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How Long Should Companies Make E-Bills Available?
theodp writes "If you say goodbye to paper and hello to green, you may learn first-hand that no good deed goes unpunished. Try to pay your final Verizon Wireless bill online after switching carriers, for example, and don't be surprised if you get a sorry-Dave-I'm-afraid-I-can't-do-that reply. Other vendors may curtail e-Bill services 30 days after you end service. And a promise of access to up to seven years of paperless statements is somewhat empty if you'll be cutoff as soon as you no longer have an account. With more-and-more companies enticing consumers to go paperless, how long a period of time should the records be made available online? Should it extend beyond the life of an account?"
... i bet they are still available.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
There's some fancy schmancy new technologies called "email" and "pdf".
Why can't the companies use these amazing new technologies?
They should provide access as long as one might reasonably need it which is at least as long as the statute of limitations give one to take legal action.
I had Verizon DSL and POTS. I decided to go with the T-Mobile @home VoIP service and dropped my POTS with Verizon. I kept getting paper bills which I would then go to my bank site and billpay. About 4 months later my DSL service dropped and I got a nice check from Verizon for the exact amount that I had paid them the last 4 months. Seems that they changed my account number and I didn't notice so I was canceled. I then find out that you can't pay for just DSL at the Verizon stores but must call a third party to pay with a CC. Then they tear down the physical circuit and re-connect it. They did it wrong (mispunched the pair) and then I spend 3 weeks on phone support and binder hell before a guy comes out to look at it. It looks like I'm getting connection to the DSLAM but then we disconnect all my CPE and it still shows that I'm connected. Wrong pair.
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
For years any time I had a bill, statement, tax form or other document I thought "You know... there is a remote possibility I might just want that in a year or 9"... I'd do a quick Print to PDF and bang... I've got my own copy without any need to wonder 'how long should they keep it for me'.
Sure... the hard drive it's own could die, but because in this horrible thing called self reliance... I take steps to make sure that I will still have access to copies just in case without having to ask such questions or worry about hard drive death or house fires.
Personal responsibility... try it!
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
If it's a financial document, a record that may have tax reporting ramifications, or some other substantial document, it should be available indefinitely. I can accept having to make a request for an older record that has been archived by the system; as long as it's available within a week or so then I'm fine. But if we're going to rely on online billing and statements, we have to have a reasonable expectations that those important documents will be available for retrieval in the event we need them at some point a number of years down the line. If not, the company providing the documents should, at the very least, let customers know up front that the documents will only be available for a certain amount of time and that those documents should be backed up by their clients. All statements should be available in PDF form for easy archiving, in addition to whatever other native browser form they may be found in. For non-essential documents, much shorter retention time frames can be acceptable, as long as the company's retention policies are clearly explained to customers.
Part of the hardcore faithful who believed in Apple long before it was cool again to do so
Is it me or are people just whinging about the smallest thing? I fail to see why any institution that I've chosen not to do business with, should continue to serve me for free. If a paper trail is that important, print a copy of the bill and file it, or create PDF of the online bill and store it.
I hate how people think that reducing paper will reduce environmental impact. Trees that are used for paper grow VERY fast, and even out here in the Pacific Northwest, in logging country, I've seen the clear cut fields, but what they don't show you, is across the road is a 5/10 year old forest that is already hella bigger than you ever thought trees could grow in 5/10 years. I dated an ex-logger for awhile, and he told me, "we cannot cut it down fast enough."
If you want to save trees, DON'T WORRY ABOUT PAPER OR WOOD PRODUCTS, those industries cannot use the wood fast enough. What you DO want to worry about are the people CLEAR CUTTING RAIN FOREST LAND in order to grow enough crop in order to feed their family. Give subsidizes to every farmer near the rain forests to not go out clear cutting, and WOW! Deforestation problem solved.
"Paperless is green" is a foul's quest. BTW, I also dated a guy working at a paper mill, toilet paper, and paper towels (even nice paper towels) are made from saw dust... the scrap that is left over from making lumber. They're actually using WASTE product to make their consumer products. So, again, use as much toilet paper as you want, we won't exceed available supplies of WASTE SAW DUST.
WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
Shouldn't there be some kind of legally defined minimum along with nice availability regulations? They make them keep records on everything else!
Vonal Declosion
The e-paperwork should be active *and* available to the (former) customer as long as they would need it for any tax purposes; likewise if they discontinue or plan to discontinue then they should opt the (former) customer to be able to download digital copies for any further record keeping.
For the duration of the account, save all past bills. When the account is closed, give the consumer 30 days access to past bills, somehow. Also, perhaps the company should retain the bills for no less than 12 months after the account is closed, for legal or tax reasons.
