Paperless Statements Not Always Best Choice, Says New Report

HughPickens.com writes: Ann Carrns reports at the NYT that despite a push by financial institutions to switch customers to digital statements from paper, the traditional hard-copy version may work better for some people, in particuar particular, older, less educated and lower-income consumers who may lack fast Internet connections at home. According to a new report from the National Consumer Law Center, even consumers who know the Internet may simply prefer paper, because statement notifications can easily be overlooked in a deluge of email. Also unlike paper statements, which can be neatly collected and filed away, going paperless on multiple accounts will mean having that information scattered under different user names and passwords. You may also be surprised to learn you have to pay for copies of some older statements. "If you have a system for organizing your paper statements, you should think about how that's going to translate online," says Jim Bruene. Finally you may not be able to go back as far with paperless statements. At Verizon, cellphone customers get up to 12 months of past statements. Customers can also request older statements dating back seven years for $5 per copy.

Under federal law, banks must obtain consent from consumers to deliver statements electronically. But banks are sometimes aggressive in encouraging customers to opt out of receiving paper statements. Last summer, holders of some Chase credit cards received pop-up ads when they logged into their accounts online, asking them to switch to electronic statements. The notice said "Action Required," even though no action was necessary if cardholders simply wanted to continue receiving paper statements. The screen showed buttons for "accept" and "manage my preferences," but not for "decline."

Comments

Re:Not Advantage, it's Labor and Postage Costs!

[penguinoid]

Stupid efficiency, saving money and resources. I'll show them!

Re:Speed is mostly irrelevant

[zm]

For bank statements, or any other official correspondence, what I really need is a (a) complete, (b) permanent record that is (c) automatically and (d) reasonably securely moved to be (e) 100% under my control.

So far, the only way that happens is if they mail me paper copies. It is remarkable that we have yet to solve this apparently simple problem with a more technologically sophisticated alternative, but until we do, I will continue to opt out of getting statements [only] electronically.

If only someone invented a device that can be used to make a hardcopy of a document that is available online, your problem would have been solved.

Re:Banks just don't get it.

[fhage]

When opening any account that may generate taxable income, I always ask; "Will you send me a summary tax statement at the end of each year?"

Lately, the reply is "Yes! After you register and create an account, just log in and then swipe right on the PersonalServices emoji floating on your landing wall, pin "MyDocuments" to the Selector area, zoom out, scroll down, and long tap the individual statement in the list. You'll get a Special Offers flyer while you wait for your statement to be 'retrieved'. After it's done, the down arrow shaped cloud in the bottom right corner will turn gold so you can swipe it. Be sure to get our free app in the play store which provides you an EyeView and can squirt the doc to your tax app. If you still want to use a PC, click on the steam punk binocular icon, located on the PS wall to bring up the MyTeller IE plugin ..."

Me:That's nice, but I'd prefer we exchange public keys so you can send me signed statements in PDF form via email, that only I can open. I have several popular forms of U2F keys as well as my public key files on a USB stick.

Them: "We can't do that because email is not safe. That's how computers get infected."