Never Pay Your Bills In Advance

[Dave Hounddriver]

This is one of those "only in the Philippines" events but it has happened to me 3 times now so it is worth mentioning.On rare occasions I get the urge to pay my bills early. Perhaps I have a little extra money and want to get ahead of the bills or perhaps I am going on vacation and want to stay on top of things. In the last 2 years I have had these experiences:First I paid a double payment on my cable tv bill. The following month they sent the usual boy out to collect my payment without having any record that I had paid in advance. Nothing could be done until I went into the office with ALL my receipts from day 1 to prove that it was not some long forgotten payment that I had made but I had indeed paid in advance. They were shocked to discover that someone would actually pay before the bill is even issued for that month.Next I noticed my landlady was putting the previous month's date on my rent receipts. When I asked she said I was a month behind but she was not going to bother me about it until I had some extra money. I had to go to her house with ALL my rent receipts from day 1 to show her how she had given me 2 rent receipts, on subsequent months, with the same date on the receipt, which was actually a double charge. Oh, she said, I guess I made a mistake. (I have noticed my current landlady doing the same thing but I caught her earlier this time.)Now its SmartBro. I pay every month but this month I paid early, before the electronic notice came out. The reason is that I notice more 'accidental' disconnects when my bill is due than I get after it is paid. Of course they still sent the bill at the regular time and I am still getting the disconnects because they think I am due to pay, even though I have the emailed receipt that they have the payment. I shall have to go to their office and sort it out. Damn I hate that.But I know better now, never pay your bill in advance in the Phils.

[Art2ro]

We've been retired here in the Philippines since 1998 and have never had any problems with any billing of any kind as long one saves all the billing statements and paid receipts and I avoid paying our bills late! Just the other day I paid our cable 6 months cash in advance since they have no on-line payment feature available and their unreliable manual bill collection is a hit or miss kind of thing, I don't foresee any problems paying our cable bill in advance as long I have the paid receipts on file. Our other bills, mortgage, phone/DSL, utilities, cellphone post paid plans and etc, I pay on-line on our home PC or even while on vacation as long they are associated and linked to my local bank's on-line home banking system. Haven't had any problems doing so, been doing it for 12 yrs now!

[Mr Lee]

As many of you know, my wife and I only live in our Cebu City condo part of the year, so we always prepay our bills and sometimes for a year in advance because we never know the exact date that we will be back, and we may from time to time have a relative staying in our unit, so to date we have never had a problem. It should also be noted that some of the companies give a discount when you pay for a year at a time, I know our cable bill is much lower that way. While I do not advise people to do what we do, I also make sure we pay all bills by check for further proof if something should go wrong. As Dave wrote above, make sure to have your receipts for everything.