I completely understand Tee’s anger and frustration.
Many, many, years ago (and by that I mean decades) when I first started teaching, the school system I worked for did not provide healthcare. So my fiancée (at the time) and I had to take out individual policies and the premiums were drafted directly out of our (joint) checking account. The next year, after we’d gotten married, we converted the policy and there was only one premium instead of two.
Fast forward a couple of years, I went to work in a neighboring school district and they did provide health coverage. So I called our private insurance company and cancelled the old policy.
Low and behold, the very next month they drafted another premium out of our checking account. I called, and probably sounded a lot like Tess (I know, because I’ve heard myself sound that way). The apologized profusely and said that they would send me a check within some number of business days.
Now, can you believe that the same thing happened again the following month! I not called the insurance company, sounding waaaaaaay worse than Tee. I called my bank and found that, while it’s fairly easy to stop payment on a check that you’ve written, it’s much more difficult to stop an automatic draft, since it doesn’t have a check number. But, they said that they could put a stop on the “amount” of the draft. So I told them to do that. Now I was safe, right . . . . .
Wrong, the next month, after the single premium didn’t go through, they split it back up into two policies and charged for them both ! ! ! !
With my banker apologizing profusely and telling me that his hands were tied as far as what he could do, I ended up closing that checking account and opening up new one.
Now, I never give my account routing numbers to anyone. This has cost me because some companies charge extra, or will not do business with you at all, if they cannot directly draft the funds. I also “lose” my cards about once a year or so, just in case.
I like the "Virtual Credit Card" that pz uses but I do not think my back or credit union have that option.
BD