You grit your teeth as you tear open your latest bank statement. There it is again: an automatic deduction for the membership fee from your old health club.

You've been trying for six months to get the club to stop deducting the fee from your account. You've called the club too many times explaining that the contract expired, and you haven't set foot there in months. But for some reason, the charge keeps being put through. What started out as a convenience has become a costly nuisance.

Automatic deductions (debits) from bank accounts can be a convenient way to pay some regular bills, saving you time, checks and postage. Nowadays people pre-authorize monthly debits for everything from mortgages, student loans and utilities to car payments, life insurance premiums and health club memberships.

Trouble Spots

You can find yourself dealing with some unusual problems when you let a third party, your bank, pay your bills for you. If your bank doesn't make automatic mortgage payments on time, for example, it will be you who suffers the consequences: late fees and a blemish on a credit report.

And what if payments aren't made at all? One man whose life insurance premium was deducted monthly from his checking account had no idea that the bank, due to a systems error, had stopped making payments. The policy lapsed, but the family didn't find out until the man died. They had to fight hard to collect their benefits.

How to Solve Problems

You have the right to halt unauthorized and most pre-authorized deductions at any time. If you're having trouble stopping an automatic debit, the fastest way to get results is to contact your bank, not the business that's receiving payments.

Under federal law, you must call or write your financial institution requesting a "stop" at least three days before the scheduled debit. If you make an oral request, the bank may require you to confirm it in writing within 14 days of your call.

If you've been hit with late fees because the bank was tardy, don't just pay up. Rules regulating electronic fund transfers state that when a debit is posted to a consumer's account, the consumer can refuse the transaction for several reasons, including that the consumer revoked the authorization. You have 15 days from when the bank sends the account statement to demand the return of your money. Your bank must credit your account and debit the business within 60 days of when the money was taken out of your account.

If you fear your credit history has been tarnished because the bank was late or missed payments, get a copy of your credit file from one of the big credit bureaus (Experian, TransUnion or Equifax). If you've been labeled an unreliable debtor, demand that the misleading items be changed. And remember that you always have the right to add a 100-word statement to your file, explaining anything that might cause lenders to shy away from you.