Condo management not applying my bill payments

[jellydog]

I'm curious as to whether anyone else has come across this annoying (infuriating) situation.

I have a years lease on an apartment I'm renting in a large condo building in mid Sukhumvit. I've been here a little over three months. I receive only two bills monthly, the electric bill and a bill from True for internet service. The bills are placed in my mailbox. The condo board accepts payments for the bills with a $20baht service charge. I pay in cash and I'm returned a receipt. Fine by me.

A month ago the condo board alerted me one afternoon that the electric company would cut me off that day due to my not paying my bill for a period of two months. Surprising, given I had receipts indicating I was fully paid up (payments made directly to the condo association). I showed the receipts and disaster averted. As the employees of the condo association speak very little English I was unable to determine why my payments had not been applied. As you might imagine, I guessed that the employees were either inept or had been holding on to my cash to assist with cash flow.

A few days ago I received a letter from True indicating my service would be terminated within days due to nonpayment. Again, I went to the condo association and showed my receipts. I was informed not to worry, the payments had been made. I asked if they were sure. They assured me everything was in order. This morning I turned on my laptop and had no internet access along with a message from True that my service has been terminated due to non payment. I went downstairs in a foul mood for an explanation. Again close to no English available. An employee noted my receipts, called True, and service restored within a half hour. (Due to my foul mood I noted a security guard stationed just outside the office).

I see three explanations- 1.Inept ? Maybe, but twice in a row ? Unlikely. 2. Holding on to my cash until the last minute to help out with cash flow-much more likely. 3. Let's hold on to the falangs money, maybe, like a lot of falangs, he'll leave unexpectedly, and we've made out handsomely.

I'll look into paying both bills directly to the service provider. Anyone else experienced anything similar ?

[Crossy]

We had been in our rented condo for 18 months or so when the landlady turned up unannounced.

She was more than mildly surprised that we were still there as the management company had informed her we'd moved out at the end of our 1 year lease, of course we had receipts for the rent etc.

Said company was removed and the landlady started taking her payments direct from us. When we did finally move out (after 7 years) our deposit was returned in full with no mention of the 'missing' 6 months. Landlady is still a good friend of Wifey.

[darrendsd]

Pay the bills yourself and avoid the worry about if they are being paid or not, simple answer but I would not trust a condo association, if you are being cut off then the bills are not being paid.

[jellydog]

Pay the bills yourself and avoid the worry about if they are being paid or not, simple answer but I would not trust a condo association, if you are being cut off then the bills are not being paid.

As I noted, that is my plan.

[dsj]

What Condo are you in so we will all now to avoid them, also the staff could be keeping the money for themselves.

[slipperx]

Never trust a Thai to do anything for you that involves money or your passport / ID.

Many Thais are honest, kind, generous and lovely people and many are the opposite - it is not always easy to tell the difference and foreigners most often come across the latter kind.

Added to which as a foreigner you will seen as stupid in the eyes of many Thai people because they are indoctrinated from birth that Thailand is the best country in the world and the centre of it and everything Thai is wonderful - you are not Thai therefore you are stupid.

Plenty of other countries do the same thing but many of those in the west have educated populations who can by and large see through at least some of the BS as they grow into adults. Thais unfortunately do not have the benefit of education to a large extent and as a result are unable to think for themselves therefore behaving as children throughout their lives.

[smutcakes]

I would say its incompetence more than anything else. If you have a management team looking to make a bit of cash there are far easier and more profitbale avenues to pursue, with little realistic chance of being caught.

It could also be a genuine case where they try to wait until a specific date to go and pay everything together, so it is not necessary for one staff member to being constantly going to pay the bills.- perhaps the date they go is around your monthly bill cut off date.

As someone mentioned, just pay the bills yourself.

[smutcakes]

Never trust a Thai to do anything for you that involves money or your passport / ID.

Many Thais are honest, kind, generous and lovely people and many are the opposite - it is not always easy to tell the difference and foreigners most often come across the latter kind.

Added to which as a foreigner you will seen as stupid in the eyes of many Thai people because they are indoctrinated from birth that Thailand is the best country in the world and the centre of it and everything Thai is wonderful - you are not Thai therefore you are stupid.

Plenty of other countries do the same thing but many of those in the west have educated populations who can by and large see through at least some of the BS as they grow into adults. Thais unfortunately do not have the benefit of education to a large extent and as a result are unable to think for themselves therefore behaving as children throughout their lives.

What an awful post- i think you are mixing with the wrong elements of Thai society, or your attitude towards them is bringing the worst out of them.

