Update: How to Stay with Paper Billing from Bell Canada - A step by step guide.
Bell Canada has been sending out letters saying that they are going green and will be automatically discontinuing your paper bill and switching you to electronic billing.
The letter reads as follows:
We're going green.
Dear [insert name]
We are wring to notify you about an important change in our eBill program.
You are currently receiving a per invoice, along with a monthly email notification advising you that your online bull can be viewed by logging in at the Bell Web site. Following your next bill, we will be discontinuing your paper invoice to help reduce paper waste and protect our forests.
If you would prefer to continue receiving a paper bill in the mail, you have the option of keeping this arrangement now and in the future. Simply log in to bell.ca/staypaper and click on "I wish to keep receiving paper bills".
Thank you for choosing Bell.
Sincerely,
Jim Myers,
Senior Vice-President, Customer Experience
This program is very similar to negative option billing. In negative option billing companies sign you up without asking you and then make it your responsibility to contact them to opt out. This method of business is immoral.
It took over 20 minutes of my time to opt out of ebilling and retain paper billing. Bell Canada's ebilling does not benefit you at all. Under the guise of protecting the environment Bell Canada is trying to cut costs and increase profits at your expense.
Top 5 Reasons NOT To Go Paperless.
- Paper bills printed by Bell Canada are receipts. You purchased a product or service and they are your proof of purchase. Paper bills are needed for tax purposes. If your are claiming your phone bill on your taxes Revenue Canada will require proof. You can print your ebills but that will cost you money.
- Paper bills drive the economy. You are saving hundreds of jobs by asking for paper bills. Lumber workers, paper mill workers, Bell Canada billing workers, Bell Canada mail room workers, Canada Post sorters and letter carriers, even your blue bin recycling collector are depending on your paper bills.
- Paper is environmentally friendly. It is recyclable, reusable, renewable and biodegradable. Ebills are viewed on computers which use electricity (nuclear waste) and are full of heavy metals. The computer servers that your ebills are stored end up in landfills as ewaste.
- Computers crash, data gets erased. If Bell Canada's computers were to lose your ebills you will have no proof of purchase. If a billing dispute was to arise you do not want the company you are arguing with to hold all the evidence.
- Checking your ebills cost bandwidth. Since Bell Canada or your ISP is charging you for bandwidth usage it will cost you your usage allowance to check your bills.
Stumble It!
Some of your arguments are very weak: Sure eBilling is cheaper for the business. It may be a good for the economy, but BAD for the environment - it wastes paper and kills trees. If you already have a computer (I presume you do), then arguing that ebill is bad because computers fill landfills is irrelevant. Sure computers crash, thats why we have backups.
Thinking that saving paper saves trees and therefore is good for the environment is a short sighted view of environmentalism.
Fossil fuels, coal powered plants are used to generate electricity which runs large network servers. This is increased x2 when you have backup servers. This in turn increases global warming.
Computers and e-waste are not biodegradable, nor renewable.
Paper is recyclable, biodegradable and renewable source.
The letter says 'if you want to continue receiving a paper bill' click on "I wish to keep receiving paper bills" on this website.
WHERE IN HELL IS THAT? I SURE DON'T SEE IT !!
Someone - - please draw me a picture or take my hand or do something - - - - - !!!!!
You'll keep getting a paper bill in the mail every month in addition to having your bill available on bell.ca.
Thank you.
I will stay with paper unless bell shares the savings in some way.
all my dealings with Bell have been nightmares. I need paper bills so that when I spend 45 minutes with a Bell rep I can have all my info spread out in front of me with all my notes. AAAAhh. Thought it might be less aggravating to request continued paper bills on their chat line. Wrong. 5 minutes in a queue and then told to go to a site "stay paper", clicked on it and it came up error. AAAAAh
A cumbersome and frustrating and user-unfriendly process to reverse the new Bell billing default; it took me 30 minutes to locate the necessary line which was well-buried. The type is too tiny, particularly for someone with a visual handicap, as I have.
I opt for paper billing, and will recycle the paper.
I just received my "we're going green" letter. It is interesting for some of the older folks I know ... the only way to opt out of e-bills and going for paper is through the computer using the Bell web-site. Did I miss something? There are still people who do not have a computer. There is no phone number listed on the snail mail.
My big beef with going green with Bell Canada is that their web-site is truly an albatross. It is very very slow. And when pages do show up, they often have overwritten boxes and text making things hard to read. So to check an e-bill is a painful experience.
I have contacted customer service a few times about this and also commented to them through their web-site rating system. Always seems to end up that they suggest I clear out my cache etc... as though it's my problem. No other major corporate site has such a poor website.
I'll stick with paper thank you.