T-Mobile Insists on Charging me 15 Cents for Going Paperless

and I told them screw it.

As I mentioned when I switched to electronic trade notification and statement with Zecco early last month, I want to get rid of all the paper statements before I have no use of them. Since most services I am using, whether it’s a bank, a broker, or a credit card company, already provide statement online, I just don’t see any need to keep receiving paper statements. Besides, if I do need to find something, going online and pulling out the statement is much easier than searching my file cabinet to locate the fill.

Early this year, I also opted in to view my T-Mobile phone bills online, instead of receiving their 4-page statement. Everything worked find since then and I got less paper to shred every month, but with one drawback: now I got a text message instead and that adds 15 cents to my bill. 15 cents is nothing comparing to our $70+ monthly bill, but I really don’t like being charged for something I absolutely don’t need, whether it’s 15 cents or 15 dollars. Plus, I’m already receiving email alert.

So I called them last night to stop the text message and what I was told made me reverse my previous action and go back to paper statement again. Basically, what they said was that the text message is part of the system for customers using paperless statement and there’s no such a button to remove it. As they said, the only way to stop the text message is to use paper statement, even though I told them printing and sending the paper statement cost them more than the 15 cents they make from that text message.

At the end, I decided to switch back to paper statement. It’s funny that other companies like Zecco will charge me for paper statement and T-Mobile is doing the opposite. Even at as little as 15 cents, I am not going to pay for it. It’s just ridiculous!

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