In most of the countries you have power and pay the bill later. If you don't pay, you have your power cut off. Simple as that.
You are viewing a single comment's thread from:
In most of the countries you have power and pay the bill later. If you don't pay, you have your power cut off. Simple as that.
It used to be like that here. But now we have two options: pay for the power before you get it (this case is called a prepaid subscription) or they give you power for a month and your usage at the end of the month is calculated and you pay monthly(this case is called postpaid subscription). People had this belief that the postpaid subscription charges were being inflated by the VRA themselves, so most people here use prepaid now.
Interesting. Or strange? 😳 Dunno but good to know.
Wait. You don’t have the option of paying upfront for power over there?
I don't think so, I've never heard of such thing. You have different packages here, different options, based on how much you think you're consuming, so the price varies too.
That system you have was used here between the two world wars and it's possible the prepaid system is still on in the UK, but other than that, I doubt it. Wherever I've been in Europe, have not seen it.
So if I get you right, you can’t really tell the power company how much power you want? It’s water I know people around here pay for like that. You just use and pay the bill at the end of the month.
Mmm. Until now, I thought we all used prepaid and postpaid all around the world. Shocker.
No need to tell the company how much you want, but they can estimate your monthly consumption based on previous history.
Yes, exactly.
Nope, you're the minority, but I think the company over there knows why they use this system. Most likely some of the users won't pay and they would register huge losses. Terms are strict here. You have a certain period to pay, after which you're disconnected and to reconnect to the system, you need to pay a fine, which is quite substantial. I'm always paying my bills, as soon as I get them. There are no power cuts here either 😇
You got that right!
I’m sure the power cut when people fail to pay their bills over there is automatic. Here, it’s not. The VRA personnels walk around town, climb the polls and disconnect lights manually.
How this is a problem is that us Africans tend to leverage our relationships with some of the VRA agents and even result to begging not to be disconnected sometimes. Aside this, I’ve seen cases of people waiting for the VRA agents under the polls with cutlasses after they come to disconnect. I’m sure you get what I mean.
Still though, some people use postpaid, but it’s a hassle getting them to pay up. I’ve heard some households be in power debt up to close to $1000. It’s serious. That wouldn’t happen with prepaid subscriptions because you get what you pay for.