How Long Should Companies Make E-Bills Available? 299
theodp writes "If you say goodbye to paper and hello to green, you may learn first-hand that no good deed goes unpunished. Try to pay your final Verizon Wireless bill online after switching carriers, for example, and don't be surprised if you get a sorry-Dave-I'm-afraid-I-can't-do-that reply. Other vendors may curtail e-Bill services 30 days after you end service. And a promise of access to up to seven years of paperless statements is somewhat empty if you'll be cutoff as soon as you no longer have an account. With more-and-more companies enticing consumers to go paperless, how long a period of time should the records be made available online? Should it extend beyond the life of an account?"
if the tax agency comes knocking... (Score:5, Insightful)
Have NAS, will save (Score:4, Insightful)
For years any time I had a bill, statement, tax form or other document I thought "You know... there is a remote possibility I might just want that in a year or 9"... I'd do a quick Print to PDF and bang... I've got my own copy without any need to wonder 'how long should they keep it for me'.
Sure... the hard drive it's own could die, but because in this horrible thing called self reliance... I take steps to make sure that I will still have access to copies just in case without having to ask such questions or worry about hard drive death or house fires.
Personal responsibility... try it!
Entitlement ... what is with it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Alternative to online account access/storage (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:more paper == more trees (Score:5, Insightful)
A chicken's quest? Probably meant "fool", but it's funnier this way. :)
Anyways the "paperless is green" idea isn't because we're going to run out of wood. Almost all paper is made from trees that are grown (and replanted and regrown) for that purpose. However turning that wood into paper and shipping it to the utility uses energy and money. Putting ink on the paper likewise isn't free, and mailing it (in postal trucks that burn gas) isn't free either.
Whether you measure in total energy spent or dollars, it's cheaper to have online bills than mailing out paper statements. Most places let you download a PDF of what the paper statement would have been, giving you the efficiencies of online bills while still being able to have a copy of old bills (and print them on demand).
Utilities push online billing because it saves them money; the fact that it also saves energy in the process and is more convenient for consumers is a win/win/win.
It doesn't stop paper arriving though! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:more paper == more trees (Score:3, Insightful)
If you want to save trees, DON'T WORRY ABOUT PAPER OR WOOD PRODUCTS, those industries cannot use the wood fast enough.
I respect your belief, but I think you're wrong. Those plantations that grow the trees that you say will supply paper endlessly are, I hate to say it, finite in area. Therefore, the paper they can produce is finite. Now, I guess the other thing you're saying is that they're plantation trees being felled. Now, that is correct. But before it was a plantation it was probably a native forest. Now, those forests were cleared many years ago, so arguing the point now is... pointless--they're plantation trees now. Also, what happens when those areas can no longer supply the growing consumption of paper and other wood-derived products? They'll have to clear some more native forest for more plantations.
Now, the other issue you raise:
What you DO want to worry about are the people CLEAR CUTTING RAIN FOREST LAND in order to grow enough crop in order to feed their family
There is some merit to what I think you may have been trying to argue. There are poor people. People on the edge of existence. They have to clear rainforest to grow crops to exist. Yep, that is true. But why are you shifting the focus onto these people struggling to survive? A better question is (to ask yourself): "I use 1000 peices of paper a day, and toilet paper, and I eat 3 square meals. How many trees do I need to clear to achieve that"? Shifting the blame onto the South American indian who grows a few tomatos and lettuce crops is insane. Where does your food come from? McDonalds? Yeah, McDonalds don't cause deforestation; after all, they're just a little building in a carpark and they import all their beef. Beef raised on, umm, treeless paddocks, or in Sth America on huge ranches. Not our fault. It's all those pesky farmers. They're the real problem. Maybe you should ask yourself why these poor people are forced to 'intrude' into uncut rainforest areas. Is it them supporting themselves or, indirectly their rich superiors, or even more indirectly, you?
Just one last thing. I thank-you for passing on all those interesting anecdotes that your boy friends have told you. But, alas, I think they're wrong as well.
Re:more paper == more trees (Score:3, Insightful)
I hate how people think that reducing paper will reduce environmental impact.
Why do you hate people thinking correctly? Regardless of the number of trees available, it still takes energy to make those sheets of paper, ship it to the consumer, and dispose of/recycle it once it's finished with. So, how does it not reduce environmental impact to use less paper?
My bank holds (for free) information for 18 monts (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:more paper == more trees (Score:4, Insightful)
Ah the old "it's all your fault because you live in a wealthy country."
There has to be someone close at hand to blame.
It couldn't stop at the shitty governments in south America. No.
It can't stop at the overly powerful companies. No.
God forbid.
No, it has to be shifted until the person you're talking to is being held responsible because he walked past one of the above on the street one day.
Why? because *random person in the first world* hasn't hunted down and shot the CEO of Mcdonalds? Because he's occasionally paid for services from the company?
