Paying Bills
There are various ways to pay bills in Sweden. You can pay with cash (a less and less preferred option), use the mobile app Swish, use bank cards, direct debit (autogiro), or pay later with invoices (faktura). Everything is fine when you pay bills on time but what happens when you ‘forget’ or ‘miss’ paying on time and risk receiving an inkassokrav?
Unpaid bills
With autogiro comes great responsibility. If you have bills to pay, it is your responsibility to ensure that your account has enough funds. On the other hand, you may also decide not to pay an invoice for various reasons (some reasons defy logic – read about the gym membership example later).
With every invoice, there is a due date (förfallodatum) by which you need to pay the bill. If the bill is not paid by the förfallodatum, the company/person you owe the money may ‘sell’ this debt to a private debt collector.
Inkassokrav
Inkassokrav is a debt collection invoice sent by a private debt collection company (inkassoföretag) that has taken over the original debt, which means the receiver of the bill has transferred it, and this comes with a surcharge in the form of interest and reminders.
Usually, inkassokrav must be payable within a few days – often less than a week. Hopefully, you are not in the midst of moving, where the invoice may end up at the wrong address (thanks to the digital mailboxes like Kivra).
When you receive an inkassokrav, you need to
- pay immediately.
- if you believe the invoice is incorrect, contact the company that sent it.
- if you can not pay on time, at least try to call the debt collection company and explain the situation.
If this does not happen, just like before, the inkassokrav company will transfer the collection of debt to Kronofogden.
From inkassokrav to Kronofogden
Now, the bailiffs (Kronofogden) are the level you do not want to reach. Kronofogden takes over the bill and just like inkassokrav, there is an additional charge added.
Kronofogden can seize your salary in case you do not pay on time. They can also ‘knock on’ your door and seize your property and auction it off to recover the debt.
If the debt at kronofogden is not paid on time, the credit reporting companies decide whether you get a debt payment remark (betalningsanmärkning) on your personal number (nationwide profile).
As a private individual, the debt payment remark remains on your profile for three years (five years if you are in a legal profession). A payment remark on your profile makes life difficult in Sweden. It becomes very hard to:
- get a mobile phone subscription.
- get a rental apartment – remember the credit check when you look for apartments?
- buy anything in instalments.
- obtain a bank account.
1000 ways to end up with an inkassokrav
It is so easy to have unpaid bills, especially with the autogiro payments. It could be a rent payment, a broadband payment, or even a gym payment. The gym scenario is interesting at this time of the year and something to keep in mind.
Accessing gym
To access a gym, you need to pay for the service and access to facilities at a that gym. With this, you need to pay certain charges:
- Gym subscription: It can be monthly, every 3/6/12 months, or a set number of visits (klippkort).
- Gym membership: Some gyms are part of an association (förening) with other gyms. It makes it possible to ‘pay once, access all’. This is payable per calendar year.
Pausing / Ending gym
Let us say you want to pause/to end your gym subscription. You would (or I would) think that, if you stop paying the gym subscription, then you will not be allowed access to the gym (which is the case).
On the other hand, if the gym (not all gyms, though) is part of an association, they may assume what that they were expecting that money anyway but they did not get it.
So you receive a reminder to pay up, often as a first step before an inkassokrav is issued. This means you need to brush up on your Swedish skills to avoid missing information (and please do not ignore the reminder). Excuses like ‘it was in Swedish and I did not fully understand it’ do not get you off the hook – not even on the trams in Gothenburg.
A 226kr bill can quickly double to 468kr, and this is before the gym informs you that you need to give one month’s notice before leaving the gym.
Summary
Keep track of your bills and pay them on time, especially if you are using autogiro. An inkassokrav in itself is not harmful, but it is inconvenient and it increases the bill. Furthermore, any unpaid bill can end up in inkassokrav and the service can be requested by both individuals and companies.
