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sloguy02246 -> Automatic billing/renewal experiences (6/15/2015 10:12:15 AM)
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Most providers of continuous services (e.g., utilities) offer the option for automatic (or "paperless") billing. Typically, this requires the customer to provide a credit card, debit card, or checking account number which the service provider bills each month for the service. Notification to the customer of each monthly (or bi-monthly, or quarterly, or whatever) charge is accomplished by email notice from the utility.
Of all my utility providers, AT & T is the most constant at hounding me every month to switch to paperless billing and uses environmental concerns as its pitch line (my switching to paperless will, according to AT & T, save entire forests of trees).
However, at no time do they ever tell me that doing so will also save them lots of money (no paper bill to calculate, mail, and then wait for the return mail with my payment check, which they must receive, open, process, etc.)
Maybe if they offered to give me a credit on my account each month for enrolling in automated billing....?
My only past experience with an automatic billing situation was not good. It took three phone calls and discussions with two supervisors to obtain a credit for a service I had cancelled more than two months before the recurring charge hit my credit card account.
That one experience has created a strong aversion to giving any company one of my credit card or bank account numbers ever again.
I realize that this subject will most likely elicit many similar "horror" stories, but I also wonder if some of you have had good experiences with automatic billing for one or more of your accounts.
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