Starting in October, you can pay your electric bill without leaving the house or writing a check. Florida Power & Light is initiating an automatic fund transfer system that will allow FPL, with your permission, to automatically debit your bank account each month.
If you sign up for the program, which will be outlined in a notice with your October bill, FPL will send you a bill notice about 10 days before the automatic withdrawal is made. If you have insufficient funds the day FPL posts your automatic payment, you will be charged the same as bouncing a check.
The automatic bill-paying system is similar to those offered by some fitness centers, banks and credit unions. A form authorizing FPL to automatically debit your account will be included in your October bill.
If you do not want automatic bill paying, you can still pay by mail or at Eckerd stores. FPL has plans to close all but one of its customer service/bill-paying windows and night deposit boxes by Oct. 15. The only FPL-operated center remaining open is in Liberty City, where there are no nearby Eckerd stores.
Eckerd charges a 35-cent fee to handle FPL bills paid in person. FPL said it decided not to absorb that cost itself because only 15 percent of customers pay bills in person. “We didn’t think it was fair to make 85 percent of customers subsidize the bill-paying activity of a minority of our customers,” FPL spokesman Bill Swank said.
