dg comments

please empty your brain below

I like online billing.

The bills don’t clutter up your house, but you can always access any bill you like at any time.

Agree passwords are a pain...

Dan | 14.04.18 - 7:14 a.m. | #

It seems unlikely to me that it's any effort for them to generate an email for you. I work with a business intelligence system and we have the system sending out automated emails all the time. I can't imagine your ISP doesn't have the same sort of thing.

I suppose with all their users perhaps it's a cost/size thing, but I wouldn't have thought one email per month for each user, containing one PDF, would be an issue. Certainly less development cost for them than an all-singing all-dancing dashboard.

Matt Buck | 14.04.18 - 7:14 a.m. | #

The worst ones are the content free emails that invite you to log in to check your bill. They distract and put all the work on you, so I add an automatic filter to delete them, and worry that actual communication from the company will be lost.

And companies that charge identical sums each month, but want to tell you each time

John B | 14.04.18 - 7:14 a.m. | #

a similar problem; some time ago Amazon introduced a new verification system for sellers. It needed 2 phone numbers, and I only have one. After a lot of emails and a conversation with Amazon, I decided this was going to be impossible, so I asked them to delete the 3 books I had on sale. Apparently they didn't, and today I heard that someone wants to buy one. I'll get £40 if I can access the system, but so far Amazon haven't replied to my email. All this modern technology...

amber | 14.04.18 - 7:37 a.m. | #

My former employer switched over from paper to online payslips in 2011.

It's much more convenient, they said, as they forced me to remember an 8-digit ID number, a complicated password and the answers to four ambiguous 'memorable' questions.

Now they've made me redundant, of course, I have access to none of it.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 14.04.18 - 7:58 a.m. | #

The other annoying thing about not receiving paper bills is how they're often asked for for identity verification purposes, like when you're setting up a new bank account. I'll agree that by far the worst part is having umpteen different online log-ins and accounts you've got to remember to worry about.

Medford | 14.04.18 - 8:17 a.m. | #

I'm impressed that you've stayed with the same internet provider for so long. There can't be many which haven't been subsumed into bigger companies in the intervening years.

dg writes: It got seamlessly subsumed a few years ago, but the original name still appears on the invoice.

martin | 14.04.18 - 8:26 a.m. | #

I think you have the right to ask your former employer for access to your previous payslips. They'll probably have no way of sending them electronically so would print them and post them.

martin | 14.04.18 - 8:30 a.m. | #

One of the many benefits I found when I moved to Apple infrastructure 6 years ago is that Passwords are no longer a pain, it’s all done for you.

Richard | 14.04.18 - 8:34 a.m. | #

Banks and the like put constant pressure on us to get rid of paper bills and rely on electronic.
But if you need to go through a big financial transaction (eg mortgage) or be vetted for a job, the very same banks refuse to accept self printed copies and insist on originals on the banks headed paper.
Oh the irony.

IslandDweller | 14.04.18 - 8:39 a.m. | #

It's exactly this sort of billing system (which applies to most utilities now - unless you pay extra for a paper bill) that makes many people not have a clue where their money gooes, and to be unwittingly overcharged as they don't bother to log in to check their bills.

While one has to keep financial info for 6 years for HMRC purposes, many banks don't give online access to statements for this long. Some will give you free printouts of older statements - but some try to charge you for them.

Progress, eh?

Blue Witch | Homepage | 14.04.18 - 8:41 a.m. | #

I suspect the process is an attempt to stop id fraud and money laundering. If your email is hacked a utility bill in pdf form is just there for the taking, ain't it.

B | 14.04.18 - 8:45 a.m. | #

As I have a shared letterbox any reduction of paper bills, and mail in general, is a good thing. This became particularly obvious when a visitor to another flat, who required a SIM card, decided to steal one sent to me ...

Identity verification in the United Kingdom is farcical. Web sites exist which allow utility bills to be faked. People (not in London) have commented that the Royal Mail has given up in some places - show the card put through your door which states that a parcel is waiting for you and you will be given it.

I am surprised that your employer made looking up pay so difficult. Mine is available from our intranet (thanks to single sign on) and has been for many years.

Alastair Scott | 14.04.18 - 8:48 a.m. | #

You could just check your bank statement every month and make sure the amount taken hasn't changed.

