Honesty is Such a Lovely Word
By Larry Riggs
We’ve all been hearing for years about how great it would be to send all correspondence electronically, save trees and money and all that.
One of these groups, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer, is the PayItGreen Alliance, a group of financial institutions that trumpet the money-saving benefits of paperless transactions for bill paying and other purposes.
Wait a second. Are we being treated to another massive con job from the financial industry?
In fact, banks and others have been blowing this trumpet for at least 20 years.
While it‘s fashionable able now to say you care for the environment, we must remember that it costs banks and credit card companies a hell of a lot less to send and receive bills electronically.
So who’s really saving the big bucks?
Of course, not using paper leaves consumers susceptible to privacy invasion and data breaches. Hardly a day goes by now without reports of data theft from banks, hospitals or retailers.
Keep in mind that a lot of major financial institutions, especially banks and credit card companies are huge, huge users of direct mail. Just look at all the negotiated service agreements those firms cut with the U.S. Postal Service for special postage rates.
[Even though credit card prospect mailings fell off during the third quarter, as reported in Direct Newsline on Friday, don’t think for a moment they won’t get back to prior levels once the economy improves].
In fact, we all know how much the USPS depends on such agreements to raise revenue
True, paying bills electronically saves everybody money. It would be nice financial institutions were more transparent about their motives.
