I think it's both. But if it saves on paper by outraging some skinflints, I'm all for it.

What they should of done was to credit those people who decided to go with paperless billing a buck or two for being "green." So T-mobile would be saving paper and look less evil.

My wife pays most (if not all) of our bills online, but I still like getting the paper copies in the mail. I feel it is a helpful reminder to pay and there is something about being able to keep a physical copy in our filing cabinet that makes me feel better.

This is just another nail in the coffin for USPS, especially if more and more companies start following suit.

@Joewithay: Exactly. A dollar saved is the same as a dollar not spent.

The problem is that they'd have to raise their monthly price by about $1.50 first, and we'd be grumbling about that (although probably less).

I still get paper bills. I have had too many problems with companies sending our online bill to a dead email address, the inability to change said email address or it being eaten by spam filters.

We had our cable company switch us to paperless billing simply because we used their option to pay your bill on their website. Any time you used their website you were forced onto paperless billing. But I could not pull up and print a bill from said website, it was only delivered by email. They would only send it to your cable provider ISP based email account that none of us used. We didn't even know what this ISP based email account was (user & pwd) so we couldn't get into it. It also only had pop3 access so we would have to install an email client to read it. Screw this mess, send me a paper bill.

Verizon keeps changing the navigation ever so slightly so I end up wasting time trying to find the right link to get our bill online.

If companies want people to use paperless billing they need to make it easier.

@GyroMight: "there is something about being able to keep a physical copy in our filing cabinet that makes me feel better"

You're right, it would be amazing if we could somehow come up with the technology to make on-demand hard copies of whatever computer data we wanted ... oh, wait >.>

I know it's snarky, but if you're going to justify the paper bill you have to use a better reason than "it's a hard copy" :)

Thanks for posting my tip, Laura. :) I don't see how this is not a change to the contract - this fee was not in place at the time the customer signed the contract, and therefore they should either be able to opt out back to the old terms (which, as we all know, cell phone companies never let you do) or terminate the contract without an ETF.

@ckaught78: Don't worry - that'll just be passed onto us in the form of another stamp increase.

I'm not happy about this. Some online paperless bills are generated each time you view them online. So, if a company backdates a change/charge to your account, all your bills online will show it as if it was always there and you never paid it, late charges and all!

My wife's student loans did this when they finally determined she wasn't a student. We had paper bills up until they changed it --- to view past statements you needed e-bills... and lo and behold the paperless bills showed all these late fees that we never paid! Scary.

My mom doesn't use the internet. Good thing her contract was up last month. Time to find her a new carrier.

@ZekeSulastin: There's always " I feel it is a helpful reminder to pay". And "it'd be nice to have some say in how I give you money".

@ztoop: There's nothing stoping you from printing the e-bill as it becomes available.

First off, let me state that IANAL. But I've read T-Mobile's contract - the entire contract - which is available at [www.t-mobile.com] The version I read was modified on June 28, 2008.

The relevant portion of the contract is:

5. Our Rights to Make Changes. Your Service is subject to our business policies, practices, and procedures, which we can change without notice. UNLESS EXPRESSLY PROHIBITED BY LAW, WE CAN CHANGE PRICES, CHARGES AND ANY TERMS IN THE AGREEMENT AT ANY TIME. IF WE MATERIALLY MODIFY THESE T&Cs IN A WAY THAT IS MATERIALLY ADVERSE TO YOU, OR IF A CHANGE INCREASES YOUR SET MONTHLY RECURRING CHARGE(S) (the set amount - which does not include overage, features, optional services, taxes and fees - you agreed to pay each month for at least a one-year Term), WE WILL PROVIDE YOU WITH AT LEAST 30 DAYS NOTICE AND YOU MAY TERMINATE YOUR SERVICE WITHOUT AN EARLY TERMINATION FEE (WHICH IS YOUR ONLY REMEDY) BY NOTIFYING US WITHIN 30 DAYS AFTER YOU RECEIVE THE NOTICE. IF YOU FAIL TO TERMINATE WITHIN THOSE 30 DAYS, YOU ACCEPT THE CHANGES.

They are modifying those terms by adding a $1.50 paper bill fee. That means - yes, you can terminate your contract without an ETF. And as regular Consumerist readers know, it doesn't matter if the change is "materially adverse" or not. Materially adverse is not defined in the contract. Cell phone companies love to have their CSRs lie about that and say the change isn't materially adverse; escalate and EECB away!

@eddieck: Oops - looks like the period got stuck in the link. The correct link is:

[www.t-mobile.com]

I'm ok with this. Save the planet, and save money if you're doing it online. All my bills are paperless, I have everything set up to either send me a reminder by email or cell, I log on to the site, look at the bill there, and pay it. Or for some things I'm on autopay.

