"I have a love/hate relationship with BB&T. I love their online bill payment service, but I hate all the "gotchas" they use to extract service fees from their customers.

I began using BB&T online bill payment a few years ago after a postal rate increase and never looked back. It works wonderfully and I've never experienced any problems using it. Best of all, it's completely free of charge. So, I don't even have to pay for postage to remit payment for bills.

BB&T uses this service to provide a strong incentive for utility companies to do business with them. Those who maintain accounts at BB&T receive payment much sooner than those who don't.

Unfortunately, BB&T lies in waiting for consumers who fail to understand all the terms and conditions of doing business with them. It's these customers who generate fee income for the bank. You want to make sure you aren't one of them.

First, it's necessary to understand that BB&T always debits payments before crediting deposits. Gotcha!

Second, BB&T takes a couple of days to credit cash deposits and direct deposits to accounts and even longer for checks. So, don't expect to make a deposit and then have access to your money from your account right away. Gotcha!

Third, BB&T attaches the amount of an online bill payment immediately, even if they won't actually send the payment for several days. Gotcha!

Of course, if you're a victim of one of these or other "gotchas" you'll be paying overdraft fees for each debit they process while you have insufficient funds. So, if multiple payments bounce, you'll be hurting.

Don't think you can talk your way out of these fees, either. It isn't going to happen. The company has to make up their derivatives losses somewhere.

So, make absolutely certain that you completely understand how each and every debit and credit to your account is posted before you use an account at BB&T. If you do, you can enjoy free bill payment service with a very high quality of operations to back it up."