Advice on Paying Bills

Once you have finished being a tourist and have decided to live and work in Bogota, you will experience a whole new set of challenges when it comes to daily routines. For example, even going to the grocery store can become an adventure.

Paying bills is one of those adventures of living in Bogota because it is so different from the way that bills are paid in the United States. Most of it stems from the fact that Colombian culture does not trust online payments and prefer to pay everything in cash. Therefore, expect to pay all of your bills in cash. This is were the hassle begins. Each bill that you pay will require that you go to a different location in order to pay each bill as cash payments are only accepted at certain banks, grocery stores, and utility offices. For example, you may have to go to Bank A to pay one bill and Bank B to pay another one. Not only is it a matter of making it to several locations to pay separate bills, but also consider the time it takes to wait in line, fill out forms, and travel via public transportation. When you have at least 5 different bills to pay every month, it becomes a lot of work - especially considering that all of this could be avoided by paying bills online.

My advice is to try to pay as many bills as possible at one location or go to a mall where you can find most banks near each other. Most bills can be paid at a CADE or go to a mall like Unicentro or Andino where there are seval banks open after hours. Fortunately, since there is such a high demand for people to pay their bills, banks are usually open late. Unfortunately, the lines are long, forms confusing, and you can never find a pen. In addition, customer service in general is much worse than customer service in the United States, so don´t expect it to be the same.