The Bill Is Paperless. Finding It Is My Job.

Paperless billing sounds simple. Instead of mailing the bill, the company emails it to you.

Except that often isn’t what happens. You get an email telling you the bill is ready. The bill itself is somewhere else, waiting behind a login.

They haven’t sent the bill. They’ve sent news of the bill.

Now you follow the link, enter a password, and perhaps receive a verification code by email. So you leave the bill website, return to the email account where this began, find the code, and go back before it expires. All to learn how much electricity you used while doing this.

If you don’t remember the password, there’s a reset link. That arrives by email too. Your inbox is apparently the company’s preferred place to put everything except the actual bill.

I understand why an account exists. There are payment details and personal information involved. I’m not asking anyone to staple that to a postcard. But it’s worth noticing what “paperless” has come to mean. A paper bill arrived with the amount and the due date right on it. Now I receive an invitation to go find those things myself.

The email may say something useful, such as “Your statement is available.” Good. Where? Oh, at the website. The same website that needs me to prove I’m me by sending another email to the inbox it just used to reach me. We have established that I can receive email. We’re very thorough about it.

Once you’re in, you still have to locate the statement. Is it under Billing, Documents, Account Activity, or a little icon that looks like a folded sheet of paper? There may be a button to download a PDF, which you can save somewhere and name yourself. The company has successfully stopped printing the bill by assigning the filing to you.

And no, I’m not arguing for a return to envelopes piling up on the counter. Paperless billing can be useful. It’s just an odd name for a system that replaces opening one envelope with opening three browser tabs and checking your email twice.

The paper is gone. The paperwork is doing fine.