{"id":3043,"date":"2011-08-30T09:42:00","date_gmt":"2011-08-30T08:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/?p=3043"},"modified":"2011-10-07T17:59:20","modified_gmt":"2011-10-07T16:59:20","slug":"the-perils-of-online-billing%e2%80%a6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2011\/08\/the-perils-of-online-billing%e2%80%a6.htm","title":{"rendered":"The perils of online billing\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Like most people, the mail I receive from the postman these days breaks into three categories:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Junk\/spam (straight to recycling, or return to sender \u2013 that\u2019s a pretty good way to get off a list, combined with the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.mpsonline.org.uk\/mpsr\/\">mailing preference service<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www2.royalmail.com\/you-home\/controlling-your-mail\">opting out of the Royal Mail-delivered bulk mail, Door to Door<\/a>).<\/li>\n<li>Work-related\u00a0correspondence, journals, etc.<\/li>\n<li>Bills\/financial statements.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>As I use Direct Debits to pay my bills, they generally need little more than a cursory glance before being \u201cfiled\u201d (i.e. chucked in a big box until I get around to doing it properly) but I also elect for paper-free billing where it makes sense.<\/p>\n<p>I say \u201cwhere it makes sense\u201d because so many organisations (e.g. First Direct, ING Direct, Marks and Spencer Money) seem to think that providing records in HTML, CSV or Quicken format is enough \u2013 and it\u2019s not, in my opinion. \u00a0The paper-free billing that has value to me provides a PDF of the paper bill that would have been sent to me by post and organisations that do this include American Express, BT and E-ON.<\/p>\n<h3>The wrong way<\/h3>\n<p>If you were watching my Twitter stream over the weekend, you might have seen me ranting about\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bt.com\/\">BT<\/a>\u2018s paper-free billing though, because there is a catch: and it\u2019s one that\u2019s worth knowing about.<\/p>\n<p>I mentioned how\u00a0haphazard\u00a0my paper filing is and my digital filing is not much better. \u00a0I get the emails notifying me that my bill is ready for download and I generally think \u201cOK, I\u2019ll look at that later\u201d. \u00a0After all, I know it will be paid (by Direct Debit) and, if there is a problem, I\u2019ll notice the exceptionally large\/small transaction on my bank account and investigate at that time. \u00a0Every once in a while, I get around to downloading the statements and storing them in my \u201cdigital filing cabinet\u201d (my NAS, at home).<\/p>\n<p>Except that I\u2019m finding more and more of my providers don\u2019t maintain a complete history for download. And BT was the one that really took the biscuit\u2026 I logged into BT\u2019s website to retrieve my statements and successfully downloaded around 15 or 16 months\u2019 worth. My problem was that I had a gap between the last time I did this, and the oldest statement available online. \u00a0I called BT, who told me I only have access to 6 months history (really? I can see more than that!) and that I could\u00a0<em>write a letter<\/em>\u00a0requesting the missing statements. Smelling a rat, I asked how much that would cost. \u00a34.80 per bill, I was told. I said I wouldn\u2019t be needing the address, thank you very much, and hung up.<\/p>\n<p>Then I hit Twitter:<\/p>\n<p>[blackbirdpie url=&#8221;http:\/\/twitter.com\/#!\/markwilsonit\/status\/107455235949211648&#8243;]<\/p>\n<p>[blackbirdpie url=&#8221;http:\/\/twitter.com\/#!\/markwilsonit\/status\/107455937794686976&#8243;]<\/p>\n<p>I got several sympathetic responses (including one follower who says BT promised him unlimited access to statements when he signed up for paper-free billing so he pushed the issue and was sent every single statement since his account was opened\u2026) but one in particular copied in the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/btcare\">@BTCare<\/a>\u00a0account. I had previously ignored that account, preferring hashtags like #BTDoesntCare because my previous experience of @BTCare had been unhelpful, but this time they responded with a URL for a web form, promising to follow up the issue.<\/p>\n<p>The next day (a Sunday, no less, and which should be applauded), BT called (from a call centre in Northern Ireland, rather than the normal Indian operation) and explained that I only had access to 6 months statements online and words to the effect of \u201cit wasn\u2019t their fault I hadn\u2019t downloaded my statements in time, as they had sent them to me each month by email\u201d. I pointed out that they hadn\u2019t sent me the statements \u2013 what they actually sent was an email saying words to the effect of \u201cyour statement is ready, when you want to go and take a look\u201d but not \u201cbe quick before it\u2019s gone\u201d. I also highlighted that they give me a \u00a31 a month discount for paper-free billing and to charge any more than that was unreasonable \u2013 \u00a34.80 for access to old bills was obscene, especially as I don\u2019t want a paper bill \u2013 the PDFs will be fine. \u00a0At this point BT changed tack, claiming that they had some discretion, and offering to email me the missing bills. \u00a0After needing to speak to my wife (because it\u2019s her name on the account and they can\u2019t cope with two people being jointly responsible for a bill\u2026), they sent me the missing statements and I was a happy camper. Almost.<\/p>\n<p>I say almost because this shouldn\u2019t happen. How many people who are less connected online, or less pushy on the phone, would have just paid up the \u00a333.60 BT wanted for seven statements and invested \u00a0time\/effort\/cost into posting a letter? And why is there only 6 months\u2019 history available (and I\u2019m \u201clucky\u201d because I can see a bit more than that)? \u00a0The answer to that is poor IT, or poor decision making \u2013 presumably someone made an arbitrary decision to limit online statement availability and reduce the storage cost to BT \u2013 ironically, these statements are clearly available to BT\u2019s customer services staff, although they may well be dynamically generated (as they used to be on the customer-facing website which,\u00a0incidentally, was a painful process and the reason I rarely went in to download them!). Or, to take another view, how much did sorting out this mess cost BT (quite a bit, I would imagine, so surely it\u2019s better to get it right first time)?<\/p>\n<p>[blackbirdpie url=&#8221;http:\/\/twitter.com\/#!\/markwilsonit\/status\/107847209340502016&#8243;]<\/p>\n<h3>The right way<\/h3>\n<p>Now let me give you an example of an organisation that has paper-free statements working perfectly:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.americanexpress.co.uk\/\">American Express<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>I would use AmEx exclusively if only their cards were as widely accepted as Visa or Mastercard but their web portal allows me to download the most recent six months\u2019 statements and, crucially, to request any previous statements for retrieval within 24 hours, at no cost to me. \u00a0At the back end, I\u2019m sure the statements are pulled from near-line or off-line storage to on-line, managing American Express\u2019 storage efficiently but almost transparently to me, and delivering an excellent customer experience.