[nosatisfaction]

Pay the bills yourself and avoid the worry about if they are being paid or not, simple answer but I would not trust a condo association, if you are being cut off then the bills are not being paid.

As I noted, that is my plan.

Never experienced this, I paid only once at the board since I was late for payment at 7/11 due to a business trip, got receipt, the 20Thb are normally for motorcycle to make payment at the designated Company, True, electric, etc. On the bills you get normally about 10 days for payment at 7/11 or Tesco, some bills can not be paid at Tesco , have to be at 7/11. I pay the rent directly to the landlord account, if someting has to be fixed , either he sends someone and it's fixed or the board sends someone we pay , get receipt and deduct from rent. Yes , indeed interesting to know what buiding, but not take overhasty conclusions, as True like many other Companys make" mistakes", in their accounts, had it in house I rented previously.

Take care.

[onni4me]

Never trust a Thai to do anything for you that involves money or your passport / ID.

...

What an awful post- i think you are mixing with the wrong elements of Thai society, or your attitude towards them is bringing the worst out of them.

My attitudes must be similarly bringing the worst out of them then...I would NEVER trust any Thai outside my family to deal with my passport or money. You can call me whatever you want but giving downpayments or my personal IDs to someone that I remotely know, is bad thinking.

I don't care if my attitude is what it is, better safe than sorry.

What comes to this thread, I always pay my bills at 7/11. They charge - if I remember correct - 10 baht per bill and True and electric bills can be easily paid through them. They do not allow payments after the due date but since I am always early it has not proved problematic.

I work here and if any Thai would be asked whether they trust some condo staff, I would be not surprised if the answer would be a negative one. If Thais don't trust Thais, where does that leave us? We should since we foreigner? We rich? We stupid? Come on, smutcakes, get real!

[Fookhaht]

Never trust a Thai....

Many Thais are honest....

So which is it? A very confused, racist post.

[smutcakes]

Never trust a Thai to do anything for you that involves money or your passport / ID.

...

What an awful post- i think you are mixing with the wrong elements of Thai society, or your attitude towards them is bringing the worst out of them.

My attitudes must be similarly bringing the worst out of them then...I would NEVER trust any Thai outside my family to deal with my passport or money. You can call me whatever you want but giving downpayments or my personal IDs to someone that I remotely know, is bad thinking.

I don't care if my attitude is what it is, better safe than sorry.

What comes to this thread, I always pay my bills at 7/11. They charge - if I remember correct - 10 baht per bill and True and electric bills can be easily paid through them. They do not allow payments after the due date but since I am always early it has not proved problematic.

I work here and if any Thai would be asked whether they trust some condo staff, I would be not surprised if the answer would be a negative one. If Thais don't trust Thais, where does that leave us? We should since we foreigner? We rich? We stupid? Come on, smutcakes, get real!

Reading the original post again, perhaps my response was a bit over the top- there are just some parts of the post which i find quite lazy generalizations. Of course in any country in any walk of life you will run into people who are not great, but i still believe that the vast majority of Thais etc are generally good people and honest. Like you i would not give my passport to any old Thai, but i would not give it to any old American,Aussie etc etc not so much because i don't trust them to do something dishonest, more the fact that it is such a ball ache to replace should it be mislaid etc

Also the part where thai's think we lack intelligent, i just disagree with that part- the fact I have worked over here for 5 years in a Thai company with 2,000 people means the Thai top brass obviously do see the need for foreign expertise.

[Minnehaha]

whose name is on the electric bill?

whose name is on your receipt for paying electric bill?

If the owners name is on the electric and the True contracts the bills will be issued in their names, not yours.

Is it possible there was confusion because the kids accepting your payment gave you a receipt for payment in your name and then it did not get matched later because they did not have an original bill to pay against, which was in the owners name? Or maybe the girl who took the money was quitting in a week and disappeared with cash.

You should ask to see the juristic person and have a conversation. Make small talk and explain you are confused and do not understand something. Bring a Thai speaker, for translation and to run interference. Confronting people directly is never a good idea and should always be avoided in Thailand. Particularly if you do not speak Thai. It always makes things easier to have a 3rd party neutral to diffuse the accusations.

[jellydog]

I would say its incompetence more than anything else. If you have a management team looking to make a bit of cash there are far easier and more profitbale avenues to pursue, with little realistic chance of being caught.

It could also be a genuine case where they try to wait until a specific date to go and pay everything together, so it is not necessary for one staff member to being constantly going to pay the bills.- perhaps the date they go is around your monthly bill cut off date.

As someone mentioned, just pay the bills yourself.

