Automatic Payment or Automatic Headache?

I hate Bank of America. Why, you ask? Well, there are a few reasons, including having a big announcement on the sidebar about Firefox being "fully supported" but whenever I click on any of the tabs such as "Bill Pay" when in Firefox, it tells me that my session has ended and makes me log in again. I finally had to revert to IE. This, to me, is not "full support".

But the main reason I hate Bank of America is because their automatic payment system is less logical than the ownership group of the Seattle Mariners (the only team that spends over $100 million for over 100 losses). Allow me to present the options they give you for determining how much you want the system to automatically pay:

• Always pay the minimum amount due as indicated on the e-Bill
• Only make payment if this amount is less than or equal to $___________
• Always pay the statement balance as indicated on the e-Bill
• Only make payment if this amount is less than or equal to $___________
• Always pay $_________ regardless of amount due

The only one that makes even a smidgen of sense is the first one. Unfortunately, I chose the second. Even more unfortunate, I checked the sub box and wrote "500" in the text box. I did this because when I read the option, my mind automatically converted what it actually said to what it logically should say. So instead of "Only make payment if this amount is less than or equal to $500", I read it as "Only pay up to $500". What's the point of setting an automatic payment if you have to worry about it not paying the amount? I thought automatic payments were designed so that you didn't have to worry about getting hosed by a $39 late fee (not to mention the additional $11.69 "finance charge" for the inconvenience of making them charge you money). Apparently not. At the very least, they should have this option:

• Always pay the statement balance as indicated on the e-Bill
• If this amount is greater than or equal to $___________, then just pay the minimum amount due

But, no. Then they wouldn't get their automatic $50 (what "automatic payment" really means) from the poor saps like me who for some reason still go around assuming that people have brains in their heads. Oh, and that last option? How in the world does that make sense?? What amount could you possibly put in there that doesn't ever result in you either not meeting the minimum or giving them more money than necessary? The only way that that option would make sense is if you only use that card for certain static, reoccurring payments (such as a car payment) and nothing else. But if that was the case, wouldn't the 2nd option work just as well?