Signing up for paperless statements saves time, space, and trees; however, we cannot help ourselves but ask – is it completely worth it? Once you go paperless, your statements will not be delivered in your mailbox. Instead, you will be getting them in your e-mail inbox.
Read along – we’ve prepared some pros and cons regarding converting yourself to an eStatement user.
What Is An eStatement?
Every credit card issuer is obliged to send their users monthly billing statements regarding their financial stats. For a long time, these have been delivered to you by post; however, electronic automation brought an easier option – eStatements that come into your e-mail inbox each month and are available as a PDF document.
For the users’ convenience, some of the card issuers tend to include the due date of the payment within the e-mail body. If you are considering going paperless and want to move on from traditional statements, we also suggest recognizing the benefits and disadvantages of eStatement billing.
Pros: Retiring Your Filing Cabinet, Helping the Planet, Anti-Fraud, and More
There are no ways to stress this enough: eStatements do vast amounts of good for our planet. According to the EPA, an average American uses paper worth of a 100ft-high Douglas fir yearly. The paper demand gets much lower by each user going paperless; accordingly, there are several credit card issuers contributing to causes regarding our environment each time a customer changes their preferred billing format.
Another very positive circumstance of electronic statements is the complete elimination of physical billing statements that are cluttering your home. Choosing this billing method, you can easily sort out your bills; this will help you realize what is ready to be thrown out or shredded, and what should be kept.
Also, cardholders going paperless are usually given some incentives, and the ones preferring paper billing get charged certain fees.
Additional, very serious yet overseen perks of the paperless billing regard prevention of identity theft fraud that comes from stolen mail. When you are getting your mail via the internet, you eliminate mail interception. Hacking does not do much damage either, as confidential information such as credit card info is not included in the issuer’s e-mails.
Cons: Potential Payment Missing, Remembering More Passwords, More Limited Access
A possible downside regarding paperless statements is having no physical reminder to extend your funds, which results in unpaid bills. To prevent forgetting the due date, you can set yourself a reminder by printing the document and posting it at a visible spot; you are still helping save the planet since the envelope and inserts are not used.
It is important to mention that only a certain number of previous statements have online availability. In case of needing more documents, for tax purposes, for example, there are some extra steps –- and possible fees – to gain access and reach previous statements. You can still file your statements away and access them later.
A minor inconvenience, yet very common, comes with another username and password you need to remember; each time you forget any of these, you will have to go through an info recovery process.
It is simple to conclude that Electronic Statement Billing has some cons, such as raising possibilities of missing payments, but those are rather easy to overcome in comparison to all the advantages given. Helping reduce the carbon footprint and paper use, uncluttering and raising levels of your safety is, in our opinion, the way to go! We have our own eStatement process as well as ach payment process– and we suggest you read more.
USEFUL READS:
– Forbes magazine has previously featured us – see what they say about identity theft.
– The economy uses vast amounts of paper – EPA (The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) gives useful insight into the American paper consuming habits.