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ll finish this post (I\u2019m sorry, it is a bit or a rant), with a partial retweet from\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.simonbisson.co.uk\/\">Simon Bisson<\/a>\u00a0that just about sums up the situation for me:<\/p>\n<p>[blackbirdpie url=&#8221;http:\/\/twitter.com\/#!\/markwilsonit\/status\/107456687102894080&#8243;]<\/p>\n<p>Well done American Express. BT and E-ON you need to do better. Bottom of the class: almost everyone else I deal with\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Like most people, the mail I receive from the postman these days breaks into three categories: Junk\/spam (straight to recycling, or return to sender \u2013 that\u2019s a pretty good way to get off a list, combined with the\u00a0mailing preference service\u00a0and\u00a0opting out of the Royal Mail-delivered bulk mail, Door to Door). Work-related\u00a0correspondence, journals, etc. Bills\/financial statements. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2011\/08\/the-perils-of-online-billing%e2%80%a6.htm\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The perils of online billing\u2026<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[303,302,241,304,305,306,307],"class_list":["post-3043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inane-waffle","tag-american-express","tag-bt","tag-customer-service","tag-e-on","tag-first-direct","tag-ing-direct","tag-marks-and-spencer"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The perils of online billing\u2026 - markwilson.it<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2011\/08\/the-perils-of-online-billing\u2026.htm\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The perils of online billing\u2026 - markwilson.it\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Like most people, the mail I receive from the postman these days breaks into three categories: Junk\/spam (straight to recycling, or return to sender \u2013 that\u2019s a pretty good way to get off a list, combined with the\u00a0mailing preference service\u00a0and\u00a0opting out of the Royal Mail-delivered bulk mail, Door to Door). 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The business case just doesn't stack up for a total deployment but he does want to make the most of the features and functionality that are available, to showcase how\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Technology&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Technology","link":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/topic\/technology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5541,"url":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2015\/04\/microsoft-news-q1-2015.htm","url_meta":{"origin":3043,"position":1},"title":"Microsoft News Q1 2015","author":"Mark Wilson","date":"Tuesday 14 April 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"This post is an edited version of one that originally appeared on my internal blog at Fujitsu. Louis Lazarus' Microsoft News Updates Back in December, I wrote\u00a0what I intended to be the first of a regular update on what\u2019s going on in the world of Microsoft \u2013 a sort of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Technology&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Technology","link":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/topic\/technology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":543,"url":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2006\/05\/migrating-smtp-e-mail-from-my-isps.htm","url_meta":{"origin":3043,"position":2},"title":"Migrating SMTP e-mail from my ISP&#8217;s servers to an internally-hosted Exchange server","author":"Mark Wilson","date":"Thursday 25 May 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Over the last couple of days, I migrated my e-mail service to Microsoft Exchange Server. I've been meaning to do this since I first bought my own domain name in the late 1990s but a lack of suitable hardware to dedicate to the task has meant that until now it's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"DNS\"","block_context":{"text":"DNS","link":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/tag\/dns"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":624,"url":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2006\/10\/message-hygiene-principles-for.htm","url_meta":{"origin":3043,"position":3},"title":"Message hygiene principles for Microsoft Exchange Server","author":"Mark Wilson","date":"Tuesday 3 October 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Whilst researching my post on the Microsoft Exchange intelligent message filter a couple of months back, I came across the following message hygiene architectural principles, which Microsoft promotes as best practice: Anti-spam filtering must be performed before anti-virus filtering. Anti-spam filtering should be performed for inbound mail only. Anti-spam filtering\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Malware\"","block_context":{"text":"Malware","link":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/tag\/malware"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":335,"url":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2006\/07\/how-safe-is-your-personal-information.htm","url_meta":{"origin":3043,"position":4},"title":"How safe is your personal information?","author":"Mark Wilson","date":"Monday 31 July 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I recently wrote about why I'm cautious of all the hype surrounding what has become known as Web 2.0. One of my major concerns related to data security is that if my data is held on someone else's servers, how can I control what it is being used for? Well,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Security\"","block_context":{"text":"Security","link":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/tag\/security"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1699,"url":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2010\/03\/iphone-sim-ibrick.htm","url_meta":{"origin":3043,"position":5},"title":"iPhone &#8211; SIM = iBrick","author":"Mark Wilson","date":"Monday 15 March 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Now that I'm out of contract with my iPhone, I've switched my account to something more reasonably priced whilst I wait for a new handset\/phone operating system combination\u00c2\u00a0to grab my attention.\u00c2\u00a0 At the same time, my work e-mail was switched over to an ActiveSync service and I wanted a 3G\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Apple iPhone\"","block_context":{"text":"Apple iPhone","link":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/tag\/iphone"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3043"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3043\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3044,"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3043\/revisions\/3044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}