NSTAR cancels paper bills for all E-Bill customers, without their permission

By jikamens on Sun, 08/20/2006 - 3:49pm

NSTAR just notified all customers who had signed up for the E-Bill service to be able to pay bills online, but who did not opt to stop receiving paper statements, that they were going to no longer receive paper statements whether they like it or not.

Read all about it on my main blog.

Topics:

Annoying companies

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NStar

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Comments

Easily Fixed

By TheMane on Mon, 08/21/2006 - 2:13pm.

It should be noted that any customer who has had this happen can simply log into their nstar account, click on "linked accounts" from the left-hand toolbar, and then disable the paperless setting to receive paper bills again. This doesn't disable ebill, it just reinstates your paper bill.

True enough, but...

By jikamens on Mon, 08/21/2006 - 2:52pm.

They didn't bother to mention this either in the email or the letter they sent me, and it isn't obvious how to do it until after you've figured it out. I didn't figure it out until after I'd written to them.

Do you work for NStar? Did this happen to you? If the answer to both questions is no, then I'm not sure you can know for certain that reenabling paper billing on the Web site will actually work; from the content of their letter to me, it seems equally likely that they're planning on ignoring that setting.

In any case, even if there's a way to undo it, the fact remains that they simply never should have turned off paper billing for anyone without their prior explicit consent.

Postive Reviews?

By Anon on Mon, 08/21/2006 - 3:18pm.

The poster seems to send a lot of negative letters to companies and government officials. Maybe they might try doing something positive to not get so bogged down by all the negativity. Seriously, let it go. You are driving yourself to an early grave. My father was the type who would *explode* over the simpliest change and it was terrible to watch his health just deteroriate.

Mabye for every five negative letter he sends, he has to send just one positive letter when someone has been helpful. Trying looking on the bright side.