1. Why should I pay online?

There are 4 good reasons why you should pay online:

1. It's simple - there are only a few steps to take
2. It's safe - we don't hold your personal information and the transmission of credit card information takes place directly with Bank of America over a secure connection.
3. It's fast - the average time to pay the bill is about 5 minutes
4. It's at your convenience - Online payments can be made at any time of the day or night - 24 x 7
5. Saves Money! - No stamps, no driving to City Hall, no parking

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2. How do online payments work?

Here's what happens when you pay your bill online:

• Once you've entered your account number, viewed you account information and chosen how much to pay, your browser will redirect you to the Bank of America payment site. This secure site will allow you to enter your credit card details and make the payment.
• For your security, the City of Albuquerque does not keep a list of credit card numbers, so each time that you pay a bill you'll need to enter the number again.
• Once you've paid the bill, you'll be returned back to the City of Albuquerque web site where you'll receive a confirmation number. It is recommened you keep a copy of this confirmation for your records.
• The City of Albuquerque and Bank of America will reconcile your payment so the credit will appear against the bill (the duration of this activity may vary but will take around 40 minutes).
• Please note that it may take up to 3 business days for the transaction to post to your account and be reflected on our web site.

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3. How secure are online payments?

Online payments are made directly with Bank of America on their secure website using a secure connection. This minimizes any possibility of your personal information being intercepted by unathorized persons. Of course, you should still exercise the same amount of caution when giving payment information online that you would when making payments over the phone.

The City of Albuquerque only keeps the credit card confirmation number after a successful payment takes place and does not hold any other personal or credit card information about your transaction.

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4. Where can I find my account relationship information?

Each relationship you have with the City contains different methods to obtain the information in our systems. A summary of those are provided in the below.

• Vendors: Federal Tax ID Number of business
• Water, Sewer & Refuse: Upper right-hand corner of your bill. From the 5th of July 2005 onwards, the new bill layout will be as shown below:
  

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5. I'm getting a "Session Timeout" message - what does it mean?

You will see this message on the Bank of America site if you've not refreshed the web page for a while. This is a security feature and is there to make sure that no-one can pretend to be you and use your session. If you see the session time out message, you should hit the back button on the browser until the message disappears.

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6. I'm getting a message saying "You are leaving a secure site" - what does it mean?

For your protection, the Bank of America uses a secure way of sending information between you and the bank. The "You are leaving a secure site" message is just a notification to let you know that you're not using this secure connection anymore. You should always click the OK button to get taken back to the City site.

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7. I'm an AOL or Compuserve user and I'm having difficulty connecting to the Bank of America website.

A number of AOL and Compuserve users sometimes report problems when being redirected to the Bank of America site. These problems may include:

• The browser hanging and not connecting to the bank's site
• A "page could not be found" error message being returned instead of connecting.

Here is a list of things that you can try (this list contains some contributions from AOL tech support and the Bank of America):

• Make sure that the AOL parental controls have been turned off
• Try to make a payment by connecting with AOL and then opening and using Internet Explorer
• Make sure that you're using an up to date or supported browser (there have been problems with unpatched versions of Internet Explorer 4.0 and Internet Explorer 5.0)
• Make sure that the Windows security settings in the Internet Options control panel are set correctly (requires good knowledge of the Windows OS)
• Make sure that the settings in the Internet Options control panel allow you to make SSL (types 2.0 and 3.0) connections (requires good knowledge of the Windows OS)
• Empty the Internet Explorer cache, close all Internet Explorer windows and try again
• Contact AOL tech support

Please note that the city is not responsible for problems arising from any changes to system configurations.

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8. How do I send my payment by mail?

You can still make utility bill payments through the mail. Send a check (with the account number on the back) along with the payment stub to:

City of Albuquerque
PO Box 1313
Albuquerque NM 87103-1313

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9. What website browser do I need?

The new water bill system supports online payments made using the following website browsers:

• Internet Explorer 6.x
• Netscape 7.2 or later

The supported browser must have both Javascript and cookies enabled.

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