To think that just a few years ago, you had to visit a NEPA office or a Cable TV outlet to pay recurring bills such as Electricity and Cable TV subscriptions. It took a lot of time and cash to transport yourself to those places.
In recent times, the major challenges I have faced are the fear of exposing my ATM card details on multiple apps and websites just to pay bills and the annoying extra N100 convenience fee I have to pay.
Last weekend, I had some guests over, unfortunately I ran out of electricity. As usual I picked up my phone and logged into my regular bill payment app. For some reason I couldn’t complete the payment with my bank card. I kept getting a ‘FAILED’ error message despite making 6 attempts with 3 different bank cards. You can imagine how frustrated I was.
One of my guests, Tunde, noticed my struggle and suggested that I use iRecharge. Honestly, that was the first time I came across the name. I did a quick Google search and the first thing that came up was a message that said “EVERY METER HAS ITS OWN BANK ACCOUNT NUMBER” and that all I had to do was transfer money to my meter’s permanent bank account number to get my units instantly. Seeing this, what came to mind was that there was no need to expose my card details anymore, no need to download a new App and no need to pay a convenience fee of N100.
This information motivated me to give it a try. I clicked on the link-https://www.irecharge.ng/retrieve-account and proceeded to retrieve my meter’s permanent bank account number which was also sent to me via SMS. I saved this account number in my contact as – My house meter.
I actually wanted to buy N5, 000 worth of units, but I wasn’t sure about this platform, so I decided to try it with something smaller. I transferred N1, 000 to my meter’s bank account number using my bank’s USSD code. To my surprise, a few seconds later, I got an SMS with my token.
As a tech enthusiast, the ease I experienced making this payment prompted me to go back to the platform to know more about them. That’s when I realized that this service is also available for my Cable TV Decoder. This means that my decoder has its own permanent bank account number too and all I had to do was transfer the value of my subscription to the account for renewal.
If you are reading this, I would recommend you try this service and tell us what you think about it.
Other ways to retrieve your own permanent meter and Cable TV decoder’s bank account number are by dialing *6606*1# or via their WhatsApp chatbot 0909 666 6612.
As I am writing this article, I have saved my meter’s bank account number as a beneficiary on my banking app. This has actually made my subsequent payments easier. I suggest you do the same.
Although the digital era has ushered in quite the lineup of internet powered bill payment platforms and websites, an innovative service like iRecharge stands out.
Everybody wants ease especially when it is free.
By the way, use my Referral code ‘IST2022’ when retrieving your own meter or decoder’s bank account number so I can earn N50 whenever you buy and you get to save N100 whenever you pay your bill.
You can also refer your friends and family and earn N50 whenever they pay their bills.
Follow this link and sign up to get your own referral code;
https://www.irecharge.ng/register
