Paying VNI Automatically

Paying VNI Automatically

Your Statement

You can examine your current statement at any time from our Account Administration page. A copy of your statement will be e-mailed to you each month.

Vineyard.NET's Billing Cycle

1. At midnight on the first of every month, all Vineyard.NET accounts are billed according to our rate schedule.
2. After the billing is complete, one of our staff will initiate a transaction batch. Those who have given us automatic payment information and have a balance due will have an entry in the batch.
3. The completed batch is sent to our merchant bank.
4. In 2 days time, we will receive a response as to whether or not each item in the transaction was successful. If your automatic payment was successful, your account will be credited with the payment and your Reseller will be credited their commission. The account will also receive a bonus credit of $1 or $2 depending on the type of automatic payment used. If the payment request was not successful, our software will automatically send the user a message with the reason for the failure (credit card expired is most common), and delete your automatic payment information. Our erasure of this information sometimes causes inconvenience, but we do so for the sake of your privacy.
5. Finally statements are mailed to all our user's accounts reflecting their current balance and payment history on the seventh of each month.
6. If you are paying via ACH transfer from your checking account, and there are insufficient funds in the account to cover the debit, it generally takes a week before we receive this information. If we receive an ACH return, we will remove the payment credits from your account and charge you $15 for the bounced check.
7. We also run a transaction batch on the 15th of each month. Normally, only new accounts or accounts with recent changes to their automatic payment information (new credit card, change in bank account, etc.) will be part of the mid-month batch.

Paying Your Bill Automatically

Paying your account automatically greatly facilitates Vineyard.NET's ability to provide our customers with better service. Processing checks consumes a surprising amount of time. In recognition of the high value we place on this time, and as a thank you to customers, we currently give a bonus credit for each successful automatic transfer of funds. Each time a credit card is used to pay for an account, a bonus of $1 is credited to the account. Each time an ACH transfer is debited directly from a bank account, a bonus of $2 is credited to the account.

Most popular account programs (Quicken, QuickBooks, etc.) have mechanisms whereby regular payments can be entered automatically by the software. The majority of our customers own computers. We would like to recommend to our customers that this is an area where computers perform excellently and can save considerable time. (Some accounting programs integrate access to services which will pay your debts electronically. This saves you postage money as well as time.)

The information listing your credit card number or bank account number is stored on our computer with a 1024 bit encryption algorithm which would be exceedingly difficult for an intruder to break (the NSA could do it in a few days, but not many have their level of computer resources).

The information listing your credit card number or bank account number can (and should) be entered into our system via SSL encryption. Even though a great deal of technical sophistication is required to intercept this information while the data is being submitted, because this is possible, we have implemented a secure web server which uses SSL so that your information is encrypted during transmission as well as while it is stored on our system.

If an error ever occurs while utilizing your automatic payment information, you will receive e-mail notification of the error and the information you gave us will be erased. While the erasure does sometimes create difficulties, we decided that it would be far better to err on the side of caution whenever such information has cause to be questionable. Frequently customers request that we simply update the expiration date of a credit card, or resubmit a credit card which was temporarily over limit. While this is a reasonable request, we cannot comply because the by the time you have received notification of the error, our system will have already erased the data. We apologize if this causes you inconvenience.

Paying Via Direct Debit from a Checking Account

Paying via ACH transfer is much the same as writing a check. The amount is debited directly from your checking account. You will see an entry on your statement to the effect that the amount was transfered to Vineyard.NET. If you do not have enough funds in your account, your bank will treat it exactly as they would if there were insufficient funds for a check.

ACH transfers are the most economical method for Vineyard.NET to collect payment from customers automatically. Credit card companies charge vendors for payment debits, banks do not. Even the fees we have to pay to our bank for each transfer request are far less than the same fees for credit cards. Because of this we offer a $2 bonus credit each time an ACH transfer is completed successfully. What does VNI receive out of this deal? We save a substantial amount of time.

In order to set up an ACH transfer with Vineyard.NET, we need nothing more than a checking account number (which can be copied from any check). However, for our own records, we ask that you mail us a voided check belonging to the account from which you would like us to make withdrawals. We keep these voided checks in our files as documentation of your permission to make such withdrawals.

Before we can make any substantial withdrawals from your account, banking regulations require that we perform a pre-authorization. This is done by billing your account $0.00 and then waiting for 10 business days to give you and your bank time to react. It is quite possible that your account information may have been entered incorrectly. Or (as far as the bank knows) your account number may be in use without your approval. Most banks will use the time to give the account owner a call when they receive a pre-authorization to make sure that all is being done as requested.

Because of the time lag, your account may have a balance due during the first billing period after you have given us permission to use ACH. The total balance due will be collected on the following billing cycle. This is not a problem for Vineyard.NET, however, if you would like to zero out your balance due, you may send us a check.

Paying Via a Credit Card

You can pay your Vineyard.NET account with a credit card. We accept VISA and Master Card (sorry, American Express costs are prohibitively high).

ACH transfers are the most economical method for Vineyard.NET to collect payment from customers automatically. Credit card companies charge vendors for payment debits, banks do not. Even the fees we have to pay to our bank for each transfer request are far less than the same fees for credit cards. Because of this we offer a $2 bonus credit each time an ACH transfer is completed successfully, but only a $1 bonus for each successful credit card charge. What does VNI receive out of this deal? We save a substantial amount of time.