People who still write checks need to come into the 21st century.

I knew I wasn't the only one who has switched mostly to paperless. I like receiving mail, but who has time to sort through every piece of mail and spam just to get yet MORE spam in the envelope? When I still had paper bills coming to me, there was usually one or two pieces of propaganda inside the envelope along with the bill. By going paperless, you're making sure that the companies can't send you spam inside your envelopes either.

@GyroMight: Yeah, it's nice to have a paper copy if you're like me and paranoid. Verizon wont send me a bill for FiOS and there website has been under "maintenance" for the last 2 years so I just have to take their word that they are charging me fairly.

Some points that several people are missing:
1)$1.50 isn't directly proportional to the printing/mailing of statements.
2)The statements used by t-mobile are obscene in the first place (color printing and LARGE; if they want to cut down on paper they could change their statements altogether)
3)The solution proposed that one should "print it out at home" sort of defeats the purpose of the attempt at "saving paper"
4)The fee for a paper statement is built into the cost of the services they are providing ("The cost of doing business")
5)T-Mobile's customer web architecture is completely inadequate to support paper-less billing let alone online payment.
6)This reeks of a way for T-Mobile to get fees from people "mis-placing" (spam) the paperless notifications and forgetting to pay their bill on time. (ding ding ding)
6a)Companies have been known to use electronic billing notices to their advantage by sending them later than you'd receive a paper bill and/or not sending them at all.

Long winded comment, I know...but...finally: It costs money to send electronic bills and have the system run efficiently (ie not like Verizon Wireless which is always down), as well; from what I gather T-Mobile hasn't expended the necessary resources to support the influx of customers (not smart enough to cancel their contracts) using their online services and I expect it will result in even more anger from the customer base.

@eddieck:
I'm guessing because the contract doesn't promise you free paper bills, and they still are providing your bill to you in some format for free.

@Cant_stop_the_rock: What if you don't have Internet access?

@amiableamy: set reminders on cell phone/outlook/ical? Keep statement notifications "unread" in the inbox?

I find that paper bills get lost much more easily than electronic ones.

So Leo LaPorte is right: all cell companies suck, some more than others.

@ZekeSulastin:
Ok, how about the companies only retain records back to a certain date and it's fairly easy for them to 'oops', lose some data that might be useful to you in a billing dispute?

How about printing them out from the website is an onerous job because of paging issues? Say you have 300 items on your bill, phone calls, text messages and the like. Now imagine the carrier breaks out your online bill for you into tabs breaking down those categories. And on those tabs they only display 10 records at a time. Imagine trying to print your bill for your records now.

Having a paper bill keeps the companies honest...er.

@eddieck: You could possibly find some manager that would agree with you (it doesn't hurt to try) but in order for a term to be considered changed or modified it has to be existing. There is nothing in the contract that outlined the original bill receipt process.

i usually don't comment on consumerist but i read it everyday.

this one i have to comment on.

I think it is despicable that companies have been encouraging people to do paperless billing, we don't get a discount for doing so, and they save money. I honestly don't think its about them going green, its another ploy to try to make up for the overpaid CEO's who every year get pay increases that to a normal person would be almost a years paycheck.

And now they want to charge for sending you paper? wtf! well then why didn't i get a discount for going paperless? I see this more and more, every company finding small ways to save money and the consumer ending up paying more in the end for the same product.

@amiableamy: T-mobile sends me an email when my bill is ready to be viewed. The online view is not detailed but if you select to print it you get a completely itemized account online. You can save this to PDF or print it directly if you want to kill some trees.

@eddieck: But they may consider the $1.50 fee for a paper bill to be an "Optional service" which they say isn't covered.

Sigh...news story out this weeks shows that the US pays among the highest rates for cell phones in the world.
"11/08/2009 - Finland, the Netherlands and Sweden have the lowest prices for mobile phone calls among OECD countries, according to the latest OECD Communications Outlook. The highest were found in Canada, Spain and the United States." [www.oecd.org]

@psm321: Or the elderly who don't even have a computer and just use their phone for emergencies and to talk to the grandkids. The many cranky ones will definitely be calling in to complain.

@chiieddy: The thing about it is that if you print at home you are using YOUR time, YOUR ink and YOUR money to perform a service you shouldn't have to.

Instead of tacking on fees for people who want paper bills, why not offer a discount for those who switch to paperless?

@Sir Winston Thriller: That's what happens when you have several large corporations monopolizing the market and tying us down with exclusivity agreements and 2 year phone subsidy contracts.

Last I checked, many carriers in Canada require a THREE year contract.

Long time T-Mobile customer here (and a happy one to boot).

I switched to paperless billing a long time ago. Rather than get a long print-out of line items that I didn't really care too much about (I rarely go over my 400 texts & 600 anytime minutes), I simply read it online to make sure there aren't any funny charges.

