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HDFC Smartpay CC bill payment disaster.

For many years I had been paying CC bills manually along with appropriate payment methods and different platforms to get some rewards.

All these years nothing went wrong, since I was doing it manually.

For obvious reason, I have been using HDFC billpay's smartpay feature to pay cc bills since past 2 months.

The whole idea of HDFC only initiating bill payment just 4 days before due date always made me uncomfortable, and adding to that they only initiate it next day morning!!

For that reason I always kept a close eye on this.

1st month it was all good. 2nd month I almost escaped a disaster.

3 CC bill was scheduled to initiate and all 3 of them initiated and amount got debited.

But out of 3, 1 card (sbi) didn't recieve the payment and 2 cards received the payment same day.

This whole thing of bank's working day and non-working days in-between the due date and bill initiation date makes things more worse for auto payments.

Now, I waited 2 day for the payment to appear on the card, that makes only 2 days left to due date.
Customer support are pretty useless in this matter and slow.

Since, the amount was already debited and I was short of the fund to initiate the payment again. And I was expecting the fund to appear in the card's account and thought it's delayed due to non-working days in between.

On the 3rd day, I receive SMS from HDFC that payment has failed and I should pay the bill manually and the amount will be refunded in 4-5 working days.

WOW!! Just 1 day before the due date they inform about the failed payment, and imagine if I had just relied on this auto pay feature and wasn't paying any attention.

I quickly arranged for the fund same day and made the payment.

There is always risk on these systems and the fact that HDFC doesn't let your choose your own date to initiate auto payment is just disaster to happen one day!!

They should allow customers to choose custom day range between statement generation date and due date to choose from, instead of their 4 days before due date, which is too risky!!

Anyone who is using this feature, BEWARE!! always monitor your payment status on this platform.

TBH, now I think sbi VDC is far better--> peace of mind!

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very good advice, it is very risky for that 1% cashback, would be great if they could allow us to pay the bill as soon as it appears or on specific date
 
This is the reason, I don't rely on auto payments. Hope people do their due diligence even after setting autopay.
 
I guess this is how they are giving cashbacks. They need income to give us for free right? Right? For the rest of us
 
For many years I had been paying CC bills manually along with appropriate payment methods and different platforms to get some rewards.

All these years nothing went wrong, since I was doing it manually.

For obvious reason, I have been using HDFC billpay's smartpay feature to pay cc bills since past 2 months.

The whole idea of HDFC only initiating bill payment just 4 days before due date always made me uncomfortable, and adding to that they only initiate it next day morning!!

For that reason I always kept a close eye on this.

1st month it was all good. 2nd month I almost escaped a disaster.

3 CC bill was scheduled to initiate and all 3 of them initiated and amount got debited.

But out of 3, 1 card (sbi) didn't recieve the payment and 2 cards received the payment same day.

This whole thing of bank's working day and non-working days in-between the due date and bill initiation date makes things more worse for auto payments.

Now, I waited 2 day for the payment to appear on the card, that makes only 2 days left to due date.
Customer support are pretty useless in this matter and slow.

Since, the amount was already debited and I was short of the fund to initiate the payment again. And I was expecting the fund to appear in the card's account and thought it's delayed due to non-working days in between.

On the 3rd day, I receive SMS from HDFC that payment has failed and I should pay the bill manually and the amount will be refunded in 4-5 working days.

WOW!! Just 1 day before the due date they inform about the failed payment, and imagine if I had just relied on this auto pay feature and wasn't paying any attention.

I quickly arranged for the fund same day and made the payment.

There is always risk on these systems and the fact that HDFC doesn't let your choose your own date to initiate auto payment is just disaster to happen one day!!

They should allow customers to choose custom day range between statement generation date and due date to choose from, instead of their 4 days before due date, which is too risky!!

Anyone who is using this feature, BEWARE!! always monitor your payment status on this platform.

TBH, now I think sbi VDC is far better--> peace of mind!

View attachment 89298
Agree with you partly that we should get option to choose the payment date card wise.

Someone said he able to select those dates manually, yet got points as well. Please check those threads and posts yourself. I have not verified it yet.
 
And here I'm, paying 7 days in advance for all CC. Even then keep balance equal to whole bill amount in bank account and auto-pay active for all own and family CCs. After all of these, keep 2X funds always ready for TECHNICAL MAYHEMS.

P.S: CC ki usage se pehle jitna use karna hai utna paisa atleast alag karke rakho. Use CC like DC. Following this since I got first CC in life.
 
That's the reason why i never bothered with it even though i can get some cashback on it.

I feel like just 4 days before due date is deliberately made by HDFC to make people pay interest if missed.
 
I faced the same issue through SBI YONO's Standing Instructions(SI), I had set up 3 SI to pay the bills for my credit cards belonging to other banks. In the previous 2 months, the 3 SI's were honoured and credit card bills were paid on the 26th, 28th and 30th for them. But last month(May), none of the bills got generated in time. I had a calendar reminder, so i checked and paid all 3 bills myself on 28th night. Then on 29th, the 1st bill got generated and auto debited from account, just 1 day before the last payment day, others aren't generated till now.
I had a surgery on 30th, so just imagine if i hadn't noticed this and was busy dealing with the medical stuff
 
For me, UniPay reversed the amount and I missed it getting credited to my account, whcih I came to know 10 days after due date.

Fortunately, the Credit Card Bank accepted my request and reversed the charges (interest fees + fine).
 
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