Dealing with paying bills continues to befuddle. I just received

Dealing with paying bills continues to befuddle. I just received a water bill for my house from a bill paying company hired by my comune. This company is known as PagoPa. Because I'm not in Italy full time, the only option I can use is paying by credit card. I tried paying with three different cards(BTW I pay other utility bills with a credit card--gas and electric; I pay taxes and TARI with a wire transfer). The cards did not work. The credit card companies say it is on the Italian end. I contact PagoPa who says it rests with the credit card clearinghouse they use in Italy. I can't reach them. PagoPa says that then I must contact the comune. I have done this with no reply. NOW, IF, there was a deadline for this water bill payment, I could simply just wait until I go there again and pay through other avenues like at the tobaccanists, or the super market, or Poste Italiane. Any ideas???

Comment

PagoPA is not a company, it is the national system for paying public administrations.  It is entirely designed, unsurprisingly, for Italian users, and will require a 'domiciliato' credit card for payments.   If the comune is sending you the water bill, its a safe bet it will wait till you next go into a tabacchi in Italy. 

R.Bisaccia,

open the document where you are asked to pay, surely, in some part of the sheet, you will find the name and email address, or the website - write to them and ask for the IBAN code, then pay with a normal bank transfer - I I always do it without any problems -

Thank you so much for your suggestion. I did communicate with PagoPa who suggested I contact the credit entity they use. The trouble is, in filling out the form I was unable to complete it at the part which required a phone number. I tried writing that in all kinds of ways using both my U.S. and my Italian telephones. Indeed, I pay for TARI and IVU taxes with bank transfers(wire transfers) and I pay for gas and electric bills with a credit card. But this thing is a whole other story.

As it turns out all your info was great. I finally reached the right person at the Comune who saw that I wouldn't be able to pay with a credit card and so let me know I could pay with a wire transfer to them in the same way I pay TARI and IMU. I very much appreciate your tidbits of information which helped me figure it out. 

I appreciate you weighing in on that detail--because certainly, they mailed me the bill to my address in the USA. However, I also used my Italian phone number and that did not go through on the form and stopped me cold. Any advice on that? Maybe the way I entered it--formatting for phone numbers is always a problem. Thank you again.

""Maybe the way I entered it--formatting for phone numbers is always a problem."

 

Did you post it without the 0039 prefix  and without any gaps between the figures?

 

There might be an IBAN code on the bill together with your customer reference. Might it be worth having an Italian bank account so you can setup direct debits as well as topping it up with spending money when visiting italy? I accept that an account is not cheap but I am guessing that paying by credit card has its own costs. Some people recommend FINECO bank.

More great info, thank you. As it turns out the Comune got back to me and as good sense would dictate, I'm free to use the same IBAN number and account as I use for paying other taxes to the Comune. As it should be in a perfect world, and so it is. I gave up on the bank account thing because I'm not a resident and don't have a Carta d'Identita, and therefore any bank I could find where I live part of the year doesn't offer this. So far with everything, either a credit card from the U.S. or a wire transfer has worked just fine. As I've discovered Italian citizen or not, everything revolves around the identity card. Again, I really appreciate your input.