I challenge the premise that paperless is actually green. Cellulose is rather difficult to biodegrade (if it weren't, all the trees in the world would be eaten to mush). Trees for paper making are generally farmed wood. So keeping your paper statement (even if you throw it out later) acts as a carbon sink. Hence it is good for the environment. Plus, you don't have to deal with the "whoops, that statement you need is too old" issue.
In response to the tag 'forever'.
I think we're getting too reliant on trusting other people to keep our data. Don't get me wrong, there should be a minimum (and maximum) length of time that 3rd parties keep records of our transactions... they're the 3rd parties transactions as well, after all.
Expecting a 3rd party to keep records of transactions beyond a reasonable (or lawful) amount of time is, I think, crazy. 100, 50, or even 20 years ago this wasn't expected. Of course the third parties had to keep (paper) records for a certain amount of time. Beyond that though, why should they maintain them? If I, personally, want those records then I can damn well keep them myself.
Now, I do agree with what I think the summary is asking. To a point. I think that if I had to access a phone bill (for example) it should be no harder or no easier than it was before huge multi-multi-TB databases. I don't agree that I should be able to query the database myself when I am no longer a customer. The record should be there for a nominal period (as required by law), after which it is deleted (the same as shredding paper records). During the time when the record is 'active' but I am no longer a customer, then I should be able to get a copy of that record... but, not through an online service. If I need the record badly, then I can request it, by telephone or whatever and they can manually send it to me. I don't see why the company should keep maintaining a "lookup online" service for lost customers.
Now, the real is to 'How long should companies make e-bills available' is: as long as you're a customer.
'But I want the luxury of checking things online. How can I do this if they don't allow e-access'? You can't. Bad luck. You can get a copy by ringing or emailing or whatever, you just don't have a web interface. Get over it.
How long should records be kept? As long as the law states.
My bank gives me access to my last 12 statements online, and then charges £2 to mail any older statements. If I leave, I will lose access to my online statements as soon as the account is closed. I download, store as PDF and print them on a 6 monthly cycle. The last thing we need is for goverment to spend a large amount of money creating, passing and enforcing uneeded regulations when we are capable of seeing what the terms were before we sign up.
Obviously if the item was something like a Credit Card or service which you will need to pay off then removing access to the information on what you need to pay before you are able to is an issue, but I haven't heard of this happening and would expect that the law already contains regulation that would protect against this.
Is there anything wrong with emailing the bill to the customer and letting them archive it (or not)? I know it's not secure, but neither is a piece of paper in the physical mail.
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
Thanks to Moore's law, there is very little value in deleting records except in very extreme cases, or when the data itself acts as an un-necessary liability.
If you assume that you have enough storage for the current year on hand, are you going to more-than double the amount of storage you need over the next 18 months? Very few business will say "yes" to this, and thus the cost of storing everything is DROPPING with each passing year, despite the ever rising amount of it.
We recently upgraded one of our D2D backup arrays from 300 GB drives to 1.5 TB SATA drives. For less than the cost of the original array of 300 GB drives, we ended up with 5 times the storage space in just over 2 years, meaning that the cost of the old data is now 1/5 what it used to be. We were profitable keeping that data 2 years ago, so in a sense, we are 5x as profitable keeping that same information today!
So why would we delete it?
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
If someone sent you a paper bill that you wanted in the future would you expect them to re-send it on demand, as opposed to just filing the copy they already gave you? Why should the rules be any different just because the original copy was electronic?
Here's a handy rule of thumb -- if you can see it in your browser, you can save it to your disk. Even if they don't provide a handy PDF format -- which many companies do -- you could generate a PDF locally, or even just save the HTML source. Heck, even if there was some funky DRMed format (which seems unlikely for bills) you could save a screen shot. Once you save a copy locally you'll have it forever (or at least for as long as your personal document retention policy and backup strategy permit), no matter what document retention or access policies the company has, or how long they are in business or offering electronic billing.
In my experience, paperless billing only cuts paper by about 20%. Companies and institutions that are savvy enough allow the switchover to paperless billing, are also savvy enough to have a continuous mailshot campaign. The result is that you are still mailbombed and sent changes to T&Cs, for example. The cynical view is that 'paperless billing' is Greenwash (go look that word up if you haven't seen it before) - it's really about saving the company money by not paying the third-party billing service.
"Paperless" or "Online" billing simply makes it entirely your own problem to remember to make the regular effort to access the billing information and print it off or save it (and back it up). It does not remove the requirement to keep your own archives for as long as you need them (which for financial information is as long as the taxman can ask for it!)
Many companies can and will blame you when you don't have a copy of the billing information because you didn't download it or relied on them to keep it available, from utilities to banks.
So the only way is to either archive it yourself, religiously, or have them send you bills.