So any transfer of money now makes you responsible for all evil done by everyone who touches that money from that point on?
Are you responsible for rapes committed by that weird guy working at costco? If you hadn't given money to the store where he worked in exchange for that product you wanted they mightn't have been able to pay him which might have meant he wouldn't have been able to afford the van he abducted his victims with!
YOU MURDERER!
There's good reason to shift the focus on to people who are doing the slash and burn. He didn't demonise them, he recognised that they have a very good reason to do what they're doing. And in the end they're the people who have to be helped if we want to do something about the problem. Going after the CEO of McDonald's might have the whole David vs Goliath feel but in this case beating the Goliath would do sweet fuck all. Another company would step in to fill their place, or 3 companies owned through the philippines would step in and do the same thing and sell on to a 4th based in the Bahamas which would sell on to McDonalds or Walmart or ten thousand independent little bars, cafes, restaurants and diners which are not part of any giant and easy to complain about company.
Re:if the tax agency comes knocking... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well of course they're still available. I called my Discover Card one time to look-up old statements from three years ago, and they were not available online, so they politely mailed me printouts. There was no charge.
As for going paperless, I've not done it because I'd probably forget to pay the bill! ;-)
Receiving that paper in the mail is a convenient reminder.
Re:Alternative to online account access/storage (Score:5, Insightful)
>>>Because statements sent from Bob to Alice would likely be intercepted by Carol
So? My neighbors routinely intercept my snail-mail, and yet they've never sought to do harm to me. They just politely wrote "forward" and it eventually found its way to me. People have this false belief that physical mail is somehow more secure, but in reality it's just as vulnerable as email.
Re:more paper == more trees (Score:2, Insightful)
I hate how people think that reducing paper will reduce environmental impact.
Why do you hate people thinking correctly? Regardless of the number of trees available, it still takes energy to make those sheets of paper, ship it to the consumer, and dispose of/recycle it once it's finished with. So, how does it not reduce environmental impact to use less paper?
Ok, using less of anything is going to make a better environmental impact. The question is, where is money and time better spent? Should we spend money on datacenters, and power grids to handle new-age paperless societies in countries that do not have a negative tree-growth rate? Or should we focus on spending money where it can actually make a difference?
Think of it this way... either I could be more environmental by buying a hybrid SUV and getting 30 miles per gallon instead of 7 miles per gallon, or I can get a geo metro, and a motorcycle, and get 50 miles per gallon unless I absolutely have to use a car?
I have problems with people not considering cost/benefits, and rather thinking about their own selfish holier-than-thou agenda.
Re:Alternative to online account access/storage (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Alternative to online account access/storage (Score:3, Insightful)
Most of the time my mail is delivered to an entirely different part of town. I have no idea why that happens, but it would be very easy for that stranger to keep that intercepted mail and use it for his own purposes. Physical mail simply is not secure.
Another blow against libertarianism here on /. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's called a contract people. Are finally at the point where there is just no such thing as freedom of contract, and therefor contracts no longer mean anything? There is no duty on "the little guy" to actually download and save his own records, after choosing a paperless billing? So again we are calling for the nanny state, that which is so vilified when it tries to do the things government was founded for - protect me and my shit from bad guys, foreign and domestic - to intervene in private contracts because we don't happen to like one of the contractors? So it's a horrible slippery slope to force a rapist to turn over his e-mail account, to drain a mosquito of blood to catch a car thief, or to use technology to catch a terrist outside of the country. That's going to lead to all of our civil liberties being trampled.
But go ahead nanny state, go right on in and arbitrarily intervene in private contracts. Because we here at Slashdot are libertarians for us, and statists for the other guy.
Re:Alternative to online account access/storage (Score:2, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Another blow against libertarianism here on /. (Score:2, Insightful)
That's such a cop out.
I was critically sick for 6 months. I set things up to auto pay so it was one less thing to worry about. I go back at the first of the year to reconcile my accounts but my 'online' record only go back 45 days. My only recourse then is to pay the companies additional fees to get me the data I would have had if I didn't go paperless.
The companies are required to hold onto these records for 7 years. I don't think it's unreasonable to make the same record available to their customers online. If it costs too much to do so then I'll submit that 'paperless' doesn't really save you much in the long run.
Re:more paper == more trees (Score:2, Insightful)
"It's hypocritical for us to clearcut our forests while telling other nations, Don't do what we do."
But it is wise for us to say, "Don't make the same mistakes we made." I've lived east of the Mississippi most of my life in the US and driven across a good bit of it. I've often wondered what it would have looked like 500 years ago with all the trees still there. I live in Illinois right now, and the lack of trees and long grass prairie is really depressing. I would have liked someone to be able to tell us, "Don't make the same mistakes we made."
Re:Alternative to online account access/storage (Score:3, Insightful)
Easy, but a felony. Physical mail has legal protection that e-mail just doesn't enjoy.