Paying electricity suddenly disappeared from 7-11 ibon machine

Taiwan Living in Taiwan
1

I know for a fact that I can pay electricity bills at 7-11. But today I tried to go and pay my bill… and the ibon machine didn’t have the option to pay an electric bill. I asked the clerk and he tapped the machine a few times and he himself was a bit surprised and said that this machine can only pay water bills.

Thinking this machine was having a bad day, I went to another 7-11 and the same thing happened. I even went to a FamilyMart… and sure enough, the only bill they let you pay is water.

Have all the convenience stores suddenly stopped paying electricity bills? Too bad my water bill hasn’t come yet… but now I’m afraid that by the time I get that bill, I’ll only be able to pay gas bills.

Can someone explain to me what’s going on here? If I wait a few days, will the ibon/FamiPort machines be able to pay my bills? I really don’t want to have to take time off of work just to go to the utility companies to pay my bills each month!

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Is there a reason you can’t just pay it at the counter in 7/11? I’ve never even thought of using the ibon machines to pay bills, just hand them to the clerk, beep beep beep, pay and go.

4 Likes
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Complete and total conjecture: my power bill this month came with a sheet of paper about paying with an app (I promptly threw that paper out). Maybe, for reasons unknown, they’re trying to promote the app?

But like Feef, I always just pay at the convenience store counter anyway. In my experience you only need to go to the utility companies to pay the bill when it’s late.

1 Like
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Silly me… I should have just given my bill to the clerk. I was trying to do it myself!

Thanks for the replies… I guess this was a stupid question ;).