The mass shift to electronic billing has allowed companies to introduce a fee for posting a paper copy of your bill.

Customers who either prefer paper, don’t have access to a computer or are unaware of the policy are being hit with fees on top of their bills.

In response to a Treasury consultation paper, the Consumer Action Law Centre is calling for a blanket ban on the charges.

Acting Commissioner for Consumer Protection Dave Hillyard told Chris the Commonwealth Treasury produced the paper on behalf of the consumer protection agencies across Australia.

“They are looking at this particular issue of paper billing and whether people should have a right enshrined in law to get a paper bill provided to them through the mail at no additional cost.”

“The view from the Community Legal Centre is that everyone used to get a paper bill at one time and the companies have slowly been moving people into the electronic world and a lot of us are very happy.”

“What the consumer movement’s arguing is, well don’t now start imposing a cost on people who used to receive paper bills and always have.”

“What you’ve been doing is saving money on the people who’ve moved to electronic billing, it hasn’t been an additional cost to continue to provide.”

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