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Paperless Billing?
Bruha writes "Almost all of the bills I receive today have the option to go paperless. I already pay all utilities and creditcards online but have yet to tell them to stop sending me a physical bill even though they heavily advertise the advantages of it. My concern are mistakes they could audit out and claim were not there. Has anyone experienced any problems with paperless billing or are my worries without merit?"
Use the paperless option only with companies you trust, ie the ones that have a premium customer service.
I think mistakes could be made either way. Personally, I'd be checking both against my own records rather than errors between the two version of the statements.
My credit card provider has been trying to get me to go with online billing for a while now, and to be honest, it would be easier for me - but I just won't give them the satisfaction.
They save money when you choose to get your bill online only, and so they refuse to allow me to get my bill online and off, though that would be truly customer-centric. So, until they offer to give ME a portion of the savings from mailing every month, they'll just have to keep licking envelopes.
Josh.
How many roads must a man walk down? 42.
I just with companies would send out digitally signed paperless bills. That way one could keep them on CD and use them to show that a mistake was made (if one was made). Until that happens I will continue to keep paper bills.
Although now that I think about it, I audit stuff as soon as the bill gets sent to me (ok, so in my world that's a few weeks), if there is a problem I call and fix it right away. Whats the difference between paper and email when I call to say that my bill is wrong? For everything (except for maybe banks) you should have proof in another account, such as to prove you paid your credit card bill, just check your bank statement.
Ok, now I'm confused about what I should do.
Ever heard of PDF995? At the least you could pdf your statements. There are a number of ways of storing your statements. If you cant get your statements from 6 months ago because you didnt save them it's your fault, not theirs.
;-)
I am lenient in consideration of your low slashdot number
Boredom's not a burden anyone should bear.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
In other words, if you are an idiot who cannot pay his bills in a timely matter, paperless bills suck?
Did your friend ever consider that he might have food money if he wasn't paying so many late fees?
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
You cannot realisticly project your good 2 years of experience for your entire lifetime of let's say 50 years. You are saying that it worked for 4% of time time (and counting), well that is not an assurance I would feel secure by.
Of course the companies advertise it heavily, since it would certainly reduce their costs of mailing, etc.
I chose a half-way solution, where I get paper bills, and I pay them online. Works fine for me, and I get to keep the paper trail.
Code poet, espresso fiend, starter upper.
Jesus the christ, you guys can react to the most innocuous things with a level of rabidity that really doesn't do a lot to support your opinions.
First, the original question seemed to be asking for personal experience, which Tim_F gave. I know it's hard to figure out, because he used difficult words like "I" and "my" and "me" to indicate personal experiences.
Second, only through willfull misunderstanding could a person read Tim_F's post as a strict, unyielding defese of paperless billing. Nowhere his post do I see where he guaranteed that no one, at any time, could have problems with paperless billing. He did say "your worries are without merit," but that was just taken from the original question in the first place.
In short, personal experience was asked for, and he dared to give it. I suppose he also broke some secret rule that seems to be in effect prohibiting l33t slashdotters from actually answering a goddamn Ask Slashdot with a useful answer, rather than one of a billion recommendations, no matter the subject, that forgetting their idea and building their own open source version would serve them and society much better.
Do any actual scientists work here, or is it just one long game of truth or dare?
http://wut.rhps.org
Look at it this way:
Companies like to assume their customers are liars/thieves and are lying to weasel out of having to pay.
Companies will always believe the incorrect data in their computers rather than the truth you speak when you call them to complain.
Since the burden is always on you to prove them wrong, having paper they generated to back up your assertions is vital. Going paperless deprives you of this ammunition.
Paperless won't truly work until companies stop this "the customer is always lying" attitude.