly bills. Even with
online banking I still have to review each bill one by one throughout the
month (since they all arrive and are due at different times) and then login
to various websites and specify the payment amount, record the transaction
in my MS-Money checkbook register, and blah blah blah blah. I'm spending
HOURS doing this when I could be doing something more productive.

So, I have tried to get as many of the bills I pay setup for auto-pay using
my credit card. Most of the ones that charge me a fixed amount each month
have no problem doing this. But the ones that vary significantly from month
to month like the electric, phone, and gas bills for instance refuse to do
auto pay with a credit card. They only accept ACH routing & account numbers
for auto-pay using a checking account. These are the ones that I DONT want
on a checking account because I don't have $$$ to keep in there at all times
as I have a greatly varying income from one month to the next. So, without
knowing the exact schedule and predictable amount to have automatically show
up in the register I don't want it coming out of the checking account as it
could result in an overdraw. I'd much rather it just all show up on a single
credit card statement which I could download into Microsoft Money and go
through and categorize each transaction on the list, and then remit one
payment for the whole thing all at once.

Yes, I know the credit card companies typically charge transaction fees for
cash advances. Some of them don't though. Also, some will still allow grace
periods for purchases despite having a cash advance so if I get one with a
low fixed rate for both purchases and cash advances that has terms such that
the purchase grace period is not waived for cash advances, the only thing
I'd be paying is a small finance charge on the average daily balance of only
those bills that insist on using ACH for autopay. By the time I weighed this
amount against the amount I'd be earning in incentive rewards for all the
other bills now being processed as purchase transactions, in the end I'm
coming out ahead.

The thing is... I've never attempted to use a cash advance access check from
a credit card as an ACH bill payment before. Does this work???

I called one of my card companies today and asked. They said this was the
first time they've had anybody ask that question and have no idea if it
works or not. The rep and his supervisor both see no reason why it wouldn't
work, but have not been provided with any information from the rest of their
company to be sure.

Should I try this? Has anybody else tried it?

-Jeff