While checking my phone bill, I noticed that the phone company added 200 minutes of long distance to my bill. This was all for a nominal charge of $8.00. The only problem was I did not request this, authorize this (to my knowledge) or have any knowledge of the addition, till I looked at my bill.
This proves that you must always look at the complete contents of your bill(s).
What the problem for consumers, is that most businesses like utilities, phone companies, and even credit card companies are pushing electronic billing or what they call the "E-bill". Now don't get me wrong, this is really good for the businesses. They get to save a boatload of money by reducing costs across the board. Some of the things they benefit from are small. But some are very big (for them). The bad part is that the benefits for consumers (you and I) usually appear big, but turn out to be very small.
Some of the items that business come out ahead are listed here, but I know there has to be more I have not remembered at this specific moment.
Printing costs drop: A huge reduction in the amount of printing costs for making up bills on paper,
(No bills, envelopes, or even rate notifications that are the normal part of a bill and I didn't even mention the paper costs)
Mailing costs drop: A great big saving in the cost to mail out the bills,
(the recovery of mailing costs are huge. Plus, requiring fewer mail handlers drastically lower costs. The word for this specific trend is called "layoffs")
Lower costs for staffing overall: less consumer complaints since less people actually take the time to view the entire contents of their bill(s),
(More reasons to say that dreaded word; "Layoffs"?)
One for you, Two for me: Less calls to customer service about errors because people are not seeing subtle charges and mistakes,
Added (undisputed) charges: More money since an "online" bill is less likely to be reviewed and things that were added or changed without the consumers knowledge probably will stay.
(and will keep generating them additional revenues)
Added interest: With so many people setting up "automated bill payments", companies are getting your money earlier than you probably need to pay them.,
(If your debited one day early, no big deal. If ten thousand are billed one day early.... Think about that),
Fees for free services: If your paying a fee or charge to pay your bill electronically for you paying electronically, your better be sure it is worth the cost.
(Paying for electronic payment services is probably $2.00 a month as with Cincinnati Gas & Electric. Now do you think the cost of a stamp is all that much? I would rather pay $4.44 for tweleve months of stamps, than $24.00 for annuals charges for a not very convenient, convenience)
Now, for the benefits for consumers, there is only two I can think of right now (There actually might be more):
You can pay your bill anytime you want and where ever you want,
(as long as you have a computer and internet access)
You can pay it anywhere from anywhere even if it is on the on the other side of the world,
(This is great when your at work and you forgot to pay your bill)
Sure, I understand this is a fairly socialist view, but not really. It is more of a notification for people who I know, who do not know this is possibily happening to their bills. Yes, I know that businesses are there for one thing, To make money. But I am not stupid and understand things like this are normally a good business practice. But I also feel that this does more to take advantage of people who (credulously) trust a company to put their best interest in front of the companies. Neither is a little naïveté of consumers the responsibility of the companies to correct.
The bottom line? Whether paper or electronic, check your bills completely. You probably don't really know what your paying for.
Rebutals are very welcome and will be posted
No comments:
Post a Comment