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Hi All
I have noticed a trend emerging amongst utility companies especially towards 'paperless billing'.
This is where you effectively get your bills online and do not get paper ones sent in the post. Companies post this under the guise of 'being green' but I take issue on this for the following reasons:
1) What they really mean is that it saves them money as they don't have to send out bills every month/quarter
2) 'Being Green' still doesn't stop them sending me a reams of glossy paper beguiling me with their latest 'service offerings'
However there is a more sinister aspect that I encountered a couple of years ago..........
I was with BG for my electricity and had a disputed bill with them due to a mix up with meters on our home and adjoining property. Now the itemised bills were central to this cock up as it showed that they had billed me incorrectly not to mention against the wrong meter.
In the middle of this dispute access to my online bills was strangely intermittent, and when access finally returned some of the bills that had previously been available were gone, and others had been changed.
Fortunately I had downloaded previous bills as pdf's and also taken screen shots of what was available.
BG were unaware of this, and tried to deny that anything had changed at all, fortunately something I was able to put to bed very quickly and add to their deceit and incompetence.
Now this may just have been a case of serious butt covering from a customer services agent, but does serve as a warning that even though your bills are 'online' they are not safe!
Best
SnV
I have noticed a trend emerging amongst utility companies especially towards 'paperless billing'.
This is where you effectively get your bills online and do not get paper ones sent in the post. Companies post this under the guise of 'being green' but I take issue on this for the following reasons:
1) What they really mean is that it saves them money as they don't have to send out bills every month/quarter
2) 'Being Green' still doesn't stop them sending me a reams of glossy paper beguiling me with their latest 'service offerings'
However there is a more sinister aspect that I encountered a couple of years ago..........
I was with BG for my electricity and had a disputed bill with them due to a mix up with meters on our home and adjoining property. Now the itemised bills were central to this cock up as it showed that they had billed me incorrectly not to mention against the wrong meter.
In the middle of this dispute access to my online bills was strangely intermittent, and when access finally returned some of the bills that had previously been available were gone, and others had been changed.
Fortunately I had downloaded previous bills as pdf's and also taken screen shots of what was available.
BG were unaware of this, and tried to deny that anything had changed at all, fortunately something I was able to put to bed very quickly and add to their deceit and incompetence.
Now this may just have been a case of serious butt covering from a customer services agent, but does serve as a warning that even though your bills are 'online' they are not safe!
Best
SnV
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