Did you know: the majority of Americans do their banking by snail mail? Yes, the most common US payment method is the handwritten check, stuffed in an envelope and stamped with 39 cents . . . or is it 41 these days?
This is silly. Not only is the paper check outdated it’s also a poor choice for the environment. Consider the trees milled, water wasted, energy expended and ink produced to create checks, checkbooks, paper statements, invoices and payment confirmation letters. It adds up to a lot of squandered resources.
The frequency with which we receive paper bills is illusory. Daily influxes of bright-white billing envelopes can lead us to believe paper bills suddenly appear—inconsequently—in our mailboxes, but every paper bill must be produced, transported by plane, train or United States Postal Service delivery truck—chocking up serious damage in fuel emissions. A recent study vetted by the Environmental Protection Agency claims the paper billing routine requires more than 674 million gallons of fuel a year. That’s an eventual 3.6 million TONS of greenhouse gas!
Electronic bill payment is more than just a planetary mitzvah. It’s also ingenious security against identity theft. Experts have long warned against mailing sensitive financial documents. Most banks concur that online transactions are safer than paper billing methods. According to a Javelin Strategy and Research study, almost 85 percent of identity theft cases are due to paper-related issues such as lost checkbooks and stolen bills, statements and check payments. With electronic transactions, however, sticky-fingered banditos won’t even have the chance to view your stats, let alone engineer a heist.
Sticky-fingered banditos come in all shapes and sizes. Beware, they’ll get you when you least expect it.
So slay the raging paper beast, and take control of the clutter pilling up on your desk. Make the digital switch. To learn more about all the issues surrounding electronic bill payment, as well as to calculate your financial footprint, visit PayitGreen.org.
Been doing electronic bill paying and purchasing for 3 years now. The choices are either directly to payee’s site or most banks offer FREE electronic checking to pay all of your bills.
Reduces the paper and you can schedule when your payments will go out, so you can enter them to be paid when you receive the bill. No more spending an hour or so collecting them all, organizing them, and entering it all into the check register and writing the checks and using the correct envelope and don’t forget the $0.41 stamp. It always hurts to pay bills but at least this is less painful.
05/05/08 » 6:38 am »
hear hear. Well said and couldn’t agree more!
05/05/08 » 8:22 am »
I’m Australian and I am always amazed that people in the USA pay with cheques and with paper bills – we do most of our banking here electronically and if I could get out of getting a bank statement in paper, I would (but legally can’t). It’s an interesting study in people in a lot of ways to discuss the daily ins and outs of life!
05/11/08 » 3:55 pm »