$30 payment for going paperless, as offered by my bank? $30 doesn't pay for very much of my time spent downloading and saving records. I'll stick to having my bank send me the information in a handy-to-archive form on durable media so I don't have to think about it.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled"
Is anyone a bit bothered by a company fining, I mean charging, you to receive paper bills? Shouldn't the goal be to encourage without penalizing people to go paperless? Paper bills still have a use. It's a hard copy. No worries about digital decay.
I've been working as a tech at a 3rd party billing company for almost 11 years. I remember the talk when everyone was going paperless, but we print considerably more bills today than we ever have before. Several of the statements we send aren't real bills, but online activity statements for 'paperless' customers. The fact is people like their paper statement, even if they pay online. I don't know how much success Timer Warner will have with this fee, but I'd guess enough customer complaints will cause them to reverse their decision.
I'm all in favor of not receiving a physical letter for each legal document not so interesting as an electricity bill.
But what I see currently is each company/organization storing the files for me, each of them requiring a logging. And I don't want to keep the file on my own computer that is not so a sure place.
What we need is a different company in charge of receiving all these documents and keeping them securely as long as I want.
You think like a ReThuglican Jew
Just wait until we try and execute your boy The Jew Puppet Bu$Hitler Chimpy McHaliburtan.
Yes, they're still available... For a price. I just found out that my bank stores bills, balance sheets etc important information only for 18 months. After that I can for sure get those records, but it'll cost me 50 / month (balance sheets). Nice cost, eh. Stock exchange information is even more expensive. So they do for sure keep records, but you can't access those for free. That's why I store everything yearly on my own server and take backups.
I convert as much of my tax records to electronic form not to save paper, but to save storage space. With it all neatly organized in a directory structure, I have a much easier time finding that record from 5 years ago, too.
I don't get any regular paper / snailmail bills anymore (living in Finland). If possible, I've made a direct debit contract (takes only one few clicks in online bank) with all companies. Some send "official" electronic bills while other send html or pdf attachment by email. Because of direct debit, usually my bills are merely notifications not requiring any action from me.
I'm-sorry-HAL,-I'm-afraid-I-can't-pay-a-bill-I-can't-see.
They should keep the statements online forever. And they should allow access to them forever.
If they can't figure out how to do that, maybe the should ask for someone at google to help them.
-- -- Warning. Do not stare directly at the sun.
I want my bills for two reasons:
1) To ensure I'm being charged correctly.
2) To act as proof if the company feels I haven't paid them/been charged right/whatever
In case 1) I will chase them up pretty quickly if this occurs so the length isn't too important as long as it's reasonably long enough to get round to checking through the bill- 3 months would do but there's little reason they shouldn't hold them for a year or more as it's not expensive to hold them that long.
In case 2) I don't mind how long as long as there is a condition attached- that as soon as they wish to delete the bills they also accept they have no reason to dispute the bills or their payment. As soon as a company removes access to the bills they should also be entering an agreement that they accept that bill is done and dusted and there will be no more come back over it.
Whilst rare, I have heard of cases chasing people up over bills that were multiple years old before, generally due to system errors. If the bill is no longer available to me after this time though, they shouldn't have any comeback on me if they later dispute it because I can no longer verify their claims due to not being able to inspect the bill in question.
If they were really underhanded they could modify the bill online anyway of course so for anything particularly sensitive I prefer to keep my own local copies regardless but I think my above to points still hold.
Forgive me, this is simply not brain surgery. A company sends an email to it soon to be ex-customer. You have 30 days to click the button in this email and have your entire service history sent to you in text, database, or spreadsheet format. You totally automate the process. The customer get's to choose, has 30 days to change his/her mind, can implement an instant solution by clicking a button in an email, and can choose the format by which the information is sent. Upon completion of the 30 days, the records are purged, caveat emptor. This isn't hard, provide a modicum of civility, and you might even someday get your customer back when you offer a cool piece of technology worth his next migration.
It's a great service after all, but if they mail you the PDF or whatever I don't see why they should have to keep it available for you at all. Obviously it's in their best interest to do so to cut down on expensive support calls but I don't see why you should be entitled to it.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Well, maybe you can trust a German gas company, but if we are talking Verizon?, it would be hard to come up with a more dishonest, greedy, evil, self serving, mean spirited, and arrogant company anywhere on this planet.
* Carthago Delenda Est *
Last year I got a letter from my cellphone provider E-Plus (Germany) saying that if I would choose to opt for getting my monthly statements VIA EMAIL and no longer through the mail on a piece of paper I would get a 5 Euro (yeah FIVE) credit on my next bill. I thought "this can't be right" and started scanning through the fine print.
Turns out, the fineprint states that the electronically transmitted bill is in fact not a legal document, only acts as a representation of cost (for consumer convenience) and in case of a lawsuit can't be used as evidence. What that means is that in case the network decides they want to recalculate that statement and charge me for something I didn't do I have to ask them for a new copy of the bill (which interestingly costs 2.50 Euro per copy + shipping). As we all know, when it comes to disputes about bills and the company in question has to provide me with evidence I can hold against them how well that usually works. So I of course refused to switch my contract to this ridiculous option.
