For banks, phone companies and utility retailers, it is a way to encourage customers to switch over to digital bills and online payments. It’s perfectly legal, if a little infuriating. But for some Australians, receiving a hard copy of a bill or a statement is their only option.
Most affected are those who can’t afford internet access and some older Australians who don’t have the skills to do so.
The Commonwealth Treasury is looking at options for restricting fees for paper bills. Options under examination are:
- An industry-led consumer education campaign
- A total ban on paper billing fees
- Banning only providers of essential services from charging fees
- Capping fees to the amount it actually costs companies to mail a bill
- Promoting the exemptions currently available.
The Treasury invited Deafness Forum of Australia and others to offer advice on the options under consideration. Deafness Forum’s view is that people with the least capacity to pay are disproportionately bearing the cost of paper billing fees. It wants Treasury to ensure that disadvantaged consumers are not paying paper billing fees at a higher rate compared to the wider community.
Australians that are digitally excluded are often the most vulnerable and disadvantaged citizens. 1.3 million households do not have access to the internet and are therefore disadvantaged by paper billing fees, which can only be avoided by accessing the internet. The second Australian Digital Inclusion Index (http://digitalinclusionindex.org.au), in its examination of online access, affordability and digital ability, found that around three million Australians are not online and that a digital divide is getting deeper.
Australians who are less likely to be online are:
- People with disability
- Indigenous Australians
- People with lower levels of income, education, employment and live outside major cities
Some essential services offer exemptions for people who genuinely need a paper version of their bills and statements, but this is a voluntary arrangement offered by a minority of providers and consumers may not be aware that such arrangements exist.
It would be unrealistic to expect companies to absorb the cost of a total ban on paper billing fees. The costs would merely be shared by all customers.
Companies should accept that electronic billing is not now, nor will it be in the future, appropriate for all customers and this principle should be built into their business systems. Groups within society will always require paper bills that are posted to them; and they should not suffer discrimination, through financial disadvantage.
In its advice given to Treasury, Deafness Forum has recommended changes to consumer law that:
- Bans providers of essential services from charging fees
- Treasury can convene a consumer and industry roundtable to define essential services.
- Prohibits fees for customers who are a:
- Pensioner Concession Card holder and their dependant
- Centrelink client receiving Disability Pension, Carer Payment or Sickness Allowance, and their dependant
- National Disability Insurance Scheme participant
- Department of Veterans’ Affairs Gold Card holder, or a White Card holder issued for specific conditions and their dependant
- And to conduct an industry-funded consumer education campaign designed and implemented in consultation with consumer representative organisations to inform the community of these actions.
Members’ comments
Your statement “Companies should accept that electronic billing is not now, nor in the future appropriate for all customers etc …” puts it in a nutshell. We just hope that Government reads AND UNDERSTANDS THE ISSUES outlined in your submission.
I get very cranky when there are assumptions that initiatives be undertaken online – i.e. the assumption of access to computers and being computer literate.
To be honest I think it is about time that there was a mass application to the Human Rights Commission about the growing discrimination against people with a hearing loss and disabilities. Our group often talks about this at our meetings.