I finally encountered this which I recently understood has been adopted by many companies. My ISP assessed me a $1.00 fee for not having opted to go paperless with their billing.

I'm an old fart set in my ways and have continued to get paper billing and other documents (i.e. 1099-R, etc.) as opposed to electronic. Now it appears the option comes with a penalty for one choice. I expect the next "phase" will be the elimination of the option and mandatory electronic dissemination only.

As said I'm an old fart and this does NOT please me!

This old fart agrees.

I'm with you, and I'm late 30s

Apart from a few autodraft bills, we still get a paper bill for probably 70% of ours.

I pay the car payment by automatic transfer because I know that's not going to change.

I pay the phone and internet bill that way as well, but I get an itemized paper bill every month and I watch those devious fuckers like a hawk.

I authorize an individual on-line payment for the TV every month for the same reason.

Both credit cards (Amazon and NFCU VISA) are paid on-line monthly. Amazon is paid to the penny every month because it's a Chase card and their interest rates are ridiculous. I usually leave a small (<$50) on the NFCU card.

I authorize monthly pay-off on-line for the electric bill.

All of the above is mainly for the convenience of not having to write and mail checks.

Oil and propane are still "send me a bill and I'll send you a check" for the same reason I monitor the phone bill so closely.

quote:

Originally posted by bald1:

My ISP assessed me a $1.00 fee for not having opted to go paperless with their billing.

What ISP are you using?

I am this close to firing the one that I use.

Yeah, this burns my butt as well. The wife pays the bills around here and she likes writing the monthly checks as she has been doing for over 40 years. "Paper copy" she is always saying.

Don't know how much longer we can hold out before they start dinging us for the privilege..

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:

quote:

Originally posted by bald1:

My ISP assessed me a $1.00 fee for not having opted to go paperless with their billing.

What ISP are you using?

I am this close to firing the one that I use.

It's a regional ISP (Midcontinent).

I'm also am old fart who is retired. Difference is that prior to my retirement three short years ago, I worked in the voice and data engineering and design field. Technology was my thing. Latest and greatest and bleeding edge kind of stuff. Everything I did was electronic. For me, I prefer to not have any kind of paper floating around. If I have a dispute with a provider, I copy the error and send an electronic message. This way there is an audit trail that has every single detail spelled out.

I went paperless with CenturyLink last fall. After that, I never got an email bill, which is supposedly one of the features of paperless billing. As a result, I racked up several months worth of late charges (not getting the e-bill, out of sight, out of mind).
 
When I finally caught it in December, it was a mess of late charges. Thankfully, customer service erased all of the late charges once I explained how it was their fault for never sending an e-bill. I am happy to pay the $1/month for a paper bill. I understand there are costs involved with preparing and sending out a paper bill, so the $1 seems worthwhile, to keep me up to date on my account. It should not be necessary, though.
 
The same thing happened to me a couple of years ago with APS (electricity provider). Went paperless, never got the e-bill. Funny thing with them was that before I went paperless, I would always get and e-bill and a paper bill. Once I went paperless, no bill of any kind. I caught that one a bit sooner.

I like most of this new infernal internet technology but I also like paper and even writing checks and mailing them....

It is obvious to me that all these young computer gurus who are creating this stuff will be much happier when we old stuck in the mud geezers are dead and gone.

I mostly don't mind paperless billing. The big downside is not seeing the details right there, especially with credit cards, to remind me of exactly what I've spent on. It is too easy to remain oblivious to wasteful spending.

I do download the electronic pdf bills. No paper to keep.

For older people like my mom, age 92, and mother in law, age 87, managing accounts online is a big problem. Heck, my mom still thinks she has to access the internet through her aol account!

I'm 63 and find technology becoming more frustrating. Dunno if I'm becoming a cranky old man or if the world is becoming less user friendly.

I’m ok with it. I keep a .xls for bill paying where I list each bill I have. On or before the 1st and 15th, when I pay my bills, I peruse each digital bill to make sure no funny business. Been in this habit for many years now as each, one by one, went and pushed digital only to save some pennies on paper bills. The good side is I don’t check my snail mail often. Only shit in there is spam to recycle.

I'm in the other camp. I don't get paper copies of any bills and pay all of my bills electronically. I do print my credit card bills but unless something appears to be questionable, I don't worry. I update all of my accounts daily with Quicken and enjoy the weather.

Yep, had a CC that was going to extort me for $2 a month. Had to go paperless. Always liked getting the paper just to remind me to pay, sometimes email or text get lost as well as clutter up the devices.

not because of the above but i've been going paperless more and more. our mailbox (central mail stand for the neighborhood) has been repeatedly broken into. even during daylight. usps is no help.

I'm also in the paper copy camp. However, I am also the volunteer treasurer of our local community water system. We serve about 330 homes. We bill monthly. It's surprising how much effort goes into printing and mailing water bills. We do it on post cards now for those who don't want an electronic copy.

We even have a few elderly folks who don't even have a computer or internet and snail mail is the only option!

We're kicking around the idea of a $1-$2 fee for the post cards. Glad it's not my job to mail that shit out every month!

As fubar'd as USPS is with missed and lost mail, think they would charge even more than a buck a bill to mail it to customers, costs way more than a $1 heck postage is more than half that.

Ebill is my preferred method, setup an email for them, get them on time, can print if I want, save pdf's, and pay electronically. E-Z, P-Z

The water company now has an option of Just in Time (JIT) payments, AKA Auto Pay. I get an email on the first of the month with my bill. The payment is due on the 15th. The JIT processor automatically charges me on the due date. I think I gave them the ACH information when I set it up. They can do CC as well for a fee.

Auto pay is great. I seem to forget to pay 1 bill every few months and incur some late payment fee, which really grinds my gears.

My wife went paperless on one of the bills . I think it was our prescription drug supplement insurance Wellcare . Every month they still send a statement and an appeal to go paperless .She tried to do it several times and they still send a statement . She gave up .

Extortion is the right word! Go paperless or pay up!