Anyone have similar experiences with anyone billing them? I mean, if you were offered a one time 5 buck discount in exchange for your ability to prove what kind of bill was sent to me in case of a legal dispute, would you do it?
Learn to spell, darn it.
Didn't we just have this discussion?
It's called a contract people. Are finally at the point where there is just no such thing as freedom of contract, and therefor contracts no longer mean anything? There is no duty on "the little guy" to actually download and save his own records, after choosing a paperless billing? So again we are calling for the nanny state, that which is so vilified when it tries to do the things government was founded for - protect me and my shit from bad guys, foreign and domestic - to intervene in private contracts because we don't happen to like one of the contractors? So it's a horrible slippery slope to force a rapist to turn over his e-mail account, to drain a mosquito of blood to catch a car thief, or to use technology to catch a terrist outside of the country. That's going to lead to all of our civil liberties being trampled.
But go ahead nanny state, go right on in and arbitrarily intervene in private contracts. Because we here at Slashdot are libertarians for us, and statists for the other guy.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
That's all I gotta say!
This is my sig.
Do you leave your paper mail in your mailbox hoping that it will be retained forever? No. You take it inside and file it (or maybe you throw it away, in which case this is moot anyway). So the same applies to eBills. When it's available, go online, download it, and file it.
I avoid e-bills as much as possible. Companies are stupid, decision makers in big companies are stupid. These systems aren't thought out.
E-bills need to be there for 7+ years regardless of my status of a customer or there status as a going business.
To me the real solution is that e-bills should really mean a PDF of what would be snail mailed is actually e-mail to you every month. That way I can drop the attachment into a folder and I have it even if provider X goes out of business.
Think Deeply.
What I do for the services I have which use ebilling is save a copy as a PDF. I keep a folder on my hard drive for each service I've got and their associated bills inside. Coupled with proper backups, I can go back as far as I'd like.
Tell me more about Direct Debit when the terms are changed to the company returning your payment in full if you dispute the bill, and the money stays with you until the dispute is resolved. Ie, the status quo would be restored pending the result of the dispute.
However, under the terms of the (UK) Direct Debit guarantee your payment is only returned "if an error is made". Heads up now - that means if there is an error IN THEIR OPINION, not in your opinion!
and if you don't own a Mac search Sourceforge for PDF Creator and be smart, save them yourself!
Si vis pacem, para bellum! For evil to succeed good men need only do nothing!
For a price. I just found out that my bank stores bills, balance sheets etc important information only for 18 months
My small town credit union has every single statement I've ever received since 1993 available through their online banking system. They only keep 12 months of transactions online under the various accounts but if you go into eStatements you can see every single one since your account was opened.
Gotta admit that's kinda cool.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
DISCLAIMER: IANAL. I am NOT giving legal advice.
Electronic documents are technically different from hard copy. However, delivery rules are very similar.
In short, the law must be followed. Generally with e-documents, parties should fulfill their legal obligations in that:
Other stuff:
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
Calling them to ask to send a bill on paper was useless - once they hear you aren't a customer and aren't interested in signing up again you're put into the "On Hold Forever" queue.
Got an email a month later saying I hadn't paid, but of course every email says "Do not reply to this email - if you have questions, log into your account", which didn't exist.
I finally sent them a check for what my standard monthly bill is, knowing it was too much. Since then, for three years, they've been sending me a monthly statement, by snail mail, telling me they owe me about eight dollars. Every month, for three years. Just send me a check!
I say if they are longer than a single page, make them unavailable.
Indefinitely. We all know the data is still available.
The story is right. I tried doing paperless, but they just send me an email to view my bill online.
What they should do is the electronic form of paper: send me a copy of my bill by email. That way, I can save the file to my harddrive, just as I file my paper bills in a physical file.
Until they start doing that, I want a paper bill I can put in a file in the event of a future dispute.
My ex-employer decided to stop sending paper stubs to employees with direct deposit to save money. Sure that sounds good and all, but in reality it's a major burden. After leaving because of unresolved pay issues (bonuses and what not), I applied for unemployment to help hold me over until a new job came along. Problem was, I needed to know the last few weekly earnings after I left to file the bi-weekly claims. Since I was not receiving paper stubs, I had no physical access to my weekly earnings, not mailed to me or for pick up at the store. The "e-stubs" as I called them were available only on the HR website, which required us to use our employee credentials to access. The kicker: once you were terminated in the system, so you couldn't access in store systems, your credentials were invalid for the HR website. You could no longer simply log in and look up your weekly hours + earnings to file unemployment. This also makes it a pain if you're one who keeps all pay stubs for the past year to double check your W2 and for other tax reasons. You could print them, but it was a hell of a pain and didn't print as an actual "pay stub" but more just a screen shot of the overall website. Since they used frames to display everything, the stubs required you to scroll down to see all of it, as only about one-half would show at a time. Sure you could copy/paste, but again it was a major PITA. As for the Verizon payment, I ran into that years ago when I switched to Sprint (briefly). I couldn't log into the website to see if there was any balance due, or make a payment, until I received a letter there was $30 due and it was past due so they tacked on extra fees.
