To directly quote a painted piece of wood in a pile of rubble on the side of the road after a big flood in Colorado in 2013: Fuck Allstate.
Wow that's bullshit
Allstate has, by far, the worst customer service I've ever experienced from a car insurance company. I personally will not willingly do business with them ever again.
BEWARE
Every time I called, it felt like I was on trial. It was like they were interrogating me, picking into every little detail, looking for ways to prove I owe them more money. At one point, they threatened to increase my rates because I have a parent living with me at the same address. A parent who has no license and is not physically able to get to the car without my help. They forced me to submit documentation to prove all this under threat of having to pay more for my insurance.
When I was looking at renewal, they sent me a quote that was an order of magnitude larger than what any other insurer quoted me. I ended my policy on the spot, and then had to fight to get a prorated refund from them for the remainder of my policy term. They still tried to charge me for the new policy, despite having cancelled.
And that's not all, that's just some of the "highlights".
Good luck to you OP! May the suffering you are about to endure cleanse the karmic debts of your past lives.
Exactly what I expect from a company that advertises so much
My wife worked in Insurance for a while. The companies tend to follow two two business models:
Advertise like crazy to get new business in. Then refuse to payout claims and pay substandard rates. Lose customers as quickly as you gain them. Mitigate these losses by having 100's of brand names/shell companies to mask your activities.
Do minimal advertising and rely on word of mouth and sales distribution network. Pay out fairly and give decent customer service.
Generally any company that you recognize the name from advertising is going to fuck you over. Most of the other company names you've never heard of are the same companies trying to fuck you over.
Americans seem allergic to showing a simple single payable amount that the customer pays. It must be exhausting. It must be like trying to book RyanAir tickets, but with everything.
There WERE laws against this sort of thing. Briefly.
Congress has more important things to worry about. Like who can join which basketball team.
It is exhausting. It would be nice to live somewhere with consumer protections, but shockingly those places aren't particularly enthusiastic about taking immigrants from the US
Cannot be done. We are a special and unique country.
It's exactly like that
I would send a check, its more work for them in the end.
I wouldn't be surprised if they don't accept checks.
Sadly nor would I but they may have to take them by gov regulation as this would be insane that you had to pay a fee to pay a fee. It counter intuitive from a normal mindset, not the mindset of a gouging insurance company. Make perfect sense to those idiot, lol
they may have to take them by gov regulation
🤣
Didn’t this admin literally get rid of the ‘no extra fees’ regulation?
Read the image. They charge a higher premium if you don't use their auto pay.
The only way I can see around it is if you make annual payments instead of monthly. Fewer payments, less fees.
If we're feeling petty, though, we can accept the higher premium, and send them weekly (or even daily) check payments instead of monthly. Let them process 30 transactions per month instead of just one.
Changing payment methods may result in a premium increase.
Fuck them. I would be switch companies. If they try to turn a buck on shit like this, you know they'll try to fuck you on a claim.
Best part is all these payment methods, including checks incur the same processing fees since 2006 with the Check21 regulations.
This made all transactions - debit card, check, transfer, function the same way through the same processing.
So a check genuinely costs them more - from not charging thebfee, to requiring at least some manual oversight.
It's exactly what my father does for places. He can't stand these fees and if whatever service he is paying has them then a check will be sent. He says it's what hes uses to anyway since that is how he had done it most of his life.
I love that mentaility and wish I could do the same, but sadly I just want it to be known its paid right away and also since i live paycheck to paycheck waiting weeks on end for random checks to be cashed will be impossible for me to not accidentally use some of that money elsewhere.
Lots of banks will send a check on your behalf. It withdraws the money that day so you can predict it rather than when the business cashes it. And you have proof the money was sent and your bank/credit Union has a stake in the fight if the business gets shay about it.
Thanks for the tip. I will look into this. Im sure my bank does a lot of things I know nothing about.
There must be a way to pay without fee. It might be more work for you, but it's definitely more work for them, hence the "convenience" aspect of the fee.
In the US, some citizens go to physical locations to pay fines in coins. Hundreds of dollars in coins is very inconvenient to the establishment but they have to legally accept it. Sends a clear message to them that they suck ass.
History lesson: in 1990 I worked at a computer store. If you paid by credit card you paid the listed price. If you paid with cash, you got the CASH DISCOUNT price.
Soon MasterCard and VISA went to court to prevent the cash discount practice.
Soon after, points and cash-back credit cards came out
It's so messed up that some states legally allow merchants to charge a "credit card fee". Providers of services much like the above can charge if it's a debit, credit, etc. even if they both say "Visa" on them. The concept of money in the US is so obfuscated now.
You can always mail a check, right? Isn't that still a thing?
There must be a way to pay without fee.
According to whom? As far as I'm aware, there's no such law in the US regarding private companies. So they can be jerks if they want to.
legal tender for all debts, public and private
https://www.consumerfinance.gov/ask-cfpb/what-is-a-convenience-fee-or-pay-to-pay-fee-en-2126/
They can charge fees, as long as there is an alternate way to pay without a fee. Usually it's by check in the mail.
For insurance your bill is typically for the next month instead of the previous month like utilities. At that point it's not a debt, so they can refuse whatever payment method they want.
Similar to how stores can refuse bills over $20 or refuse a bucket of pennies.
it’s only legal if you agreed to the fee when you first took out the debt
Which is most likely defined in their terms.
Who cares about laws if no one will enforce them? No consumer protection, no more watch dogs, it's all but legal now.
Time to leave Allstate
The best time to leave Allstate was 20 years ago. The second best time is today.
Also applies to most insurance companies, particularly the ones that do a lot of advertising.
glad to see that visa fees are being disclosed now. for a long time visa wouldn't allow vendors to show the fees, and cash transactions had to cost the same as visa transactions.
You're saving on your premium by paying automatically with a bank account. Changing payment methods may result in a premium increase.
Explain again how I'm saving on my premium? 🤔
It’s $2 vs $5 if you pay with bank.
$5 here is the premium price and $2 is the discounted price.
I hope this BS leads to competition with Visa/MC. The fees they charge are ridiculous. Then you're paying for stripe or whatever on top. A govt run system that's not for profit would be awesome.
We did have something resembling competition, maybe a decade or so ago, with the emergence of Venmo and Cashapp and Zelle - basically just digital front-ends for e-checks between bank accounts. They all hit major stumbling blocks, in no small part thanks to how Visa/AMEX/MC conspired to freeze them out.
Capitalism abhors competition.
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