Henry | 14.04.18 - 9:06 a.m. | #

So in twenty years of checking the paper bill, there has been one error. This equates to an average error cost of 21p per bill. Over the same time, how much time have you spent opening, checking and filing the bills? How much is your time worth? How much is the storage space for keeping the bills? In my view, the effort of checking bills it not worth it. I keep an eye on bank and credit card balances for large, unexplained amounts, but otherwise, I haven't checked bills for years.

Jimbo | 14.04.18 - 9:24 a.m. | #

Opening an envelope isn't exactly difficult. It's quicker than opening a password-protected electronic file.

My time is free.

A pile containing 14 years of paper invoices would be about half an inch thick (if I'd kept them all, which I haven't).

diamond geezer | Homepage | 14.04.18 - 9:33 a.m. | #

My bank recently forced us customers to change from logging in with account number and sort code, which were easy to remember and also embossed on the bank card.
Instead we had to choose a user ID and have two new long passwords, in addition to the answers to the security questions, which I always make fictitious (last school etc - too easy to guess).
I made the user ID 'Ididntwanttodothis'.

anon (this time) | 14.04.18 - 9:40 a.m. | #

I hang onto one paper utility bill to prove I exist, as its usually one utility bill and one from the Government as proof of ID for new bank accounts etc. - apparently I don't seem to appear on the usual databases companies check against.

I have sympathy with Jimbo about what your own personal time is worth, once you start doing that, you look at things differently.

Still Anon | 14.04.18 - 9:49 a.m. | #

I am retired now (and thoroughly enjoying life); but I still don't value my time as free, even though I don't get paid for it. UserIDs and passwords can easily be automated (and should be, as you should not re-use them between sites and would otherwise have to write them down somewhere). see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_password_managers.

Tim W | 14.04.18 - 9:54 a.m. | #

I have been on the internet since 1996. I jumped at the first chance to go totally digital for billing. I love the digital system for everything, no more paperwork to archive. Everything is on the cloud, information can be downloaded everywhere at anytime.

Passwords are handled by keychain.

YDU | 14.04.18 - 9:58 a.m. | #

Even if I did value my time, opening an envelope, or a PDF attached to an email, are both still quicker than logging into a password-protected online portal.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 14.04.18 - 10:01 a.m. | #

I'm obviously an old fogey (and need to get with the programme, granddad) but I much prefer to receive a bit of paper before someone takes my money.

If the bill is paid by direct debit, aren't they required to notify you how much they will be charging each time, before they take it? Can they require you to log on to check without warning you to do so each month? Ideally that warning should include the total amount too. Perhaps a one-off notification would be sufficient if the amount is the same each time, but surely they'd have to warn you first if the amount changes?

Andrew | 14.04.18 - 12:10 p.m. | #

@B: This seems to be a statement on how trust, convenience and efficiency within Humanity are compromised because of endless greed of few.

Patrickov | 14.04.18 - 12:41 p.m. | #

My favourite billing story dates back to the 1990s, when a company I was doing a project for insisted I get an early, pre-internet email system called Mercurylink, run by Cable & Wireless.

I used it for 18 months, until the company I was doing the project for decided the first Gulf War would bring an end to the IT industry and cancelled my contract with a few days' notice.

So I stopped using Mercurylink. Nevertheless for four or five years C&W sent me monthly bills, on around eight sheets of A4 paper, analysing all the messages I hadn't sent, and providing a grand total of £00.00 that I owed each time.

Fortunately they didn't send reminders requesting a cheque for £00.00.But the bills stopped only when, I think, C&W closed down Mercurylink because we all started getting the proper internet (1996 in my case, at 15kbps).

AlanBG | 14.04.18 - 12:49 p.m. | #

Alan.... Shudder... You've reopened old wounds there. I had to deal with Mercury in my professional life many years ago. It was impossible to get coherent bills from them - an utter nightmare to deal with.

IslandDweller | 14.04.18 - 2:09 p.m. | #

The blood donating people have done a similar thing. They used to send a list of upcoming sessions by post, which I left somewhere obvious, kept an eye on and went when the opportunity arose. Now you can't even see the session dates without a username and password, and emails they send me get overlooked among all the others once they are a few days old.

Andrew S | 14.04.18 - 2:14 p.m. | #

I agree with you about envelopes being much quicker to open and cast your eye over, than having to fire up a device, find the site, go through the log in rigmarole then try to find the thing you're looking for on it!