Re-reading the gp, and he's probably implying he had to log into some account management web tool. Which would provide the access control. Never mind ...
Wearing pants should always be optional.
the customer has the responsibility to maintain their own records. an offer of online statements is not the same thing as an archive solution. the company should make the bills available as an easy to download solution, like a zip of PDFs by year, and leave it at that. it's the same thing as a paper bill. if you lose the files, they may be able to reproduce them for a time. after all, they still get disputes after customers leave.
There are a number of reasons why I decline paperless statements.
1) I want a physical record of each statement for tax purposes and would rather have them print it than me. (why don't I just use PDF's? - for many things I do and I backup as well, but I've seen many hard drives crash abruptly and unexpectedly and I've seen backups fail - I've rarely seen paper just fail without the presence of a flame.)
2) exactly what you're pointing out - what if I cancel my account there - will I still be able to access older statements. I think we keep anything that could impact taxes for 5 years.
3) I recently heard of a bank that is fairly prominent that had an interesting quirk in their ONLINE statements. A client of this bank had paper statements and there was an error (I believe everything had been recorded correctly, there was a MATH error of 5 cents from one PAPER statement to the next.) So, comparing the PAPER statement to last months PAPER statement revealed the error. The problem was that the online statement used the CURRENT balance and activity over the last month to GENERATE LAST MONTHS view. So online (which they're support representives look at) LAST months ONLINE statement now shows a different balance than their paper statement in fact, going back in time through all the prior statements they are now ALL off by 5 cents. This is on an account that they have to be filing tax reports on to account for every penny and they've spent a disproportionate amount of time working their way up to the "food chain" to get the problem solved.
So, I ask this question - bookkeeping practices can be audited - what about online statement calculation algorithms? Or are people sufficiently naive to think that they don't need to know HOW the software algorithm deals with previous activity as long as it "looks right to me". It sounds to me that in this case they haven't been willing to spring for extra storage to close and record the end of statement period information each month. Instead they thought their algorithm was "good enough" to be able to extrapolate the past without keeping a benchmark to compare it to.
Online statements make it too easy to rewrite history.
It might be impractical for large companies to store all of their records on-site, or even at an off-site facility that they control. That's why companies like Iron Mountain exist.
However, if you have records in long-term storage, it isn't a 5-minute deal to get it back out. First, the storage company needs to properly verify your request. Then one of their employee needs to determine where the desired item is in the secure facility. Then they have to actually get the appropriate folder/tape/drive/disk/media from storage, and document the hell out of the process. (Copy of the request and verification, who took it out, when, who they are handing it off to, etc.) Then they have to send that item to you, so you can add the cost of FedEx Overnight.
Sure, it's easy to say that companies could keep it all on the servers. However, if you had terabytes of data that only got accessed 3 or 4 times a year, would you keep that data available, or would you put it in storage and jump through the hoops for those few times you need to access it?
Reading code is like reading the dictionary - you have to read half of it before you can go back and understand it.
I needed a copy of a check I wrote several YEARS ago from my bank. I found I could get online and download scans of every check I'd written for the past 18 months or so since they went all electronic internally, but for that one they had to get out the microfilm and mail me a photocopy. (I needed proof of the cashed check)
Banks keep that stuff for at least the 7-8 years the IRS requires people to keep the same sorts of things.
But as for businesses, I'd be my personal opinion that "e-statements" are part of the service you are paying for monthly from them, and the day you are no longer their customer, they should be under no obligation to continue to provide you with e-statements.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
What about storing the PDF documents yourself?
All my e-bills get sent to me by e-mail and I store them myself.
That way -I- control how long they are made available.
This does mean, though, that companies have to make the bills available as a downloadable document.
(or users need to use a print-to-PDF program)
"I was in love with a beautiful blonde once, dear. She drove me to drink. It's the one thing I am indebted to her for."
I think any vendor or bank should hold on to this data for as long as the IRS (or other tax authority) requires you to keep records for audit and other purposes. I think this is 7 years or so in the US. This data should be on-line for at least 18 months to 2 years, but near-line or off-line, but available on request of the account holder, for at least 7 years.
Sometimes, real fast is almost as good as real-time.
