British Gas moved me to paperless bills without my consent 25 January at 4:53PM in Energy 38 replies 1.5K views

triade

I want to help improve our environment, I want to make that clear upfront.

My energy bills are the only paper bills I get though and the reason is, so I can prove my address.

Every so often we need to apply for something where we need to prove our address, so a recent bill is generally requested.

I have chosen to keep getting my periodical statements through the post and I had not planned to change that.

I got an email from them today telling me I'd been switched to paperless. They didn't ask me first, they just switched it.

I take affront to that so I contacted them and instructed them to change it back.

They told me it had been switched back and I have to take their word for it.

I don't like how they did this so I want to talk about it.

btw. I know that some might say I should print out the statement if I ever need to prove my address, but I believe me buying a printer and ensuring there is working ink cartridges in it just for this rare circumstance is a false economy and too much hassle. It doesn't make sense to me to try and find a place that does printing either and my friends don't have printers.

MattMattMattUK

triade said:

I want to help improve our environment, I want to make that clear upfront.

My energy bills are the only paper bills I get though and the reason is, so I can prove my address.

Every so often we need to apply for something where we need to prove our address, so a recent bill is generally requested.

I have chosen to keep getting my periodical statements through the post and I had not planned to change that.

I got an email from them today telling me I'd been switched to paperless. They didn't ask me first, they just switched it.

I take affront to that so I contacted them and instructed them to change it back.

They told me it had been switched back and I have to take their word for it.

I don't like how they did this so I want to talk about it.

I am not sure what there really is to talk about it, they would not need your permission to switch you over to paperless, only to notify you that they were doing it.

triade said:

btw. I know that some might say I should print out the statement if I ever need to prove my address, but I believe me buying a printer and ensuring there is working ink cartridges in it just for this rare circumstance is a false economy and too much hassle. It doesn't make sense to me to try and find a place that does printing either and my friends don't have printers.

I am more surprised that you still need a bill to prove your address, I thought with the fact that people could knock one up these days in minutes that would have long died. When I recently had to do KYC for a business bank account as a company director the only documents they would accept were passport, driving license and Council Tax bill, utility bills were not on the list. Is a utility bill still valid in any context as a proof of address? 

diystarter7

Hi Op

They all seem to do it at times

re BG

https://www.britishgas.co.uk/help-and-support/bills-and-payments/getting-a-paper-copy-of-your-bill

I'm a fan of aper billing but some only do that once 6 months i think, may be wrong

ours is edf and i'm pretty sure its every 6 months and i had to call tThanks

EssexHebridean

Utility bill dated inside three months, so long as it has been received in the post, is still a valid proof of address for many situations where AML checks are being carried out. 

Council tax bill however can be used all year OP - so this would probably be suitable for most purposes anyway?

Usually a supplier wishing to change someone to paperless confirms that they will do so unless an objection is received, in my experience. 

Keep_pedalling

Don’t you get an annual council tax bill that would serve that purpose? 

Dolor

All companies have the right to change their contract terms and conditions. Suppliers do not require the permission of the consumer to do so, and this includes selling on their customer base to another supplier (eg; Ovo/SSE; Octopus/Bulb etc) 

The other party can either accept the changes ( known as a mutual variation of contract) or leave/switch without penalty. 

triade

diystarter7 said:

Hi Op

They all seem to do it at times

re BG

https://www.britishgas.co.uk/help-and-support/bills-and-payments/getting-a-paper-copy-of-your-bill

I'm a fan of aper billing but some only do that once 6 months i think, may be wrong

ours is edf and i'm pretty sure its every 6 months and i had to call tThanks

thank you, that link is very useful, I did search for something like that but couldn't find it.

EssexHebridean said:

Utility bill dated inside three months, so long as it has been received in the post, is still a valid proof of address for many situations where AML checks are being carried out. 

Council tax bill however can be used all year OP - so this would probably be suitable for most purposes anyway?

Usually a supplier wishing to change someone to paperless confirms that they will do so unless an objection is received, in my experience. 

Keep_pedalling said:

Don’t you get an annual council tax bill that would serve that purpose? 

Thank you, if council tax statement will do then I won't worry about whether BG actually do switch it back to paper statements.

macman

They're not 'getting pushed to do it', they're doing it because it saves them millions in postage and printing/enveloping  costs.
You don't mention your region, but TW, for example, has about 6.5m customers. if they bill each customer twice a year, that's 13m bills. An awful lot of paper, envelopes and stamps. By contrast, online billing is nearly without cost.

Eldi_Dos

Paper bills generated here and delivered by post help our economy, especially if paper and envelopes are produced here.
The assumption that paperless billing is better for the environment is debatable if the servers are overseas and powered by electricity made with fossil fuels and the thousands of kilometers of cables used require a lot of oil to make the materials used in their manufacture.

macman

Some paper is made here, but almost all the pulp is imported from Northern Europe, all of which processes use huge amounts of energy in transport and manufacture, with the consequent output of C02, dirty water and bleaching chemicals. The printing process similarly, with a whole smorgasbord of toxic chemicals utilised.
The servers are going to be running to generate the billing anyway before it goes to paper: sticking with paper billing doesn't change that impact at all.

triade

Eldi_Dos said:

Paper bills generated here and delivered by post help our economy, especially if paper and envelopes are produced here.
The assumption that paperless billing is better for the environment is debatable if the servers are overseas and powered by electricity made with fossil fuels and the thousands of kilometers of cables used use a lot of oil to make the materials used in their manufacture.

yes I have been mulling this over for a while myself. If a tree crop were fast growing and easily processed, the production of more paper that way is actually sequestering CO2 inside the paper, although the possible benefits of that, may be offset by the resources used in printing and other parts of the process. I don't know the sums but I agree that it isn't black and white "less paper = better environment".