I don't buy the incompetence angle. We're talking about a total of four bills paid by me, and none of them applied to two different service providers over a period of two months. Also, the bills should be paid by the condo association within a reasonable amount of time following my payment to them. Two months is ridiculous by anyone's standards. I suppose there is an outside chance of abject laziness, but I think they are up to no good and trying to take advantage of me. I couldn't say if it is because I'm non Thai or not. The large majority of the condo residents are Japanese.

I'm going to speak with the owner of the apartment later today to see what his take on this is. He is Thai and speaks fluent English. Among other questions for him, I'm going to find out who the owner of the building is, and if possible contact him/her.

As for naming the condo building in question, I'll wait on that until I gather more info. If I'm not satisfied with answers and explanations, I'll post the name of the building. No sense in harming the innocent, assuming there are any.

Edited July 28, 2013 by jellydog

[jellydog]

whose name is on the electric bill?

whose name is on your receipt for paying electric bill?

If the owners name is on the electric and the True contracts the bills will be issued in their names, not yours.

Is it possible there was confusion because the kids accepting your payment gave you a receipt for payment in your name and then it did not get matched later because they did not have an original bill to pay against, which was in the owners name? Or maybe the girl who took the money was quitting in a week and disappeared with cash.

You should ask to see the juristic person and have a conversation. Make small talk and explain you are confused and do not understand something. Bring a Thai speaker, for translation and to run interference. Confronting people directly is never a good idea and should always be avoided in Thailand. Particularly if you do not speak Thai. It always makes things easier to have a 3rd party neutral to diffuse the accusations.

The bills are in my name. Nobody has quit the office. All the same people. And, for what it is worth, they don't on the whole seem a very personable bunch. As if they are doing you a favor by talking with you. Somewhere between haughty and dismissive.

[MeowBundit]

So much speaking about nothing, sorry...

Of course, condo management do not send someone immediately and past due date of the bills. The best thing to do now is to clear situation with past bills, then pay bills yourself.

Personally, I never pay any bill even in 7-11. Because... all bills can be payed online. From any place in the world. I dont know about True, but electricity bill amount shows in Kasikorn Bank account bill payments, you just need to know contract number. And TOT bills can be payed online, even with international credit or debit card. In my condo only water must be payed to condo juristic person, but 100 baht/month is nothing to discuss...

A little bit management yourself... Regards.

[Malthus101]

I love how the bills all come in Thai so you have no idea what they say (unless you read Thai) but when the letter arrives telling you your payment has not been received and that you must pay a fine, oh that is in English.

I was told my monthly elec should be about 800. I live in a 1 bed condo. I have 2 A/C units. If one is on, the other will be off. Both off when I go out. Maybe 1 on at night if it's hot but not all night and only 27/26 degrees.

Haven't been using the TV. A shower every morning. Yet my first bill came to 1200. A big jump from 800.

This whole bill payment hing is a pain in the ass. Why can't they just do a direct debit from my Thai bank account each month? That's how all bills arre paid in the UK. Fire and forget.

Thailand.

[Suradit69]

"An employee noted my receipts, called True, and service restored within a half hour."

That would suggest that the problem had to do with True. If True actually had not received the payments they would not have restored the service immediately just because someone phoned them. They'd want some cash and probably charge for restoring service.

Edited July 28, 2013 by Suradit69

[CIHUAHUA]

Money moves one way in Thailand. Keep your receipts !!!

[jellydog]

"An employee noted my receipts, called True, and service restored within a half hour."

That would suggest that the problem had to do with True. If True actually had not received the payments they would not have restored the service immediately just because someone phoned them. They'd want some cash and probably charge for restoring service.

Please. The problem had nothing to do with True, or the electric company. Read my posts more carefully.

[BuriramRes]

Pay the bills yourself and avoid the worry about if they are being paid or not, simple answer but I would not trust a condo association, if you are being cut off then the bills are not being paid.

You can pay True by internet transfer. I think also the electricity. I have arranged for my electric bill to be paid by direct debit from my bank account.

[Emdog]

I would not say incompetence, in that when "mistakes" are made they are always in their favor, never yours. And criticism is not racist. There are many Southeast Asians that are competent. May we say "nationalist"? I just repeat "Thai rak Thai". Condo above mine leaked water down into mine many times. Did condo association do anything? NO. friend of mine and I went up and fixed as best we could (no shower curtain, no caulk, and those insane drain covers that act like bottle caps) Then I had small leak: they turned off my water, said had to fix immediately (which I did), and then can't seem to understand why I did not love them forever. Condo above mine owned by Thais, if you couldn't guess. I think many posters here suffer from "Stockholm syndrome" when it comes to level and type of treatment farangs get here. If we just keep telling ourselves they are nice and fair, if we rationalize all the mistreatment, maybe they will be nice..... BTW I do know many Thais that are conscientious and do a good job responsibly, so don't think of me as one of the "they are all bad" crowd. But they are much rarer than in most places.

