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

Speed is mostly irrelevant

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

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.

Not Advantage, it's Labor and Postage Costs!

[Irate Engineer]

The push to paperless statements has nothing to do about the customer's desires, or the "going green" hogwash they advertise on the envelopes. The companies are pushing for paperless because paying people to print them out, stuff them envelopes, and then paying postage for 100k's of customers every month is an regular expense that eats into their bottom lines. Automatically pushing out a pdf by email, or posting it on a server, costs pennies and doesn't require nearly as many employees to accomplish.

This push is analogous to the self-scan checkouts at the supermarket. They're just trying to get rid of staff and get you to provide the service yourself.

I will always get paper statements from Comcast and I will always pay the monthly bill with a nice paper check because that is the only way I can screw with the bastards.