Very interesting, insightful, and informative. I would have never conceived that such a thing was going on where financial records are concerned.
Give me the paper copy. I can keep it for as long as I need it and won't depend on your lazy ass ever again.
Athiesm is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.
Verizon ruined my credit because of this. I couldn't pay the final bill because they disabled my account, and in fact didn't know I still owed anything until months later when I got a notice from a collection agency. And that's what Verizon won't be getting my business anytime soon.
That is exactly the kind of service I am looking for. My old bank was recently taken over, and neither of their websites allowed me to view anything more than the past month of transactions. In addition to that disservice, the new bank got rid of the surprisingly wonderful e-banking site used by the old bank, replacing its user-friendly, intuitive interface with a shitty homegrown classic ASP checkbox-n-submit-ridden mess that doesn't support half the functionality of the old one. Not only that, but my account was inaccessible for about a week, wreaking havoc with my scheduled payments--I'm still sorting out the mess, and my credit card company is now charging me the default rate because of it. I was in the middle of composing a nastygram to my current bank when I stumbled upon this comment giving me hope that there are good banks out there.
Can anybody point me to a bank or credit union with excellent online services that has operations in southeastern PA? I'm in the market for one.
Your brain is not a computer.
Instead of making the financial account and login account the same, they should make a login account and attach your one or more financial accounts to it. Then a financial account can cease being active, but the login account can still be connected to it and thus still have access to whatever records exist.
Don't they teach loose vs tight coupling anymore? I keep finding tight coupling in so many inappropriate places these days. Kids these days have no discipline.
Companies need to start making use of the various secure means of delivering bills. The easiest way, would be to allow me to send them my GPG key (via their SSL website or whatever) and then encrypt and email the bloody thing to me. It's so simple! I get sick and tired of companies sending me an email saying "you have a new bill, come see". Just send it to me in the first place! Encryption is not that difficult. I want to be able to archive them on my own. I don't want to deal with paper, for both the inconvenience and environmental impact. I just want to file them away in a far corner of my hard drive, knowing I will probably never need to look at them again. Why is this so difficult for companies to implement?
TD Bank (Formerly Commerce Bank).
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
Let me guess... TD Bank/Commerce?
Switch to Citizen's.
We have this in most of Texas, though I think it is generally provided by the incumbent electric carrier, and not the competitive electric carriers. It is called average billing. For people who have trouble budgeting or live closer to the edge I can see it would be valuable. But for me it seems like an unnecessary distraction because I always have enough cash onhand to pay my utilities at least.
min(guarantee, N years) where N >= 2
gigabyte price is extremely cheap. 2 years does not represent any relevant technical inconvenience, even with millions of sales per year.
I happen to enjoy monkey sodomy. But that's just me.
Sending a statement by email would probably violate the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act unless it was PGP encrypted email. The financial institution could send a link by email to download the file on their website after signing in. Physical mail, while not theoretically secure, is considered secure by law. That is why the penalties are so stiff for mail tampering.
My local utilities provider once failed to terminate services after I moved out of an apartment, with automatic withdraws coming out of my bank account for utilities used by the subsequent tenant. The tenant refused to pay, so I had to sue the silly twit. Of course I wasn't receiving the bills, sent to the old address, and they charged me $25 PER BILL to print new copies.
So on top of the $240 in utilities used, I also sued the subsequent tenant for the $70 filing fee, $75 for bill printing, $30 in interest, and punitive damages of $150. Then I immediately filed to garnish from her wages, another $125 in fees, for a grand total of $690, all made possible by the utility co.'s refusal to join the 21st century.
War as we knew it was obsolete
Nothing could beat complete denial
- Emily Haines
Shortly after I posted I ended up chatting with a friend who also recommended TD Bank. I plan on opening up an account there tomorrow.
(In reply to the sibling AC, the bank I am coming from is Harleysville, formerly Willow Financial, formerly First Financial. I looked at the demo of Citizen's online banking and it looks pretty similar to the one at TD, and TD has the added benefit of a location half a block from where I work.)
Your brain is not a computer.
How about a turstworthy third party provider to work as a 'proxy' between the customer and the companies?
Here in Finland Post Office offers a service called NetPosti. It is free for all people in Finland aged 15 or over and has a free archiving for 6 years, which should be more than enough. The service it self is generally an electronic service to partly replace traditional snail mail (yeah, it's e-mail. Ha ha.).
Vast majority of the large companies, like electric companies, mobile operators etc. offer their billing through NetPosti, if the customer wants. All the customer needs to do is to allow the company to send their mails and bills through NetPosti. The company then automatically starts to send electronic bills instead of the traditional paper ones and the customer doesn't have to worry about what happens if the contract with that company ends.
In addition, a load of official forms (more than 1000 says the site) can be sent through NetPosti.
