How To Pay Bills Internationally ?

[Aswin]

This may be a dumb question but for someone moving to Thailand say from the US.

What's the easiest way to pay your bills in the US ? Can you use your US Bank's ATM to make deposits to your US bank account and then just pay bills online ?

How do you guys do it ?

International wire Xfer from Thai Bank would be too expensive right ? If you have to make 2-3 payments a month.

How do you guys manage ? Thanks.

PS: Why don't they all take Paypal.

[ukrules]

What's the easiest way to pay your bills in the US ?

You could just add the totals of all your bills together and then send one payment a month, or send enough to cover a few months at a time.

Also this may seem obvious but you can pay your bills in advance where a direct debit system is not in place.

This is how I do it when I go back to England for a few months at a time. It's a pain as you normally need to go into the main office and convince them that you're not crazy when you try to pay three times the amount on your electricity bill. This way I don't need to do any transfers at all and nothing gets disconnected while I'm away.

[Jingthing]

The only US bills I have are credit cards, Vonage, and a friend I pay for an unspecified service. I just pay the bills online. You set up billers on US online banking sites. You can even pay private people. It is often a free service. No, you can't do US based ATM banking deposits in Thailand, just basic withdrawals.

[retiredusn]

Wells Fargo has a free bill pay service over the net, you can send a to anyone ..

[thaihome]

Keep your US bank account and make online payments. Of course, if you will need to have an income that can be deposited in the US account or you will need to make internationals transfers from Thai account to the US.

Get a mail forwarding account or us a relatives/friends address that will give you a US address to change the US account to.

Need a lot more details to give specfic advice.

TH

[ballbreaker]

Not sure how you plan on handling your funds but here's what I do.

All retirement funds be it SS or company retirement payments are direct deposited in my US bank account. I'm using Bank of America.

I use wire transfers to send money from BofA to my Bangkok Bank account in Thailand and always send dollars so currency exchange is done in Thailand, better rate. Bangkok Bank has NY branch so it is very easy. Before leaving US file out paper work for doing international transfers because cannot be done once you are in Thailand. You must do it in person. The transfers can be setup on automatic schedule or on request.

I use my US banks on-line bill pay service for paying bills in US.

I also have US bank ATM card I use when I travel outside Thailand. In Thailand I use Bangkok Bank ATM card.

[think_too_mut]

I just pay the bills online. You set up billers on US online banking sites. You can even pay private people. It is often a free service.

That's how it works in Thailand, exactly the same way, 30B fee....but you need a Thai bank account with Internet banking.

We deposited a chunk of money into wife's BKK bank account, registered the recipients (including private persons) - for that you have to be able to receive SMS with one time password to your mobile, so for us it had to be done in Thailand.

After that you can pay online as if you were in Thailand. Our condo office sends us email with amounts on utilities bills and we pay online from Japan.

[hhgz]

"What's the easiest way to pay your bills in the US?"

I've used online payment services, through both my bank and financial broker, for several years. Works like a charm!

[benjamat]

Yes, I am a nationwide brit customer and simplt pay all my bills online through my uk bank account, no hassle and no charges.

UK bills. have not tried paying bills to other countries.

Edited January 16, 2009 by benjamat