Why I don’t like eBills

A few weeks ago my wife expressed concern to me that she may have used more than our allotment of minutes on our cell phone plan for the month. I told her I would keep an eye out for the next bill and let her know if she went over on minutes. That’s before I remembered Verizon Wireless doesn’t send me a paper bill. Instead I get an email with the billing amount, billing date and a link to click to see the bill, more commonly referred to as an eBill.

I don’t like eBills. There I said it. I’m a techie and I don’t like eBills.

Why do I dislike eBills? Because they require me to take a bunch of additional steps I don’t want to have to take just to read my bill. When I receive an eBill, I feel obligated to have to immediately stop what I am doing, click on the link in the email, look up and enter my user name and password for the site (for security reasons I use a different password on every web site), find the link for billing statements and finally, click the link for my current statement. Only then am I presented with a less than desired electronic copy of my bill which I have to scroll through page by page.

This in contrast to that warm and fuzzy bill that shows up in a pretty white envelope in my mailbox. The one that I can touch and feel. The one I can use to quickly jump to any page I want and review as many times as my heart desires.

A word to companies that send eBills. This techie isn’t interested in the few pennies you save on me by sending me electronic bills. I don’t believe I actually benefit by those savings anyway. I want good ol’ fashioned paper ones.

By the way, I still don’t know whether or not my wife went over on her minutes last month.