Being charged for paper statments

Bob2000

Postie came yesterday  and had l nice letter of Ovo telling me from now on l will be charged £1.50-1.80 for having my bill via letters.

Have any other utilities  started  to do the same?

Scot_39

BT have been charging an even higher £3 for their quarterly paper / postal statements for a long time now.  Most customers just get theirs by logging in on line to avoid.

My supllier EOnNext hasn't sent me paper bills for years - just monthly statements by email.  And again available in on line account.

It may even reduce the price premium over direct debit etc many on standard credit now pay - £112 in current Ofgem cap - slightly. 

And if like iirc EDF who are moving even standard credit billing to monthly the ccost of paper post may have been quadrupling may even have seen the premium increase  - but that likely offset by reduced credit risk and savings on cash flow costs. 

Have Ovo given you a free paperless option ?

matelodave

Perhaps you don't realise that the aggro and inconvenience of printing out some paper, sticking it into an envelope and then paying the post office to poke through your letterbox costs a significant amount more than sending an e-mail or publishing on their website.

Just a basic 2nd class stamp costs 85p so an extra quid for all the aggro seems pretty reasonable

Keep_pedalling

Lot of organisations are charging producing paper statements is expensive and from a consumers point of view I can’t see why you need them if you have access to email then they are rather pointless.

FreeBear

matelodave said: Just a basic 2nd class stamp costs 85p so an extra quid for all the aggro seems pretty reasonable

If you are sending an appreciable amount of post via someone like Whistl, prices drop considerably. Looking at the current bulk mail prices from Royal Mail, the cost is as little as ~44p per letter.

Scot_39

FreeBear said:

matelodave said: Just a basic 2nd class stamp costs 85p so an extra quid for all the aggro seems pretty reasonable

If you are sending an appreciable amount of post via someone like Whistl, prices drop considerably. Looking at the current bulk mail prices from Royal Mail, the cost is as little as ~44p per letter.

Then theirs the cost of the paper, the envelope and the machinery to produce them - servers, printers, auto-folding and envelope insertion / stuffing equipment.

molerat

Scot_39 said:

FreeBear said:

matelodave said: Just a basic 2nd class stamp costs 85p so an extra quid for all the aggro seems pretty reasonable

If you are sending an appreciable amount of post via someone like Whistl, prices drop considerably. Looking at the current bulk mail prices from Royal Mail, the cost is as little as ~44p per letter.

Then theirs the cost of the paper, the envelope and the machinery to produce them - servers, printers, auto-folding and envelope insertion / stuffing equipment.

They won't produce the statements themselves, just send a data file over to a company that does it all for them, so no costs other than a per item charge.

Far easier though to store PDF statements and way more environmentally friendly.

Bob2000

Scot_39 said:

BT have been charging an even higher £3 for their quarterly paper / postal statements for a long time now.  Most customers just get theirs by logging in on line to avoid.

My supllier EOnNext hasn't sent me paper bills for years - just monthly statements by email.  And again available in on line account.

It may even reduce the price premium over direct debit etc many on standard credit now pay - £112 in current Ofgem cap - slightly. 

And if like iirc EDF who are moving even standard credit billing to monthly the ccost of paper post may have been quadrupling may even have seen the premium increase  - but that likely offset by reduced credit risk and savings on cash flow costs. 

Have Ovo given you a free paperless option ?

Yes, they have said do it  online and do it all by email.
I'm happy enough to pay at my local convenience store  via pay point. Reason why they are informing  me no doubt.

Bob2000

matelodave said:

Perhaps you don't realise that the aggro and inconvenience of printing out some paper, sticking it into an envelope and then paying the post office to poke through your letterbox costs a significant amount more than sending an e-mail or publishing on their website.

Just a basic 2nd class stamp costs 85p so an extra quid for all the aggro seems pretty reasonable

Fair enough. 

Bob2000

Keep_pedalling said:

Lot of organisations are charging producing paper statements is expensive and from a consumers point of view I can’t see why you need them if you have access to email then they are rather pointless.

Because l struggle  with techno stuff.
A family member set up this forum membership too.

Bob2000

FreeBear said:

matelodave said: Just a basic 2nd class stamp costs 85p so an extra quid for all the aggro seems pretty reasonable

If you are sending an appreciable amount of post via someone like Whistl, prices drop considerably. Looking at the current bulk mail prices from Royal Mail, the cost is as little as ~44p per letter.

Well they should be charging  me 44p then that's reasonable:)