Comments on: Pros and cons of paperless billing

By: Save a Paper, Save a Tree, Save a Dollar

Save a Paper, Save a Tree, Save a Dollar — Tue, 08 May 2012 12:44:13 +0000

[...] yourself the problems you would incur if a statement were to be lost in the mail. Also, as the Little Green Blog points out, you’ll have a much slimmer file [...]

By: Mrs Green

Mrs Green — Mon, 31 May 2010 09:12:37 +0000

@Eco-John: Hello John, What an interesting conundrum! I’m not sure how you go about avoiding this in future - wouldn’t your accountant accept pdfs of your statements?

By: Eco-John

Eco-John — Sat, 29 May 2010 09:36:58 +0000

I have been on paperless billing for all my bills for nearly a year now. All well and good until the accountant asks for a copy of all my bank statements for 3 years to do my tax! I had no alternative but to print out all my statements again for their records. I might have saved a world of envelopes doing it this way but I did nearly cry at the reams of paper I had to print off any suggestions of ways to avoid this would be appreciated!

Secondly, I get my internet line rental with BT. I can look up my bill online but only go back 6 months. This made getting records earlier than this impossible. Not the end of the world but a bit of a pain.

By: Mrs Green

Mrs Green — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 14:54:48 +0000

@Clare Josa: Great comment Clare; thanks for sharing your experiences. I don’t find the BT system to be great either. It’s sporadic when I get notification of my new bill being available to view. Like all things, it’s a balancing act between helping the environment and helping ourselves!

@Lara S.: Hi Lara, this argument doesn’t surprise me. I don’t know enough about facts and figures to make an informed choice, but it makes sense there are other factors involved in online communication. Your boyfriend seems to know a lot about this!

@Gloria: Anything that simplifies things is good in my book Gloria! I agree with you - being thoughtful about our choices, and perhaps frequently coming back to the table to see if we are doing the best we can is the way forward. Like you, I’m a visual person, so I do need to see things to be reminded of them and this is an adjustment in the paperless world.

By: Gloria

Gloria — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 13:56:56 +0000

I have been selective about paperless billing, and how I pay. Probably not the solution for everyone, but what I have been doing is getting some of the bills (typically utilities but not yet for phone; we have phone company issues) as a paperless bill, and then pay through my credit union’s free Billpay option. This simplifies memorizing too many passwords (!) and centralizes my payments through one site which allows me to see my payment history easily.

I still enjoy/need the visual cue of the paper for major things, such as credit card bills, in part because there are several people who use the same account, and we need to double-check all the expenses. For business, it seems best to still maintain the paper trail (!) for the seven years that is recommended by accountants, hence…

I agree with the poster about externalized costs of going paperless (versus using paper and the Post Office)… would love to know a way to analyze that, but it seems pretty hard! I think the main thing is to be thoughtful about the choice…

By: Lara S.

Lara S. — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 03:49:18 +0000

I think we shouldn’t take for granted that this is a good solution or that it will save energy or trees. My boyfriend says that with the increase in the information the servers are charged with, the need for refrigeration of the machines is also increased. And if the servers get too full of information, new machines will be bought and need even more refrigeration. I mean, refrigerated at very cold temperatures every day of the year. I don’t know much about this, but it sounds reasonable that everything that is not printed and sent to our doorstep has to be stored somewhere, and just maybe paperless billing isn’t as green as we think.

What do you think? Have you ever heard of this idea?

By: Carnival Of The Green #217 | Fake Plastic Fish

Carnival Of The Green #217 | Fake Plastic Fish — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 23:40:55 +0000

[...] the amount of disposable items we buy is even better!” Mrs. Green also wonders about the Pros and Cons of Paperless Billing. “If every household in the US switched to paperless billing, we could save 16.5 million [...]

By: Clare Josa

Clare Josa — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 08:57:40 +0000

Hi Rae,
Great post - very balanced discussion.

I go paperless when I can.
However, for my business phone (BT), we have been paperless for years but found that BT often won’t “let us in” to our account online - it seems to randomly reset passwords, for no reason. This then takes ages to get fixed via the call centre in India. And even then, the online system won’t always let you print a VAT invoice.
So we went back to paper!

For paperless billing, I find bills get “lost” in my my inbox - or even worse get swallowed by the server’s auotmated spam filter, to which we have no access. And, as you say, you have to keep an eagle eye on your bank statement to make sure you’re not being over-charged, which has happened to us a good few times…

Yes, I’m with paperless billing to save the trees. However, I still miss the comfort of having something concrete land on my doormat, to remind me that a big bill is about to leave my bank account.

What does everyone else think?