Recent developments
After its launch by Royal Mail in 2013, the “Keep Me Posted UK” campaign have had a tremendous success thanks to a great media and press coverage, creating pressures on the government and on service providers to abstain from pushing consumers to accept e-invoicing.
Campaigns
Keep me Posted UK
In July 2013, the Royal Mail began a coalition together with nearly fourty UK charities, consumer groups and businesses under the “Keep Me Posted” UK campaign, a consumer’s right to choose how they receive important financial information such as bills an statements from banks, utility companies, media companies and other service providers without disadvantage. In just over 6 months the campaign was a great success in the UK and received support from other charities, pressure groups and politicians who share the interest of these groups to raise questions in their parliament. In turn, much media attention was generated raising the awareness of this issue with the public. The steering group appointed Judith Donovan as chairperson of the coalition and they published a large amount of research results on online invoicing vs paper invoices or online bank statements.
The results are surprising and worrying at the same time. A Keep Me Posted UK survey has found more than a quarter of mobile contract holders exceeded their tariffs on more than one occasion last year. One way of keeping on top of your costs is to have paper bills –research has found that people are far more likely to scrutinise and act on paper bills, and this could lead to a reduction in the monthly phone outgoings of households as people become more aware of what they’re being charged. Yet phone companies, more than any other sector, are the most likely to charge for paper bills!