Saving the environment is an arguable issue. Sure, not producing paper, shipping it, printing and mailing creates carbon emissions, but so does the computer usage. A Finnish science magazine (Tiede) compared reading the paper online or ordering to home and the conclusion was that at least with the glossy magazine paper the saving is notable. However, if multiple persons in the same household read the paper, the paper actually is more ecologial than using a modern computer to read it online.
Roger's and Telus here in Canada seem to be battling for how poorly they can implement ebilling. Both claim to support simply making a PDF of the bill instead of sending a paper version of it. Neither seems to know much about how to send a file to a client computer via http.
Rogers web site would claim that, when I use Safari on MacOS X, the ebilling system is unavailable, and yet, if I then switched to FireFox on the Mac, it would download the PDF. I complained about this. Their fix: now it says the ebilling system is unavailable for FireFox on the Mac as well. On Windows, FireFox has no problem downloading the PDF.
Telus web site worked in a similar fashion. When I called them about it, the guy I talked to wanted my user name and password. When I wouldn't give out my password, that was the end of him trying to "help". I wound up switching back to paper bills.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
til the end of humanity or the end of time, which ever comes later. Storage is cheap & fast & these companies save postage & time & money & collections & dead trees & shipping & printing & ink & shipping & fossil fuels to move this paper around & they beg us over & over again to go paperless, then when we do, they keep 12 months online. It is stupid & absurd. I want to see every bill & its datestamp & amount & how it was paid & datestamp on that & every detail til the end of time, like a huge general ledger for my account. I also want to download it in any format I want at any time of day I want. Get this, Key Bank, wont let you use their Line Of Credit site after business hours (central time) Um, you ever heard of California before? What is your problem? Stupid & absurd. I also want a $0.25 discount monthly for going paperless. I also want a thank you for going paperless. And, last (and I am talking to you Qwest) once I have gone paperless, I want you to stop sending me notes every month, in the mail, on PAPER, to try to get me to go paperless. (so, let me get this straight, Qwest has one of the most sophisticated RDMS in the world with super talented engineers poking it all day long & they cant stop printing, stamping, mailing me paper to get me to go paperless?! Is that what I understand? Really? Seriously?)
I have my Fido bills sent through my Bank's (RBC) online bill payment system, so I no longer have to go to Fido's site to access them. Bonus is that no matter what day I pay it, the bank will actually make the payment and debit my account on the bill's due date (or whatever date I choose.)
The typical bank statement is what, two kilobytes of data, even if you include redundant things like headers? Are you telling me it is too expensive for my bank to store less than one megabyte per customer in order to offer 40 years of statements online?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Forever. Geez. Given Moore's law it just can't cost as much as mantaining the USPS.
I was involved in a situation where the city was refunding a portion of property taxes. The city's records didn't go far enough back and they refused to pay until we dug out the cancelled cheques from 30 years ago. You never know when you might need your records.
I'll never willingly choose e-billing or e-statements. The only time I have accepted is when the bank blackmailed me with stupidly inflated fees to stay with paper.
I'm still PO'ed at that bank. People going with e-stmts should get a break. I shouldn't have to pay extra for the same service I had been receiving for the last five years.
Ah, US law. I wonder why my (UK) bank also won't do it, despite being very internet-aware. perhaps some similar law?
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
Are you telling me it is too expensive for my bank to store less than one megabyte per customer in order to offer 40 years of statements online?
Maybe from a privacy standpoint it is? I mean, couldn't a hacker do more damage to the bank's clients with 40 years of transaction history rather than just 18 months? Perhaps not, but I don't know for certain. Just a possibility.
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
Well, that's what you get for going with a bank. Go with a Credit Union, who's actual purpose is to serve thier members, not shareholders.
Banks suck, and shouldn't be used for anything.
...paper don't dump. The IRS just might need to be shown some of that crap someday.
...Lorenzo / I'm into kinky crustaceans. I just discovered internet praWn.
...you can snail mail a damn check! I like having options in my hip pocket. Technology is nice, but not bullet proof.
...Lorenzo / I'm into kinky crustaceans. I just discovered internet praWn.
...But as for businesses, I'd be my personal opinion that "e-statements" are part of the service you are paying for monthly from them, and the day you are no longer their customer, they should be under no obligation to continue to provide you with e-statements....
Let me know if I have found a flaw in this with the following:
The company forces the customer to go to an electronic statement. (..perhaps not in this specific article, however in the future...)
The customer leaves that company, therefore per your argument they are no longer under any obligation to provide the information, the e-statements.
Warrants are issued for the information because of suspected wrong doing...what is the company's obligation to provide this information?
If an individual can be accused of fraud by the IRS for up to 7 (or 10) years from today, would not that business have a legal responsibility to provide the information?
