April 10, 2025 at 9:23 am

Bank Customer Was Being Charged Almost $6 For A Service That He Rarely Uses, So He Outsmarted The System To Avoid Losing Money

by Heide Lazaro

Man holding a phone in one hand and a bill statement in another hand

Freepik/Reddit

Costly hidden fees can be annoying!

This man shares how he used his bank’s bill pay service to pay for his water bill; however, he was being charged almost $6 for it.

He didn’t want to pay the fees, so he thought of a clever way to meet the bank’s requirements without losing money.

Read the full story below for all the details.

Bank Fee Avoidance

My bank has a bill paying service.

They will generate a paper check and mail it to payees.

They do this if people don’t support electronic funds transfer.

This man used the bank’s bill pay service for his water bill.

I can pay most of my bills online myself.

But my water utility doesn’t have a way to pay online, so I use the bank’s bill pay for this.

He was charged $5.95 for using the service only once a month.

One day, I noticed an odd $5.95 charge that was popping up at the start of each month.

I called the bank to question it.

They said that if I don’t use the bill pay at least twice a month, then the charge is applied.

Since I only pay the water bill every other month, I was getting charged.

He thought of a clever workaround.

Since I needed to use it twice a month, I figured out an easy way to do this.

The bill pay system allows you to set up regular payments to a payee.

So, I set myself up as a payee and scheduled a $1 payment to myself every two weeks.

No more costly charges!

Now, I see a periodic $1 deduction, and a few days later, I get a $1 check in the mail which I immediately deposit with their phone app.

Net zero cost for me, and $5.95 fee avoided!

Genius! Let’s see the reactions of other people on Reddit.

Here’s an additional idea from this person.

Screenshot 2025 04 01 at 2.20.30 PM Bank Customer Was Being Charged Almost $6 For A Service That He Rarely Uses, So He Outsmarted The System To Avoid Losing Money

This user shares their personal thoughts.

Screenshot 2025 04 01 at 2.20.53 PM Bank Customer Was Being Charged Almost $6 For A Service That He Rarely Uses, So He Outsmarted The System To Avoid Losing Money

A boomer shares their advice.

Screenshot 2025 04 01 at 2.22.33 PM Bank Customer Was Being Charged Almost $6 For A Service That He Rarely Uses, So He Outsmarted The System To Avoid Losing Money

Go paperless, says this person.

Screenshot 2025 04 01 at 2.22.51 PM Bank Customer Was Being Charged Almost $6 For A Service That He Rarely Uses, So He Outsmarted The System To Avoid Losing Money

Finally, people are loving the malicious compliance.

Screenshot 2025 04 01 at 2.23.15 PM Bank Customer Was Being Charged Almost $6 For A Service That He Rarely Uses, So He Outsmarted The System To Avoid Losing Money

There’s always a way to outsmart annoying rules.

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.