And with the irony of being forced to go paperless while simultaneously being forced to provide paper copies (not home-printed from the sites that forced you to go paperless in the first place) for ID purposes!

I'd also get your former company to send you copies of your online payslips - not necessarily because you want them, but to a) prove a point and b) punish them for having made you redundant!!

Cornish Cockney | 14.04.18 - 2:29 p.m. | #

@ Andrew S

The blood doning website also insists you choose a date before it tells you what venues are available. Since, due to the lack of orbital transport links, some supposedly local venues are much harder to get to than others, I want to select venue first.

For that reason, and the almost complete disappearance of walk in sessions, I haven't given blood for about three years.

Norbit | 14.04.18 - 5:00 p.m. | #

The switch to e-bills is always financially better for the company and often costs the customer (victim) time and perhaps even money. The environmental issue is just to tug at our heartstrings (I greatly support making the world a better place, and try to), but most of those companies aren't exactly doing a lot for the environment.

I won't go paperless, not just a generational thing but until I get something measurably beneficial to me as well, it's a one-way street and I'm at the 'No Entry' end.

And... If you need to prove identity, via a utility bill for example, some organisations (notably those that coerce you to go electronic) won't accept computer prints, only 'originals'...

Joel | 14.04.18 - 6:00 p.m. | #

Your experience seems to be a further example of Hutber's Law (Patrick Hutber, city editor of the Sunday Telegraph 1966-1979): "improvement means deterioration".

Gordon Jury | 14.04.18 - 6:55 p.m. | #

I used to have paper copies of my bank statements, invoices and payslips for years, but turned almost entirely to paperless/e-billing a couple of years ago to reduce the storage space needed to hold all that paper as I live in a small flat.

However, what you've said about not being able to access your e-payslips just because you've been made redundant concerns me. First, it doesn't matter in what manner one leaves, all companies using online payslips should allow all employees access all the time. And second, since my employer will be making it mandatory for next month, I need to contact them to confirm what will happen to my access if I leave...

| 14.04.18 - 7:22 p.m. | #

I don't trust password managers. My inexpert view is that it is daft to allow villains access to all my stuff, through one single piece of hacking.

The requirements for paper stuff on original bank notepaper will surely go one day soon. Just by too many people not being able to manage it.

Malcolm | 14.04.18 - 7:27 p.m. | #

Online payslips are not the digital nirvana they purport to be. Recently I've needed my former employer to obtain several dating back more than five years. After protracted investigations it transpired that several of them had been 'destroyed in a fire'. How this can happen to backed up digital files I'm still unable to fathom. Fortunately I had made a printout of every single one of them and was able to disinter them from the loft, scan them and send them to the 'rock solid' Record Keeper of Payslips to replace the ones they'd burnt. 'Never trust a computer' is my motto.

My advice to anyone who receives payslips: Print them and keep them for ever. I am soon to be considerably better off for having done this.

drD | Homepage | 14.04.18 - 8:36 p.m. | #

Never trust information that requires you to access it on a computer. Always insist on hard, paper copy.

That's why, henceforward, I will be requiring Diamond Geezer to send me his daily blogs on foolscap paper, by first class post. These online blogs, you just can't afford the time and inconvenience of firing up the computer to read all those comments.

dg writes: Sorry, that service was discontinued in 2010.

petras409 | 14.04.18 - 10:46 p.m. | #

Ive never needed to look at an old payslip ever! Paper is far more of a security risk and shredding is even more time consuming.

Sir Biton | 15.04.18 - 3:10 p.m. | #

Drat. Having clicked on the link to the 2010 no-more-hard-copy post expecting it to be a false link, I've now been tempted to re-read more old DG posts. It could be a long night...

Andrew S | 15.04.18 - 8:31 p.m. | #

This also brings up the issue of Digital Legacy - in the old days, your executors just had to wait for the envelope to drop through the letterbox to alert them to who you had been doing business with. Now if everything is online and hidden behind password protected walls, how do they know?

Nails UK | 16.04.18 - 4:30 p.m. | #

It's the same with everything, fill your own petrol tank, check out your own groceries, process your own parking charge, assess your own income tax, get a switch for your own back.

Feargal Mooney | Homepage | 17.04.18 - 6:20 p.m. | #

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