Airtel ‘upgrading’ customers to e-bill automatically?

Airtel ‘upgrading’ customers to e-bill automatically?

An India Broadband Forum user has reported that Airtel has decided to upgrade his account to e-bills automatically. He did not apply for it but yet, he is being automatically shifted to the electronic bill facility.

The customer said that he has been advised to call Airtel Broadband customer care to shift back to the paper bill.

Telecom companies continue to use the environment excuse to promote the e-bill facility. We have no issues in the interest in saving trees. But the process of automatically migrating customers to electronic bill without the user asking for it is not the right way to go ahead with this plan. It is pretty clear that the companies are more interested in saving costs associated with printing and delivering bills to customer’s premises.

Customers who want to get bills on emails should be advised to opt in for this facility. Paper bills should be delivered by default as long as the customer does not unsubscribe from them. They are pretty important documents that come handy for address verifications. Some companies do not accept printouts of emailed bills as documents of identity as they require an original copy of the bill.

As you can see in this message, Airtel seems to portray that the customer has opted in to this feature. Whereas the truth is that they are doing it themselves and just alerting the customers about the change.

Update: More people are getting this update!