Need advice on setting up automatic monthly money moves

June 21, 2024 1:38 PM

I want to send $X per month electronically to my son, automatically, to be deposited directly into his account at Chase, from my account at Citibank, for free or for a small fee.

I got no satisfaction today trying to deal with Citibank over a couple of chat sessions and a couple of phone calls. Apparently it's impossible, unless I pay a $17.50 wire transfer fee for each payment, which is too high.

There was some confusion caused by the term "transfer," which in Citi's brain seems to mean moving money between accounts owned by me (either Citibank accounts, or external accounts). What I want to do seems to be more akin to "bill payment" in their lexicon, even though he's not a vendor and doesn't bill me.

Citibank will let me make a free instant cash transfer into his account any time I want to. But not automatically. They offer free automatic bill payment, but apparently the payee needs to have a Citibank account number. CashApp and Venmo also don't offer automatic payments. Mailing a check is not acceptable.

Can you good people give me any ideas on how to set up an automatic transfer of $X from my account to his, either for free or for much less than $17.50. What I'm hoping to do is avoid adding another monthly chore.

posted by JimN2TAW to Work & Money (16 answers total)

Response by poster: Mailing a check is not acceptable. It's not acceptable for me to have to mail a check, and it's not acceptable for Citibank to mail him a check, even if they do it automatically.
posted by JimN2TAW at 1:42 PM on June 21

Best answer: You can probably do this with Zelle. It's free. Not all banks support outbound recurring Zelle payments, so not 100% this will be possible for you with Citi.
posted by caek at 1:43 PM on June 21 [4 favorites]

Best answer: Maybe I've been in the payroll world too long but one easy way to do this (if you're drawing a paycheck) would be to set up a direct deposit for your desired amount into your kid's account.
posted by phunniemee at 1:46 PM on June 21 [6 favorites]

Best answer: So you have Zelle recurring payments or direct deposit, or if you need a third and more annoying option, you can open a joint account with your son at Chase. Then you can set up an external account transfer from Citi to the joint account (because your name will be on it) and your son can set up a recurring transfer from the joint account to his individual account.
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 1:59 PM on June 21

Citi's requirements for this include that the external account must be an account you own.

I think chesty_a_arthur's suggestion to open a joint checking account at Chase would work.
posted by meemzi at 2:12 PM on June 21

I think I do this thru AppleCash...?
posted by tristeza at 2:30 PM on June 21

During covid I used Zelle from citibank to send recurring to a person and I don’t remember any fees or problems, but I never asked the receiving party about fees.
posted by drowsy at 2:54 PM on June 21

Best answer: Zelle has some issues.

Given the issues I've had with transfers from one bank to another, I'd say to just have a joint account at the same bank. That will make your life so much easier.
posted by jenfullmoon at 3:10 PM on June 21 [2 favorites]

Best answer: With my bank I'm able to do this by going to "Bill Pay" and then, and this is crucial, choosing the "go to bill pay site" option. Then it gives me the choice of sending to a company or an individual, and either having the bank send a check or sending it to someone else's bank account using their bank name, account number, routing number, home address, and phone number. But the other bank I use completely disallows this, so ymmv.

(Zelle has been a nightmare, and not because of the issues in the linked article. The problem is it randomly decides a transaction IS fraudulent for no reason, stops the transaction, and deletes the person from my contacts, meaning I have to call to get them added back, and then there's only a 25% chance I'll be able to send to them anyway. With other people it always works. It's extremely unreliable.)
posted by wintersweet at 3:55 PM on June 21

We have encountered this issue with Chase. For whatever reason, I can transfer from my credit union to Chase, but not from
BofA. Chase, from what I can tell based on our repeated calls to customer service, has very little interest in keeping its checking account customers happy.
posted by samthemander at 5:28 PM on June 21

If Citi supports zelle, that's the way to go.

I have a monthly automatic transfer from my BMO account to a relative's Chase account. My name is not on her account and her name is not on my account. There are no fees. There have never been any problems.
posted by Nickel at 5:59 PM on June 21

Best answer: Unfortunately, it's looking like that instant transfer option is likely only the free option for bank to bank transfers that Citi offers. They do allow business accounts to be set up to originate ACHs, but not personal accounts. I used to work at a bank (not Citi) and thought I might be able to help, so I've gone down the rabbit hole on this one.

The only slightly promising thing I found was this Citi page on inter-institution transfers. It does allow free recurring transfers so that you wouldn't have to do it each time, but it looks like they limit it to only transfers to your own account at a different bank. Any chance you're a signer on your son's account?
posted by Eyelash at 7:58 PM on June 21

Response by poster: Many thanks for all of your well-researched answers. Unfortunately, Citibank doesn't support automatic recurring Zelle transactions. I'm grateful for all the suggestions.
posted by JimN2TAW at 9:58 AM on June 22

Best answer: Then just set a reminder on a calendar to do it manually? It's just once a month.
posted by kschang at 1:15 PM on June 22

My main checking account (Schwab) also does not support recurring Zelle.

It does support recurring ACH though, so I worked around this by setting up a recurring regular non-Zelle transfer to an account of mine at a bank that does do recurring Zelle (Ally), and then a recurring Zelle from there the following day.
posted by caek at 10:24 AM on June 24

Response by poster: Thanks, kschang, for providing some common sense. Your suggestion is very reasonable.
posted by JimN2TAW at 11:07 AM on June 26