Then, I print-to-.pdf. Thus, I have a 'hard copy' (an uneditable, printable file) of the bill that is saved on my hard drive and cannot be changed on-the-fly by any weird after the fact issues.

Best of both worlds: I don't get stuck filing reams of paper; I retain control and access to my bills; and if a problem arises, I have an original copy.

@eddieck: which is why forever stamps are the best investment i ever made.

@SlappyWhite: well there are some reasons why writing checks is better....esp with student loans and wanting excess funds to apply to the principle. it's a little more difficult to do online, from what i gather

@unthink: I echo your comments that they never gave a discount for going paperless versus just a "green pat on the back".

I would be cool with this ONLY if they could maintain access to your online bill forever even if you don't have the service anymore. If the law wants the info they seem to be able to have it available to them anytime but it seems to expire for the consumer.

So how do people without internet pay their bills? I'm sure this type of thing will be struck down in court at some point. I don't think you are able to charge people for things without providing them with a bill. I still know a lot of people without internet, believe it or not.

I prefer the paper bill so that I can reference and as a reminder to pay. Sometimes I pay online, sometimes I don't. I don't know if T-mobile does it but I know some vendors charge to take a payment online. How much you wanna bet that sooner or later you'll get charged $1.50 to get the paper bill, and $1.50 to do an e-payment.

Either way, wasn't there a part of the credit card reform bill that said customers should not be charged to make payments? You cannot pay without a bill so wouldn't think violate that...if it exists

@SlappyWhite:

I haven't moved to electronic bill paying for several reasons.

The biggest of which is the question of how I would pay my bills if my computer were in the repair shop for a few weeks. I suppose I could go to my local library, several miles from my house. Assuming I could remember my passwords to access the accounts for the 10 or more bills I pay every month.

Autopay is something I would never do. I like to be able to decide who gets paid how much, and when.

@TheRedSeven: Excellent plan. Cuts down on the clutter too. One suggestion: if you haven't already, be sure and use either RAID or an external hard drive to back-up your data!

@Saboth: The fact that people don't have internet is their own choice, or their own circumstance of inconvenience. It's not T-Mobile's fault they're living in the dark ages. The majority of people now do have internet, and I T-Mobile is looking to cut costs and this is how they're doing it. They figure more people will switch to ebilling, and they'll be able to offset the costs of paper billing by charging the fee.

T-mo is not a particularly fee-happy company, so I think it's more to cut operating costs than to generate revenue. The whole "green" bill thing is ironically named, since it saves a company more green than it does the planet: not having to have a human process a payment sent in by hand and saving on postage and printing adds up fast vs. accepting online or recurring/bank transfer payments.

I think T-mobile is just looking to trim expenses. People who don't use the internet will now have to use the phone to pay, which ain't the end of the world. They send us free texts letting us know when the bills are available/due anyhow.

The only thing that would actually make this a consumer offense IMHO is if T-Mobile or any company took away a paper option while instituting a "convenience fee" to pay online with credit cards. THAT is bullshit - when you pay parking tickets or utility bills and they want a $2 charge from you for the pleasure of saving THEM money by not mailing in a physical check. That, my friends, is bull cacapoopy.

Full disclosure: I've been an extremely happy T-mobile customer since 2003. Unbeatable customer service and plan prices in the cell phone industry, period.

@bravo369: Usually they charge if you're paying via credit or debit card rather than a direct deduction from a bank account. AT&T, for example, does not charge for any online payments regardless of what you're using to pay.

@Saboth: You can call them up to check on your bill; the call's free.

@ryan89: I'd be willing to bet that this fee is fairly easy to get off your bill if you claim to not have a computer. I'm sure they will have enough people call up and switch to paperless that it is worth the hassle for them.

@dragonfire81: Ideally, you can print to a file, not to actual paper. You keep your own soft backup that you can print if you ever need to. Admitted, I'd still be using MY time, but not MY money or MY ink.

I like this. I don't find anything inherently evil about it or even profit making. Based on the cost of sending an envelope these days, plus the cost of paper and ink, 1.50 is probably not even profit making for them. It might even be a loss on people with larger bills.

@SlappyWhite:

T@pecan 3.14159265:

"it's not T-mobile's fault they're living in the dark ages"! I'm sorry, i didn't realize contracting with T-mobile for a phone gave them the right to approve your lifestyle, at the pain of $42 a year that was never agreed to. Making the charge IS T-Mobile's fault--they're just rapacious.

@SlappyWhite: I pay every bill online except my rent and my electric bill. Why the electric bill? Because the option to pay online with a one-time payment comes with a $3 fee. Yeah. But not surprisingly, the option to have my payment automatically deducted from my checking account each month, something I would never EVER do, is absolutely free.