If said company has destroyed the records, since the customer is no longer a customer...what than? Are there any financial, tax or legal laws that require the company to maintain the records for either 7 years or 10 years as an individual must?
If so, than the company must maintain these records for that minimal period or be legally in jeopardy. Is this right?
Personally I believe it would be cheap insurance to pay the .99 cents fee in order to have a paper copy stored and available should you get audited...say for a minimum of 7 years.
If you are charged with criminal activity, do you need financial records for 10 years or only 7 years?
Is your Internet Throttled? Install DD-Wrt, OpenWRT or Tomato to learn the truth! Google: 1Gbps/1Gbps: 5 Communities
...TD has the added benefit of a location half a block from where I work...
When looking at TD Bank's website, I noticed that they use interactive data. Interactive Data's terms of services states:
All information provided by ComStock, Inc. ("ComStock") and its affiliates (the "ComStock Information") is owned by or licensed to ComStock and its affiliates and any user is permitted to store, manipulate, analyze, reformat, print and display the ComStock Information only for such user's personal use....
...NEITHER COMSTOCK NOR ITS AFFILIATES WILL BE LIABLE TO ANY USER OR ANYONE ELSE FOR ANY INTERRUPTION, INACCURACY, ERROR OR OMISSION, REGARDLESS OF CAUSE, IN THE COMSTOCK INFORMATION OR FOR ANY DAMAGES (WHETHER DIRECT OR INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR EXEMPLARY) RESULTING THEREFROM.
Pretty standard stuff, however I started wondering who the affiliates were and how they might use your banking information?
There were 18 ripoff reports, FYI...considering that all banks have negative reports, and 18 is pretty low...as long as Interactive data and their affiliates are not mis using your data it sounds like a decent bank all in all.
If a bank uses Chexsystems (most do, but not all) be aware that if you get a negative report in chexsystems for any reason, it becomes very difficult if not impossible to open a new bank or checking account anywhere else. Check out these 137 reports to learn about this from others mistakes. Personally based on what I have seen, that 137 number appears to be very low, so check on other search engines as well.
Helpful link concerning chexsystems here. Remember that this information, even after you pay it current, remains on chexsystems for a minimum of five years, good luck.
To be safe, maintain a minimum of two bank accounts at all times, preferably three, so that if one bank does something stupid (anything customer no service) you can find a new bank first, before you drop the offending bank. Never drop an account until you have a replacement bank account open, otherwise you might have problems opening a new account. Remember that many banks have relationships with other banks and that makes it harder to find two banks that are not related. Make your third bank a Credit Union or Savings and Loan as they will honestly work with you when a regular bank will not.
Remember you catch more flies with honey, so treat the people you are talking to with respect and you will find that you get respect in return. Save the yelling for somewhere else as that just insures that they will NOT help you.
For instance use Google Finance to look up information on companies that are publicly traded. Refer to the Related Companies section (its right after the chart) to see if two banks are related. Did you know that while Bank of America and Washington Mutual use to not be directly related as they are today. However even back in the day, prior to December 2008, both banks were indirectly related via both Citibank and Wells Fargo. Today they are directly related vi
Is your Internet Throttled? Install DD-Wrt, OpenWRT or Tomato to learn the truth! Google: 1Gbps/1Gbps: 5 Communities
The company forces the customer to go to an electronic statement. (..perhaps not in this specific article, however in the future...)
I don't think they can do that. I've had 1/2 dozen companies offer me a perk of some sort to go paperless, but it's always been an option. My bank for example, (a credit union, excellent way to bank!) will let me do electronic billpays (even those that require manually mailing a check) for FREE if I go paperless, which I did. Only saves me about a buck a month (on stamps) but it's nice. Plus I can just save my statements as PDFs on my computer and review them at any time without keeping a shoebox full of statements on the shelf in the closet.
I fully expect my statements to no longer be available to me electronically if I leave the bank, and I also fully expect to have to pay for a print copy of a statement after we part ways also. I don't see why anyone expects free service after you are no longer a customer...
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
I guess I'm just spoiled.. but why do people still use 'banks' ? (In the US anyway.. I can't attest to other nations and how C.U.s are handled)
I've been a happy customer/(and technically co-owner) of a Credit Union for a fairly long time.. They've yet to do anything stupid enough to get me pissed off about and I stare at people in amazement as they deal with silly archaics like "Deposit Slips" and "Ooh we have 'same day deposits!'" (I have -that minute- deposits). I'm not bent-over from behind on fees.. never paid for ATM use (except in cases of privately owned ATMs like at a nightclub or something).
I guess if you travel alot or otherwise need diverse locations and/or there's just not a Credit Union in your neighborhood, that's probably the only reason.
I'm probably missing something.
Sorry if I sound like Clark Howard here....
----- The internet has given everyone the ability to have their voice heard equally as loud.. even if they shouldn't be