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Sometimes I understand the rationale here of such apps. In Africa, many electrical utilities were failing to get consumers to pay on time electrical bills. Tha
by babayega2 6y ago
Sometimes I understand the rationale here of such apps.
In Africa, many electrical utilities were failing to get consumers to pay on time electrical bills. That when we started implementing prepaid electricity meters: you estimate how much you will consume over the course of a month, you buy those kWh on a monthly basis. If they finish, the light goes out automatically.
Electrical utilities are now less dependent on the goodwill of the consumer to pay bills. And here in many african countries, there is no simple way to track a person in order to make him repay a debt.
Imagine peoples buying nice Samsung phones on a loan ( ex $560/phone is huge), how do you track them in order to get back your loan? Some hikes the price of calls and SMS, some do other things and finally other install a kill switch.
- walrus01 6y ago> That when we started implementing prepaid electricity meters: you estimate how much you will consume over the course of a month, you buy those kWh on a monthly basis These are a really old idea, there were coin operated electricity meters in the UK many years ago, in the 'everything is analog' era. https://www.google.com/search?q=uk+electricity+meter+coin&client=firefox-b-d&sxsrf=ALeKk03bpaRomkhovB_nwtOnorJVM-m_tw:1616141191838&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjbqpWN87vvAhVGK80KHacjCeEQ_AUoAXoECBYQAw&biw=1680&bih=953&dpr=2 https://www.google.com/search?q=uk+electricity+meter+coin&cl...
- mattmanser 6y agoWere? They still exist, my mate has one. It got so full over lockdown he had to whack it to fit more pound coins in. Also, every now and then he moans about finding enough coins in this day and age. I think most of those sort of meters are now prepay cards in the uk, but the coin ones still exist.
- mnahkies 6y agoInteresting I wasn't aware of coin operated traditional meters. Modern prepay meters in the UK can be topped up from your phone, or by entering a code if it fails to reach the meter. Your friend should see if they're are to get a smart meter installed, it should be free though not all suppliers install smart prepay meters AFAIK
- gadders 6y ago30 odd years ago, I had the intermediate version where it was an electronic "key" that use put money on by paying at corner shops.
- secondcoming 6y agoThis is still the case today. It's a total pain in the arse trying to find an open shop that can top-up at 11pm
- mnahkies 6y agoYou shouldn't need to top-up that late in the evening - friendly credit should be applied in most cases after 8pm, caveat elec only and it will shutoff at 8am Although some older models don't have this Ref https://help.bulb.co.uk/hc/en-us/articles/360019836271-If-you-run-out-of-credit-on-a-top-up-prepay-meter https://help.bulb.co.uk/hc/en-us/articles/360019836271-If-yo...
- mattmanser 6y agoYeah, I keep telling him, but it's up to the landlord and he's one of the starving-artist types who doesn't want to rock the boat in case he decides to put the rent up :).
- babayega2 6y agoIndeed. In our country you just pay over your mobile phone (using USSD) and you get in return a token that you can type in the electricity meter and you've finished loading electricity for the next months
- tinus_hn 6y agoThe normal way to deal with this is to either not loan money to people that you don’t trust to pay back, or to account for the risk in interest. Lending money to people and then strangulating them when they don’t pay is the way the mob works.
- baxtr 6y agoBut is this really fair for those who pay? Selecting out high risks will benefit the majority of people with low or no risk because interest rates will be lower. Side Note: That's the key reason you can't get your Ferrari easily insured with major car insurers... It is not impossible, of course, but it isn't as easy as with usual brands.
- tinus_hn 6y agoThat’s how a credit card works, if you pay in time you don’t pay internet but if you run late you pay a ridiculously high interest. This needs to be limited, otherwise it becomes predatory, people who miss one payment are immediately sucked into an inescapable vortex of ever increasing debt, because they can’t pay the interest so the debt can only grow.
- refurb 6y ago“Strangling them”? You mean taking back the thing they aren’t paying for?
- tinus_hn 6y agoThat depends on how essential you consider that thing you’re taking back to be. You probably don’t consider them necessities. Then again, if they weren’t, why would people take out predatory loans for them? Can you live without electricity? Do you have any destiny apart from poverty without a mobile phone? It depends on the society these people are living in.
- perl4ever 6y agoIt's been a thing in the so-called first world for a while to make loans on cars that can be remotely disabled for non-payment.
- mnw21cam 6y agoI lived in Kenya for a while (admittedly several decades ago). Typically what would happen was the electric company would send a letter with the month's bill out, and then the next day (before the letter arrived) they would send out a technician who would pull the main fuse out from the meter, cutting you off. Trying to argue the point ("You haven't paid your bill" - "We haven't received a bill") was futile. After this happened a few times, we just kept the gate locked.
- babayega2 6y agoIndeed. Some technicians got killed. But now, hacking the electricity meter is punishable by heavy fines defined by a special law. You get banned for never ever being again a client of the sole electric company in the country.