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?"

Comments

Problems happen no matter what...

[-=[Dr. AJAX]=-]

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.

Re:Problems happen no matter what...

[Red Pointy Tail]

I've been using a leading online banking portal in Malaysia to pay my bills and do other stuffs like 3rd party transfers.

One of the problems is that it does not show the running totals with the online statements - only the credits and debits and the most recent balance. I had a friend who had RM1000 (~USD263) 'disappear' undetected for some time from his online transfer - it was not until he updated his bankbook (that gives a running total) that he noticed something amiss. Apparently, after contacting the bank staff, it transpired that the system somehow registered a bill payment of RM100 but debited the account for RM1000. So this is a warning for all you *******2u.com users out there, let the user beware :)

Re:Problems happen no matter what...

[sporktoast]

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.

Aw, cmon! If paperless is good enough for something important, like voting, then it should certainly do for something as insignificant as your personal finances.

I won't give them the satisfaction.

[digitalvengeance]

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.

Re:I won't give them the satisfaction.

[hawkstone]

they refuse to allow me to get my bill online and off

I do almost all of my bills online. Interestingly, my credit card company allows me to keep getting my bill in paper even though I pay the bill online. (It's not that interesting in that they're not the only ones doing this for me, but judging from this comment, I'm guessing it's not uncommon to disallow it.)

Here's the problem, though. They keep "offering" to stop sending me my paper bill. First question: why would I want to stop receiving it? It's an automatic reminder that it's due, it leaves me a way to pay by check if I change online banking companies, and it's a nice double-check that they're not screwing me.

Continuing on: when I choose to stop receiving my paper bills (by a simple mouse click online), they won't allow me to go back to receiving them. I might be able to do so if I sent them a letter or something, but still.... Zero incentive to stop receiving the paper versions.

Re:I won't give them the satisfaction.

[Prior Restraint]

I assume you're joking about the envelope-licking, but one incentive to go paperless is that it reduces their costs, which means they'll be capable of charging you less. These days, it's easy enough to roll any balance to a new card, so those with good credit can demand a lowered APR (case in point: about a year ago, I decided to cancel one of my cards, and told the sexy-voiced woman they transferred me to that another credit limit hike wouldn't make me change my mind, so they offered to permanently drop my APR to 6%; that changed my mind).

Re:I won't give them the satisfaction.

[space_biker]

The savings aren't that great...here's why:
The cost of sending an invoice includes the cost of paper, printing, processing, and postage.

1. A little less than half the total cost is postage, per item.
   Your provider gets a discount on bulk mailing. When you choose to go electronic, the bulk discount gets upset and the remaining mailings cost more per item. It's not just the quantity in the mailing, but also the density. Cable companies usually get good density, whereas credit card companies probably don't.
   
2. The cost of processing is fairly static. As long as they're processing any mail, they have the same costs: printer/maintenance, warehouse, paper, etc. The less that they have to process, the worse the return on investment. At some point, if there's enough participation in online invoicing, the company will realize a greater savings by outsourcing their mailings (if they don't already). And depending on their contract, less mailing may not mean a linear cost reduction).
   

So, you'll probably not see the savings passed on until they can see concrete dollar savings themselves, which won't likely happen until the participation rate goes high enough. But even more likely is that the savings will be spread around more and you'll never see them because they'll be hidden in the delay of price increases on services.

...Ew...I think I've been infected by the Marketing Dept...

Paperless Billing

[calcifer]

I bought a doughnut and they gave me a receipt for the doughnut...I don't need a receipt for the doughnut - I give you money and you give me the doughnut, end of transaction. We don't need to bring ink and paper into this. I can't imagine a scenario that I would have to prove that I bought a doughnut. To some skeptical friend, Don't even act like I didn't buy a doughnut, I've got the documentation right here... Oh, wait, I left it at home. In the filing cabinet. Filed under D. For Doughnut. -Mitch Hedberg

Digitally Signed Bills

[Knetzar]

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.

Statement Life

[aaarrrgggh]

My biggest problem with online statements is that they are only kept online for six months. Between doing taxes and reconciling business expenses, that isn't nearly long enough! It doesn't seem logical for that sort of limit.

Anybody know a credit card company that keeps records for at least 18 months? Citibank is killing me!

Paperless != No Statement

[thecampbeln]

I get a PDF statement emailed to me from my Aussi telephone company and save $5/month to boot. Best of all, just have to file the PDF into a network folder and I've got a "hard copy" to refer to.

Paranoia is good

[jtheory]

I've paranoid about my bills, too (and I save my paper bills, in a stack, for years and years, after paying them online and marking them with the date, amount paid, and payment id). It's useful now and again, like when I look at my phone bill and wonder if it's always been that high.

And once I got a credit card company to reduce my APR again when I had an extremely valid complaint that the notification sucked (there was no text in any actual bill mentioning the change).

But I've never dealt with an error. Once my bank screwed something up, but they noticed it themselves and fixed it before I even complained.

The thing is, I can't quite move to the paperless bills just because they seem so easy to abuse. Even if I save a copy of the email or webpage, an HTML file is child's play to alter, even for a layman; forging or altering a paper bill is tougher.

I think what we need is electronic bills, with a way to archive a verifiable copy locally. I.e., if it's signed by the company's private key, etc. etc., you can prove you didn't tinker with it.

We also need a format for bills such that they can be plugged into the standard money management programs directly.

Is anyone doing this? It would be nice to get rid of those stacks of old bills.

lazy

[jptechnical]

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 ;-)

You just wait....

[HotNeedleOfInquiry]

Until you get hepatits from that doughnut you bought. Then you'll wish you had a receipt so as you can sue the doughnut maker's pants off...

