Saturday, November 17, 2007
Several of the utilities companies have switched to paperless billing which is fine by me. In my case, BT and nPower have both stopped wasting paper and now I can see my bills on-line. At least in theory.
In the case of dear old British Telecom, I get billed around the 10th of the month and my direct debit payment goes out around the 24th. Last month I paid them before my bill was available. I phoned them up several times in the week after my bill should have been available and was told they were having problems and it would be available soon. They told me how much I'd be paying and, as it's in line with my usual bill I didn't have a problem. Some time between me paying and today they finally got the bill up, but helpfully put it's issue date as the 10th, so I've got no idea how late it really was.
NPower, meanwhile, claim one of my paperless bills was issued a week early than it was, and the other is now about a week overdue. It does make you wonder why it's easier for these companies to print bills on to pieces of paper and send them via the Royal Mail to my front door than it is to organise a few bytes so I can log on to their website and see these things on the internet.
In the case of dear old British Telecom, I get billed around the 10th of the month and my direct debit payment goes out around the 24th. Last month I paid them before my bill was available. I phoned them up several times in the week after my bill should have been available and was told they were having problems and it would be available soon. They told me how much I'd be paying and, as it's in line with my usual bill I didn't have a problem. Some time between me paying and today they finally got the bill up, but helpfully put it's issue date as the 10th, so I've got no idea how late it really was.
NPower, meanwhile, claim one of my paperless bills was issued a week early than it was, and the other is now about a week overdue. It does make you wonder why it's easier for these companies to print bills on to pieces of paper and send them via the Royal Mail to my front door than it is to organise a few bytes so I can log on to their website and see these things on the internet.
Labels: British Telecom, nPower, Paperless Billing, utilities companies
