Extra mortgage payment

[ua_guy]

Strong recommendation to set up automatic payments using you're bank's web site. It should have a way to electronically pay bills, which "pushes" the money to the mortgage company via "EDI" (electronic data interchange).

It's not a "pull" from the mortgage company's end, which you are rightly afraid of.

I agree with this. "Pushing" the payment doesn't require you to sign any agreement with your lender allowing them access or authorization to debit your bank account. The money simply comes over from your bank, just like it would with a hand-written check.

I don't like paper checks because a lot of complexity and vulnerability is introduced into the payment process--moreso than setting up an electronic billpay via your own financial institution.

You put the check in a mailbox. If it's a residential mailbox, there's a possibility someone will steal your mail. If it's a work mailbox, sometimes they drag that stuff all over hell's half acre (sometimes losing mail) to finally dump it at the USPS. If you drop it directly at USPS, and in all cases, you're relying on the USPS to deliver the check to the lockbox of the financial institution. (I don't trust USPS--they've lost stuff of mine before).

Once the check gets to your lender, there are a host of minimally paid staff who also care minimally about whether your payment actually gets posted or not. If they lose it or screw it up, it's still your problem because technically the amount wasn't there to be posted.

With an electronic transaction, there's a log on each side - confirmation the payment was sent, confirmation the payment was received. If you can provide your lender a confirmation number, then it's their problem to go sort out if a payment went missing or undistributed. The payment information could be intercepted along the way, but most FI infosec policies are very tight, and chances of that are rare.