[LINK] Want Bills by Snail Mail? It Might Cost You Money

[Howard Lowndes]

On Thu, 31 Oct 2002, Chirgwin, Richard wrote:

> > I used to get charged a $1 for receiving a bill by paper, but
> > that charge
> > has recently dropped
>
> A further remark. I would be surprised (staggered? astonished? incredulous?)
> if the charges related directly to any real-world cost. Most certainly,
> vendors have approached companies with TCO figures, but they're merely a
> confection.
>
> It's just social engineering - pick a number, see if users respond, then
> adjust the number (or abandon the idea).
>
> The charge is dropped because:
> a) users didn't change their behaviour; and/or
> b) companies discovered that the TCO figures were fabricated, and the cost
> of tracking and enforcing the charge was greater than the genuine saving.
>
> Certainly I pay online frequently. I use the phone even more frequently,
> because despite the clunky UI, telephones don't cache my bank account
> details on the local hard drive like crappy Internet banking apps do. But I
> don't see why I should be penalised for receiving something provable,
> persistent and auditable as the invoice.

More to the point is the privacy aspect.

What if their machine gets cracked.

What if your machine gets Bugbear'd

-- 
Howard.
LANNet Computing Associates - Your Linux people
Contact detail at http://www.lannetlinux.com
"Flatter government, not fatter government." - me
 Get rid of the Australian states.
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If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?