Barclaycard Paperless Statements Rip-Off

Degenerate

Just a heads-up for those who like to use the new paperless statements functionality with Barclaycard:

If your card is cancelled due to loss or fraud, you can kiss the promised 6-12 months of statement availabilty goodbye. They immediately block access to your entire account history. This is not a security thing, as the online account remains active. The new card number replaces the old one and all history goes with it.

Don't worry though, they will offer to send you paper copies at £3 each!

Needless to say, I am not satified with this and will be pursuing it further.

nomoneytoday

Did you not get a pdf or similar whilst the account was open on the original card?

hayley11

I thought they were only allowed to charge a max of £10 for copy statements?

Dabooka

nomoneytoday wrote: »

Did you not get a pdf or similar whilst the account was open on the original card?

To be fair, I wouldn't have thought to download them, I'd assume I could have secure access to them regardless.

Degenerate

nomoneytoday wrote: »

Did you not get a pdf or similar whilst the account was open on the original card?

See:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1913113

I haven't actually turned off paper myself yet, but I was considering it. I'm still mighty peeved at losing my account history though, and the offer of £3 a statement is absolutely outrageous under the circumstances. (the CS drone making this offer was not aware I had still been receiving paper copies.)

The bottom line is, 6-12 months of on-line availability is stated in the paperless statements offer, people will operate on that basis, so they should live up to the promise.

jakesuk

I think the moral of the story IMO is to continue receiving paper copies. They don't charge a fee for paper and it's a toss-up between saving the environment and making sure you have records incase of fraud...

I don't particularly like keeping PDF copies of everything incase of IT problems.

Degenerate

jakesuk wrote: »

I think the moral of the story IMO is to continue receiving paper copies. They don't charge a fee for paper and it's a toss-up between saving the environment and making sure you have records incase of fraud...

As things stand, I agree. I'd rather have dropped paper though - more to reduce the volume of post than due to environmental concerns. I'm frequently away from home and don't like large volumes of mail building up on the doormat.

I don't particularly like keeping PDF copies of everything incase of IT problems.

That's a very valid concern in the context of home computers. That's another reason why people may choose to rely on the website - this data ought to be more secure in the custody of a major financial institution, with its proper data centres, backup regimes and disaster recovery plans.

Moggles_2

Credit card providers certainly don't make it easy for those that want to do their bit for the environment and save the companies a few quid at the same time.

Also, most will still continue to post you all manner of junk mail in an effort to sell insurance, personal loans etc. It's only the monthly statements that are paperless :rolleyes:

chattychappy

I download PDF files and use a "Truecrypt" drive to keep them. (Google to find.) Totally free software and difficult to hack into. Easy to backup too.

Sure, someone might find a way in - but I reckon it's easier to intercept the post. Sure you might lose your backup copies - but then you could lose your paper copies too.