Also: you people like Pepito and Jakob are living in some kind of fabulous dream world. I wish I had such simple luxury.

a (preferred, smallest fees): Add the utilities account number, your utility account number and your bank account number to the joint Direct Debit system run by the banks (“PBS”), this can be done by snail-mail to PBS or through whatever online banking you may have. This takes effect starting with the “Next” bill. PBS sends a monthly statement listing which bills they will debit from you in the coming month (I just got the May one), and each utility is allowed to include some of their own text with their listing, thus saving them the cost of even sending out their own paper bill. Direct Debit payments must be canceled no later than 1 week after receiving the monthly statement or the payment will happen, thus bills in the first week of each month may get reverse charged if you cancel at the last moment. Incidentally, the PBS data center also handles all credit card and debit card payments in the state

b Tear off the postal transfer (Western Union-like system) slip at the bottom of the paper bill, go to any local post office or bank and pay in cash. One 3rd of the slip is stamped as paid and returned as a receipt. There is a $2 to $3 postage charge by the post office or bank for the handling and a $0 to $10 billing charge from the utility for them sending you the slip in the first place.

c Snail-mail the postal transfer slip to your own bank along with your account number. There is the usual $1 postage for sending a letter. Plus a $0.50 to $3 service fee to the bank for opening the envelope and mapping the envelope to your account (the slip is machine readable via OCR text at the bottom). The receipt subslips are snail mailed back. The bank reserves the right to autosubscribe the bill to the direct debit system above. The $0 to $10 billing charge for receiving the paper slip still applies.

d Type the OCR text and the amount into your online banking system. The $0 to $10 billing charge for receiving the paper slip still applies. There is no paper receipt, but you can request one for $2 extra.

e One utility (just one) offers (at least until recently, I did not check) the option of paying cash at their HQ, carrying the paper slip. The $0 to $10 billing charge for receiving the paper slip would still apply. But you would have to travel to their HQ and be there during some short office hours to do it, so it is (was?) mostly just a quaint tradition for the nostalgics.

Options a through d form a common system offered by banks to just about any company, charity or institution, I have used it to pay anything from mortgages and taxes to the membership fee for the electronics club at my alma mater.

Utilities and the tax authority (similar to the IRS) also allows online reporting of your meter readings income and deductions. You identify yourself with your account number (social security number for the tax) and a pin code printed on the paper letter asking for the info. For simpler transactions they also allow you to just touch-tone dial your data, account number and pin into a modified telephone answering computer.

If I want to pay bills online, I go to my online banking and add payees….

Am I missing something here ?

I think you mean “they hire business analysts”.

They really think someone’s going to set up a bot to autopay utility bills?

Nope, but they might set one up to test credit card numbers … not that a CAPTCHA will save you there, because they can hire a person to run small test transactions on hundreds of cards for practically nothing.

Stores reduce the hurdles because they want to make a sale. When you want to pay your bill, you’ve already consumed something, and you owe them whether they make it easy or not.

“I posit that its their monopoloy status that is the ultimate cause for this problem.”

I kind of agree, but the “ultimate cause” part really rubs me the wrong way. I think you should keep in mind that utilities are not run by geeks, so they don’t think about these sorts of things the same way. To them, the website is still an improvement over processing checks in the mail. It lowers their costs, and it wasn’t too hard to do (they tapped a manager’s son as a “contractor” and did it as a summer project, who knows). If you want them to improve, you are the one who has to sell them on the benefits of a better website.

In this way, you tie the economics of an online store to the economics of the utility – the website is to reduce costs for THEM, and better websites reduce costs further or drive more sales. The point to take away is that there is only so much benefit to be gained from a better website – for stores, they can sell more, so of course they invest more into better websites. Like I said before, you already owe the utility company, and a better website does not mean you will consume more. Thus, out the window goes a huge incentive to make a better website.

Most online stores have learned that you don’t put any more than the absolute minimum number of hurdles in the way o someone giving you money. Why haven’t utilities learned this? I posit that it’s their monopoloy status that is the ultimate cause for this problem.

As to commenting, I wish paying a utility bill were that easy. Notice that you don’t have to register here, and I don’t confirm the information you send because it’s not necessary. Perhaps I should make the e-mail address optional, but it’s still a one-step process. The utility companies aren’t this good yet.