[abrahamzvi]

I love how the bills all come in Thai so you have no idea what they say (unless you read Thai) but when the letter arrives telling you your payment has not been received and that you must pay a fine, oh that is in English.

I was told my monthly elec should be about 800. I live in a 1 bed condo. I have 2 A/C units. If one is on, the other will be off. Both off when I go out. Maybe 1 on at night if it's hot but not all night and only 27/26 degrees.

Haven't been using the TV. A shower every morning. Yet my first bill came to 1200. A big jump from 800.

This whole bill payment hing is a pain in the ass. Why can't they just do a direct debit from my Thai bank account each month? That's how all bills arre paid in the UK. Fire and forget.

Thailand.

Who says you can't have a direct debit through your bank? I have been paying my electricity and water bills through my bank, on a direct debit basis (charge is baht 5 per entry) for years, only my 3BB charge has to be paid directly. I do this on an annual basis for a very decent discount!

[robertson468]

Never trust a Thai to do anything for you that involves money or your passport / ID.

Many Thais are honest, kind, generous and lovely people and many are the opposite - it is not always easy to tell the difference and foreigners most often come across the latter kind.

Added to which as a foreigner you will seen as stupid in the eyes of many Thai people because they are indoctrinated from birth that Thailand is the best country in the world and the centre of it and everything Thai is wonderful - you are not Thai therefore you are stupid.

Plenty of other countries do the same thing but many of those in the west have educated populations who can by and large see through at least some of the BS as they grow into adults. Thais unfortunately do not have the benefit of education to a large extent and as a result are unable to think for themselves therefore behaving as children throughout their lives.

My considerable experience of "people and money" shows there are good and bad all over the World and to strike a balance on your somewhat uncomplimentary comments on Thia people, you might like to consider the following two incidents. 1) I used to own a rather large pub/restaurant/hotel in Wales and employed predominantly young female staff in the bars. I lost count of the number of these Ladies I sacked for being light fingered and were amazed when they discovered I had a variety checks and balances in place to detect this sort of thing to protect my business. 2) About 4 years ago, I went to our local fresh produce market on Koh Samui. As the Thai Lady who owns the fresh fruit and veg stall was handing me my change, I had to put my wallet down as my hands were also full of other packages. Purchases complete, I drove off home and an hour or so later sat down for lunch with my Wife, who said she needed some money to pay some of the household bills that afternoon. No problem says me and dived into my back pocket............................NO WALLET!! I searched high and low, to no avail and then sat myself down to mentally retrace my steps. I concluded that I might have dropped it in the market and raced off back, fearing the worst as it had over 100,000 baht in it. As I approached the fruit and veg stall, the Lady wagged her finger at me in an admonishing (but cheeky) manner and pulled my wallet out of her handbag, where she had put it for safe custody. I offered her a reward for her honesty and she rebuked me and declined. Ever since, I have made a point of buying all our fruit and veg from that lovely honest Lady. Finally, lack of education does not necessarily make people more deceitful; I remind you of the rampant fraud a couple of years ago perpetrated by many British MPs!

[Minnehaha]

Wow. what a thread.

Stockholm Syndrome?

When I was here 20 years ago, and was pissed off at a Thai for doing something stupid that cost me lots of money, a friend of mine listened then ... gave me some advice.

If these kinds of things do not become part of the charm of being in Thailand and you develop a sense of things and can function without it getting you bent out of shape you will enjoy life here. If you get pissed off at everything and have to be RIGHT about every little thing and treat Thais like crooks and idiots you will hate the place and be miserable. Happiness here is a choice.

I have friends who hate the place and many who are quite happy. Myself, I choose to be happy.

[WonnabeBiker]

You have figured it out pretty good!

At my condo, they have been incapable of collecting the HOA fees for many years. Some owe in excess of 500,000 Baht.

They love it as they are freeloading as someone has to pay the bills...

They shut down on of the elevators. And when the second elevator broke down, they failed to make that call and get it repaired.

More cash flow issues as an explanation for this behavior?

We are on the 5th floor and desperately unhappy.

Before you buy a condo, you better check out who owes how much HOA fees in that building!

Then there has been a string of financial irregularities followed by resignations.

[isawasnake]

True has these little payment machines inside malls and coffee shops. You need a credit card, but I have been using those, they work great.

