My Verizon auto-pay charge kept creeping earlier and earlier: Here’s how I fixed it

There are many reasons to consider turning on autopay for your cellular and other major bills. Not only is it a convenient way to ensure you’re never late on a bill, but sometimes this feature includes paperless discounts and other benefits as well. The only downside to autopay is that you have less control over when your bill will be paid.

Typically, an autopay charge happens a few days ahead of your official due date, giving your carrier and the bank time to process the transaction on both ends. It also gives you time to fix any payment issues before you get slapped with a late fee or other penalties. That said, you may have noticed that your autopay charge isn’t tied to a firm date but rather a general window. For example, my bill has historically ranged from the 20th to the 24th of every month.

What happens when it starts swinging earlier and earlier, or even later than expected? That’s exactly what happened to me with my Verizon account. Over time, the date slowly drifted further and further back. At first, it wasn’t enough for me to really care. Then, in September, the charge hit on the 17th for the first time. As someone who carefully budgets everything based on a bi-monthly schedule, this was dangerously close to messing with my budgeting plans.

Then, in October, the charge hit on the 14th. While it wasn’t a financial problem for me, if a major bill had gone out early or something similar, it certainly could have been. This made me curious, so I decided to dig deeper to find out what causes drift in autopay due dates and whether anything can be done to prevent it.

What are some of the reasons autopay dates can drift?

Aside from the time it takes for the charge to process through the banks, there are other factors that can lead to date drift. The drifting in my case came down to a few things. Most of it came from small issues, like my typical charge window falling on a weekend, leading to occasional charges that were earlier or later than planned.

These small factors caused minor drift, but the main culprit was adding my son to our Verizon account a few months ago. This ended up causing a very slight adjustment to the cycle that effectively shifted the date earlier than ever before, even though I didn’t notice it immediately.

This makes a lot of sense; I didn’t give it much thought at the time. The bigger lesson is that it’s important to pay attention to fine print, billing cycles, and to ensure your due date falls within a window where you can be more flexible with your budgeting.

Although these two factors were likely the main causes, there are certainly other common reasons an autopay date can change. For example, changing your payment method can trigger a shift in some cases. It’s also worth considering that months aren’t evenly set in 30-day increments, so the calendar itself can lead to drift even if it takes years for it to make a real difference.

There’s no permanent fix, but there is a simple solution to help fix drift

Usually, a few days of drift in either direction doesn’t affect most people much. Of course, it really depends on your financial situation. If money is tight and you’re budgeting aggressively, this drift could result in a missed payment or even an overdraft charge.

While you can’t permanently stop drift from happening, there is an easy fix. Once per year, Verizon will let you pick a new due date for your bill by contacting Customer Service or by dialing *611. If you are with T-Mobile and AT&T, you might find they have slightly different policies, but the process works mostly the same.

Before you change your due date, it’s important to keep a few things in mind:

• Changing your due date won’t impact any bills that are currently due. The new cycle will only affect future bills.
• Changing your due date will also likely require them to prorate a portion of your bill, so you may end up with a temporarily larger or smaller bill the next month.

In my case, I picked a new date later in the month, as that’s usually when I have extra room in the budget for savings and more. That means unless it drifts dramatically, I won’t run into a situation where it wreaks havoc on my monthly budget plan.

If you make this change, drifting may occur again over the next few years as your account changes, but at least now you know how to handle it.