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Today’s post is written by Tim of Faith and Finance. It was written for a blog swap run by the Yakezie personal finance blog network to answer the question “What is your biggest financial pet peeve?“

Chances are, you’ve probably received a few notices from your bank or investment company about receiving e-statements.  I’m all for getting less mail, and having online access to my statements is a really nice feature.  In fact, most of my statements are online now.

So why is it a pet peeve if I LIKE viewing statements online?  Here’s why:  If you don’t get the online version of your statements, many places will charge you for the paper statement.  My bank (which will go unnamed) pulled this very move.  If you want to receive paper statements you had to pay a few dollars each year for the ‘service.’  Now I understand that printing statements costs money, but what bothers me the most is that the bank continues to send junk mail even though I opted in to the e-statements.

It seems a little impolite to say “You have to stop using paper…but we’ll keep sending you stuff you don’t want in the mail.”  Each time they send me something in the mail promoting a new product or those goofy cash advance checks, I think about how much money they’re NOT saving.

***Ok ok, I’ll stop ranting.  That’s what happens when you’re challenged to write about a pet peeve…you get a little excited.  🙂

Solutions to the problem

I’m a firm believer that if you’re going to complain about something, you should be willing to suggest alternatives, so here’s what I’d do differently if I were the banks.

1. 1. Don’t punish for paper statements, incentivize for online statements

If you want to connect with people online and save money in the long run, provide an incentive to make the shift to online statements.  Money and interest rates talk, so maybe provide $5 plus access to a higher paying certificate only available for our online banking members.

1. 2. Consolidate the message.

If people want to get paper statements still, don’t charge them – instead, use the statement envelope to promote your products.  The envelope is already paid for, so why not use it for marketing purposes.  Now I know they’ll say, “people don’t read statement stuffers.”  To that I’d say, “what makes you think they’d read a dedicated mailer then?”

Those are my two cents.  Has anyone thought the same thing?  How do you feel about paper statements vs. online statements?

[Jason’s note: There is a fee that irritates me a lot more than paying to get a paper statement.  I hate “online access” fees.  Those are the fee where you get charged for other people doing less.   They are usually called convenience fees or, in the case of government, technology fees.]