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Paying bills in Nepal

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Priscilla

Hello everyone,

What bills do you pay? If you are renting, are bills included in the price of rent, and is this common practice in Nepal?

How can you pay your bills (e.g. online, at provider's store, at the post office)? Which is the most convenient or reliable way?

With what frequency are different bills sent in Nepal? Are there different deadlines for payment?

Thank you for sharing your experience.

Priscilla

Pilar2016

In Nepal, you never have to worry about bill collection, if it is money that you owe them
They are the fastest and quickest to your doorstep money collectors in the world. They are everything that Western Union doesn't do.  No need therefore, for internet, phone, post office, or any other reminder method. Nepalis never give you the slightest chance of allowing you to forget you owe them anything, for any sum as little as 50 rupees. Believe me, they are number one, bar none in this money collection business. You never have to go to them, they are so quick on the uptake, you wouldn't believe it, like Batman.  No need to worry, they'll find out where you live and be ringing your doorbell, bright and early, like 7 or 7:30 in the morning....to collect....and before you can say Jackie Robinson. Nepalis could be in the Guiness Book of Records, for their uncanny and timely bill collection ability.
If, on the other hand, nepalis owe you money, that's an all together different ball game.  They conveniently forget or postpone. More simply stated, chances are that you'll never see a cent of your money ever again.  If you try phoning them, you are likely to be told that "the person is out of town" or "out of country"
Easy come, easy go. That's Nepali way. Let's say that money in Nepal only goes one way - into their pocket. Yes, money hungry!
P. S. If local people, rich or poor - high caste, low caste makes no difference - should ever ask you for a loan here, remember, chances are 99% you'll never, ever, see a red cent of it, again. Forget written pledges or guarantees, those won't be honored in the majority of cases, anyway. I speak with experience. So if you give, give in the full knowledge that the "loan" is in truth...a pure gift. Never loan in Nepal any amount that you can't afford to lose. That's my best advice.

MadagascarNow

When it comes to paying the phone bill there is no notice. I try to make a call from the landline and get a weird noise; I think the line is down. Later I ask someone to call and it turns out I didn't pay the bill. It isn't actually monthly, but when the money is used up. As far as I can find, there doesn't seem to be a way to know how much is on my account. But, then again, maybe it's just because not so many people have landlines and my helpers don't know. The phone charges are not unlimited calling for the month, but each minute is taken at a different rate.

Good news: You can get an E-Sewa account and pay the phone and a few other bills with a phone call.

Tip for calling America or Europe: Dial 1424 and then the number as you ordinarily would. For example, you'd dial 1424 plus 1 plus area code plus number for the US. It's under 2 rupees per minute for the US, everywhere else is a bit more expensive, but if you dial without 1424 it will cost a lot more.

jl1234

It's true. Nepalis are so money savvy, they are never on the short end of the stick!
Hold on to your wallet, guys!

Martin_Jurick

1.  What bills do you pay? If you are renting, are bills included in the price of rent, and is this common practice in Nepal?
        The two places we rented the only bill we paid besides rent was phone and internet which we had to pay in person at the  worldlink office at Jawalakhel, though they have the option to pay online using eSewa

2.  How can you pay your bills (e.g. online, at provider's store, at the post office)? Which is the most convenient or reliable way?
        eSewa is an electronic way to pay for things online around Nepal, you just have to have a Nepali bank account, my suggestion is Nabil bank or Prabhu bank.  You can use it to get your movie tickets, top off you mobile load and even book a ride with something similar to Uber.  Almost every sidewalk store around the city sells mobile airtime cards in the quantities of 20 nrs all the way to 2000. 


3.  With what frequency are different bills sent in Nepal? Are there different deadlines for payment? 
      Worldlink internet provides you the option of paying every month, every 3 months, every 6 months or once a year, of course the more you pay up front the greater your savings and total data volume. 

Martin_Jurick

That's really good to know.  After living in Mexico I was pretty impressed by the customer service from Worldlink, but we switched to fiber when we moved outside ring road and there seemed to be service interruptions every week, sometimes for a day or longer.  and then durring the pulling of the rato/seto machindranath, you could pretty much bet on your internet being down all week.  Do you remember what the price/MBPS/volume packages were?

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