[smutcakes]

I would not say incompetence, in that when "mistakes" are made they are always in their favor, never yours. And criticism is not racist. There are many Southeast Asians that are competent. May we say "nationalist"? I just repeat "Thai rak Thai". Condo above mine leaked water down into mine many times. Did condo association do anything? NO. friend of mine and I went up and fixed as best we could (no shower curtain, no caulk, and those insane drain covers that act like bottle caps) Then I had small leak: they turned off my water, said had to fix immediately (which I did), and then can't seem to understand why I did not love them forever. Condo above mine owned by Thais, if you couldn't guess. I think many posters here suffer from "Stockholm syndrome" when it comes to level and type of treatment farangs get here. If we just keep telling ourselves they are nice and fair, if we rationalize all the mistreatment, maybe they will be nice..... BTW I do know many Thais that are conscientious and do a good job responsibly, so don't think of me as one of the "they are all bad" crowd. But they are much rarer than in most places.

To be fair a private condo unit leaking water into your unit has nothing to do with the condo association or management, it is a a problem for you to resolve between you and the other private unit owner. Property management of a condominium, is the management of the COMMON AREA, not inside yours or any other units space, that is your responsibility.

[smutcakes]

I would say its incompetence more than anything else. If you have a management team looking to make a bit of cash there are far easier and more profitbale avenues to pursue, with little realistic chance of being caught.

It could also be a genuine case where they try to wait until a specific date to go and pay everything together, so it is not necessary for one staff member to being constantly going to pay the bills.- perhaps the date they go is around your monthly bill cut off date.

As someone mentioned, just pay the bills yourself.

I don't buy the incompetence angle. We're talking about a total of four bills paid by me, and none of them applied to two different service providers over a period of two months. Also, the bills should be paid by the condo association within a reasonable amount of time following my payment to them. Two months is ridiculous by anyone's standards. I suppose there is an outside chance of abject laziness, but I think they are up to no good and trying to take advantage of me. I couldn't say if it is because I'm non Thai or not. The large majority of the condo residents are Japanese.

I'm going to speak with the owner of the apartment later today to see what his take on this is. He is Thai and speaks fluent English. Among other questions for him, I'm going to find out who the owner of the building is, and if possible contact him/her.

As for naming the condo building in question, I'll wait on that until I gather more info. If I'm not satisfied with answers and explanations, I'll post the name of the building. No sense in harming the innocent, assuming there are any.

Your post is very confusing, do you live in a condominium or an apartment? If a condominium, how can you find the owner of the building? there is no owner. If you have an owner you live in an apartment building where the management company is employed directly by the owner- in this type of set up I would say corruption would be more prevalent.

Do you have a condo association? (if you live in a condominium) I presume you mean management? By the sounds of things you seem a little confused yourself, and perhaps are mixing up whose responsibility it is to do what, this may be one of the issues here.

[jellydog]

I would say its incompetence more than anything else. If you have a management team looking to make a bit of cash there are far easier and more profitbale avenues to pursue, with little realistic chance of being caught.

It could also be a genuine case where they try to wait until a specific date to go and pay everything together, so it is not necessary for one staff member to being constantly going to pay the bills.- perhaps the date they go is around your monthly bill cut off date.

As someone mentioned, just pay the bills yourself.

I don't buy the incompetence angle. We're talking about a total of four bills paid by me, and none of them applied to two different service providers over a period of two months. Also, the bills should be paid by the condo association within a reasonable amount of time following my payment to them. Two months is ridiculous by anyone's standards. I suppose there is an outside chance of abject laziness, but I think they are up to no good and trying to take advantage of me. I couldn't say if it is because I'm non Thai or not. The large majority of the condo residents are Japanese.

I'm going to speak with the owner of the apartment later today to see what his take on this is. He is Thai and speaks fluent English. Among other questions for him, I'm going to find out who the owner of the building is, and if possible contact him/her.

As for naming the condo building in question, I'll wait on that until I gather more info. If I'm not satisfied with answers and explanations, I'll post the name of the building. No sense in harming the innocent, assuming there are any.

Your post is very confusing, do you live in a condominium or an apartment? If a condominium, how can you find the owner of the building? there is no owner. If you have an owner you live in an apartment building where the management company is employed directly by the owner- in this type of set up I would say corruption would be more prevalent.

Do you have a condo association? (if you live in a condominium) I presume you mean management? By the sounds of things you seem a little confused yourself, and perhaps are mixing up whose responsibility it is to do what, this may be one of the issues here.

I'm not confused about the essentials of the situation.

As usual, this thread has been semi hijacked by posters with one agenda or another.

Knock yourselves out.