Saturday, April 7, 2012

Bell gets flak for bullying clients into going paperless

The Star's consumer reporter, Ellen Roseman, writes:
"Many people don’t like being bludgeoned into accepting electronic bills. They want companies to give discounts or incentives for going paperless, instead of adding on extra fees.
Some also feel it’s hypocritical — even nonsensical — for companies to say they’re encouraging e-billing for the sake of the environment.
"It’s just an excuse to cover up what they’re really doing — shifting costs to customers in order to boost their profits.
"Soon you’ll be printing all your bills at home, using your own paper, printer and ink cartridges. No trees or electricity will be saved in the conversion.
"This is some feedback I heard after writing about Bell’s bully tactics in a column last week. Bell plans to charge Internet customers $2 a month to get paper bills.
"Unless they register for e-billing by June 1, they face a new fee added automatically to their statements.
“'It’s one thing for companies to force negative billing on us, but Bell has made it so difficult and confusing as well,' said Michael Kidder.
“'I’ve probably wasted over an hour trying to opt out. The link to log into MyBell didn’t work at first. I managed to log in again and found MyBell is undergoing ‘daily maintenance.’"

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