How can I pay my electricity bill if I am overseas (or going overseas)?

I am considering going overseas for a couple of months and I will need to pay my electricity bill whilst I am away.   How can this be done?

* An advance payment?
* Payment by internet?

The electricity company name on my power bill is KEPCO.  As I will be overseas, I will not be able to access the hardcopy electricity bill that arrives in my letter box.

I would also prefer not to inconvenience a neighbour by asking them to forward me the bill details.

i think you call them and ask them to do it by direct deposit.

or just wait until you come back...

I was recently gone for 5 weeks and I just waited until I got back. I've heard of people not  paying their bill for 2 or 3 months. Apparently Korea is not that hard nosed about it. I probably wouldn't go that long but everything was still on for me after 5 weeks.

The way I see it you have 3 options:

- Set up direct payment through KEPCO. This is what most Koreans do, I believe.
- Give a friend 100k won or something and get them to take the bill to the nearest bank/convenience store and pay the bill when it comes in.
- Leave it. Korea is very lenient about bills...I'm pretty sure you can get away with about 3 months of not paying it without any penalty. I have forgotten to pay my bill/was on vacation for two months before and there was no issue...I just paid it all in one lump sum.

I was recently gone for 5 weeks and I just waited until I got back. I've heard of people not  paying their bill for 2 or 3 months. Apparently Korea is not that hard nosed about it. I probably wouldn't go that long but everything was still on for me after 5 weeks.

I agree with TyphaneeV and Canonite.
Don't worry about not paying it, theres no serious penalty.

But if you are really worried about it, just sign up for direct deposit from your bank account. Get your co-Teacher to help you.

Your school should take care of it. You paid a housing deposit, that will cover it, then they will send you the remaining balance (if it exists). Make sure to talk to them about it.

Ha. Ha.  I used to work for a power company in my home country.  If the power bill was not paid by the due date, the customer's electricity was generally disconnected the following day. 

They later changed this policy and started providing "disconnection warning letters".  Apparently customer complaints declined dramatically when they started doing this.

I will look at the direct payment option.  I wonder if they will deduct the money from a foreign bank account instead of my Korean bank account?  If not, I may have to transfer some money into my Korean bank account.

Thanks for all those responses.

I was kind of hoping that I could:

* log on to a KEPCO website with a customer number
* determine how much I had to pay
* then pay from overseas with my foreign mastercard.

I take it from the responses, that this is not one of the payment options.

I think paying from a non-Korean bank account would be dang near impossible, better to just keep it simple and leave some money on your Korean bank account to cover it.

What you've outlined would be a neat system, but this is a country where you can't even buy stuff off Gmarket with a foreign credit card...I wouldn't bet on KEPCO having such a system....leave some money in your Korean bank account, set up automatic payment and forget about the whole thing and enjoy your trip :D

I think paying from a non-Korean bank account would be dang near impossible, better to just keep it simple and leave some money on your Korean bank account to cover it.

What you've outlined would be a neat system, but this is a country where you can't even buy stuff off Gmarket with a foreign credit card...I wouldn't bet on KEPCO having such a system....leave some money in your Korean bank account, set up automatic payment and forget about the whole thing and enjoy your trip :D

Thanks.  This does sound like the best option.

It takes 4 months of non payment before your electricity gets turned off. I'd rather not tell you why I know this information. Enjoy your trip!

4 months!!!!  That is astonishing. Thanks for the info.

fee is about 1-2k a month for being late.  but they dont turn it off for only missing a couple months payments. 

best thing to do is ask a trusted friend or co-worker to contact them. OR arrange with your boss (if you work at a school this is easy) to pay for it, and you re-reimburse your boss....when i say 'easy' i mean i have never had any problems with making this arrangment. especially if you give your boss CASH ahead of time. *if you can make a legitimate estimate of what you will owe.

- Set up direct payment through KEPCO. This is what most Koreans do, I believe.

I plan to set up this automatic payment system in the next week.  Can someone please clarify if this can be done through:

*KEPCO
*My bank
*Both of the above.

You should be able to do this through your bank.

 I took my most recent bill, passport/ARC (whichever you used to set up the bank account) and my bank book to set it up and now it just automatically comes out of my account. :)

You should be able to do this through your bank.

 I took my most recent bill, passport/ARC (whichever you used to set up the bank account) and my bank book to set it up and now it just automatically comes out of my account. :)

Gold.  Thanks so much.