General Chat

Ruddy cheek, just received our phone bill and noted at the top of first page " important things you need to know", one of which is after May 1, if we choose to receive a paper bill instead of an online bill, we will be charged an extra $1.50.... :-P,

not sure how common this is?

I believe it's £1.50 here and that's per quarter too. I refused it. I have always had caller display free and they are going to start charging for that too. :-| :-|

Hi Barb,

Our charge is per month..... I have just signed up for online as I am not prepared to pay any more than needed. This current bill is $115.70 and $99.95 is before we even made any calls.....

It could well be cheaper if you took out a contract mobile service with so many free minutes etc.

The monthly charge would probably work out less than a land line as there is no service charge, just a thought.

Hi Foggy,

It is not the actual phone charges I am complaining about. The $1.50 extra per month on our bill is because we choose to get a paper bill in the mail ....

Our provider is obviously trying to reduce their 'supposed overheads'......

Oops,

Misunderstood you for a minute Foggy. We need the landline for our broadband so for now, are stuck with our provider. Apologies.

When was the last time any of us wrote a letter? I mean, an actual, honest-to-goodness hand-written letter & not a quick email like this or a text.

And when was the last time we received one in the post? The chances are, if you're anything like me, you probably can't even remember when.

Although we are willing to pay the £1.50 per quarter, if you opted for the paperless bill, you could always print them off yourself?

Surely it's £'s not $'s?!! Just thought I'd ask!!

All utility companies now charge for paper billing.

I read my own gas and electric meters and bugger me does not the week after I have submitted them and paid my bill. A little man comes round to read my meters.
It is ludicrous.

Hello Susan:)

Hello Foggy:)))))))) where you bin??


We have emial phone bills now, but have kept to paper statements for the bank.l think once you have changed you can't go back.l sometime print the necessary paper work.

Vic wrote a letter to his sister in USA not too long ago and she wrote back to him, also got a postcard a few days ago from her. l wrote a letter in answer to a friends letter in Feb....but yep on the whole l tend to use email...sad though it is :-(

jude

I still have five friends who correspond by letters. I also still belong to two correspondence magazines (Two lots of friends whose letters are put into plastic envelopes and circulated in magazine form one has 6 people in and the other has 5.) Both these have been going since the 80s. I belonged to others that fizzled out before that. Very few letters are hand written but they are all sent by post. I love getting a letter on the door mat. I posted one of the correspondence magazines this morning, Last single letter I received was last week. :-)

Meant to say, we are paperless for bank, Electric/Gas, phone and credit cards.

Magpie - they don't use pounds in New Zealand, they use dollars.

Paying for paper copies has been common practice for quite a long time now and makes perfect sense.

I have several bills on line but do print them out. A few months ago Ba-s Bank announced that if we had access to online accounts we would no longer get postal copies of our statements - I had got so used to being able to check them all he time at home that I settled for that and it is very convenient - I'm too deaf to telephone!

Well actually I write several letters a month and my aunty and cousin write me at least 3 times in the month. neither like email and to be honest when you are writing 6 or 7 A4 sheets, paper and pen is better i think.

I wont go paperless for the simple reason, if there is a query, i can go straight to my filing box and retrieve whatever i need.I dont do online banking at all as i dont trust the comp system much.

All those who store the online accounts in a folder, i hope you back up your system reg on an external hardrive, incase you comp crashes and you lose it all!

call me old fashioned but to go paperless is not for me.

When i was with a well known tel co before my comp, they did charge. but then i changed to a scottish company, got a tel and broadband package and they dont charge for a paper bill.

Florence
in the hebrides.

You shouldn't need to back up because if you have opted for online banking then you can access the statements from anywhere in the world - far more convenient than having to wait until you get home to find a piece of paper in a filing box - a piece of paper which could go missing.

Well yes ok use the online for access if you are away from home but not sure how far back you can access.

What i meant was if you download a bill and transfer it into a folder, you should save it elsewhere.

Also the cost of printing off bills and paper is quite expensive and to be honest when you have a lot of bills,that takes up time and money producing a copy.

many a time i have had a query with something and so glad i have all my bills for the last 5 years so i could deal with the problem.

banks only provide copies of statements going back 3 years now(used to be 5). if you had a query prior to that it could be difficult to sort out. i had a problem with my NI contributions going back 8 years. They said i had missed payments and owed money. Thankfully i had kept my statements and so proved them wrong. had i not kept them, it would have been so much more difficult to sort out.

Florence
in the hebrides.

PS Having worked 16 years previously in a bank, one thing i learnt was how to file and keep things in order!

And then there are people like me that have to give bank statements, savings account statements, utility bills etc as proof of my address etc to my employer and we don't have a printer.

Hi Susan,

Just pay by cheque and deduct $1.50 for the 'paper payment'.

;-)

B