Re:You just wait....

[zulux]

Until you get hepatits from that doughnut you bought. Then you'll wish you had a receipt so as you can sue the doughnut maker's pants off...

Maby if you left their pants on you woulden't get hepatits as easily.

Don't trust them for reminders to pay

[menscher]

I've got a credit card (Citibank) and when I went paperless I asked that they email me each month to remind me to pay it. Worked wonderfully for a year or two, and I saved a few dollars on stamps and checks. Then one month they never sent the email, and I didn't pay. They charged a late fee. Fortunately, I log *all* my incoming email, and I could prove they never sent the reminder. They decided to waive the fee THIS time, but if there is a next time I'm responsible. Yeah right. There hasn't been a "next time" yet, fortunately.

Re:Don't trust them for reminders to pay

[space_biker]

I agree...Don't rely on the e-mail as a reminder. Just because you don't get the bill, doesn't mean that you don't have to pay. Any company will gladly re-send the bill if you didn't receive it as expected.

Related to the original question, I work for a local cable co. and developed their e-mail bill notification software. Once the bill is sent we don't really care about keeping a copy ourselves. We record the transactions and are usually able to reproduce a bill that closely resembles the original. Since going to e-mail notification, we needed a way to store a static image of the last two bills. That's only for the customers convenience. As far as auditing goes, the only thing that makes any difference is the transactions. When you get the bill, we have to be able to prove that the items on the bill match the transactions that we have on file. There's too many customers to review them individually, so its always up to the customer to review their bill for accuracy (We've made a lot of mistakes that have cost us money and they rarely get reported... whereas, if you get overcharged, you'll bet we hear about it).
Oh...and sometimes the paper bills have just as hard a time getting delivered.

Paperless rocks.

[ffsnjb]

In the last five years I've been able to get down to writing out 2 checks a month (rent and my net connection - time warner sux and I can't pay it online.) Everything else (I have a ton of bills) gets paid online, and I don't get statements sent.

I went through my filing cabinet last week and rid myself of all past credit card statements (so many cards in 5 years, all at lower and lower rates). When I was done, I had shredded an entire drawer full of garbage. The best part is that I can't fill it back up because I don't get paper sent to me. The only thing I kept were the account closed notices, but only until I order a new credit report to verify closed accounts.

Save a tree, man. Get rid of the paper (and recycle your shredded stuff!)

Some problems

[flonker]

My roommate tried going paperless. The telephone company double charged him, and then refused to refund the money. Instead, they gave him a credit for the amount. Problem being, he needed the money they took for food. (He has a nasty habit of letting his bills pile up until they're $300, $400, or more, and only paying when they threaten his service.)

He also had the gas company claim they didn't receive payment. They did. He showed them proof. Problem resolved, but it was still quite a hassle.

Long story short, he doesn't do any electronic billing of any sort anymore. (BTW, we're on the south side of Chicago, in case anyone cares.)

Re:Some problems

[duffbeer703]

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?

paytrust / paymybills

[Anonymous Coward]

i've been using paymybills.com (now paytrust.com for years now.

I am a rather disorganized person, so i was looking for some service to simplify my management of bills. Online banking services at the time i signed up for paymybills only offered bill payment, not bill receipt. even now, i don't think that anyone else provides such a complete service.

with paytrust, the beauty (or terror, depending on your viewpoint) is that they receive all of your bills. Bills that are electronically deliverable are handled electronically. those that are not are snail-mailed to them, where they have an army of drones ready to scan them in as jpgs so that you can view them online.

there are the usual email notifications, scheduling, selective automatic payment of bills( you specify which bills, when, how much, limits, etc, as you would expect). you can also write checks like you would with a bank online payment system.

yes there are privacy concerns, and it is a little scary to no longer physically recieve bills (but also nice! less mail!) but i wagered that paytrust, a company in the business of providing this service was less likely to screw up than me, someone highly experienced at screwing up bill paying. to my knowledge, paytrust has yet to make any mistake. Something very private doesnt have to be sent to them.

i cant recommend them more highly.

Re:paytrust / paymybills

[ClioCJS]

Yes, paytrust/paymybills rules. I been using it since the Anthrax attacks. I put my tinfoil hat on and didn't answer the mail at all for 3 months. Got me removed from all the junkmail lists because they thought I was dead. I encourage everyone to try it, it's only $9 a month.

Re:paytrust / paymybills

[ClioCJS]

You can moderate it as funny, but it's all true.

It actually took me 2 or 3 days of consecutive phone calls to the post office to get my mail started again.

What about a Combo?

[fuzzybunny]

I have my account with the Swiss post office, which works pretty nicely (although you could insert any Swiss bank in its place--bank transfer numbers are standardized and inter-bank payments don't cost extra.)

There are some regularly occurring, fixed-amount bills (gym, rent, etc.) for which I have standing payment orders. Anything occasional or variable, I get a paper bill in the mail, with a payment slip.

This is about 1/3 of an A4 piece of paper, containing recipient, amount, and payer, as well as bank info. It has a long-ass numerical code (about 25 numbers) which, along with the recipient account, I have to type into my online banking page.

When I've paid a bill, I just write 'paid date xyz' on the slip and archive it for 2 years--works a charm. The post office also sends me a paper printout of my account activity every month.

It's a great system, it sounds like it's a lot of effort, but I can pay my bills once a month within about 20 minutes time, including archiving paperwork. And I have both electronic and tangible means of tracking my payments.

Re:Your worries are without merit

[pbox]

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.

Re:Your worries are without merit

[DrDemento]

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.