AT&T sucks - you pay online, they cancel your paper statements

Sometimes, being nice doesn't work out in your favor. Case in point: a few months ago, I thought I'd start paying my SBC/AT&T bill online. Saves me a stamp and a check, gets there quicker, and the evil phone company gets to save a few pennies. What do I get as a thanks? They stop sending my paper bills. If that wasn't bad enough, there's no option online to reinstate mail delivery of paper bills - but plenty of options to stop delivery.

1. Every time I sign on to the online account manager, I get the following offer:

And every time I see it, I click on "No thanks, continue to AT&T Account Manager".

2. Then, in the account manager, the Quick Links menu on the left side:















Notice how the link does not say "Start/Stop Your Paper Bill" - just "Stop".

3. The "Delivery Method" page, in "My Bill" section, shows the following:















Again, notice how there's only one link - to "Stop your paper bills", but no link to Start.

4. And finally, I present to you "My Profile" page:













If you look carefully at the lower right corner, you'll notice that the "Bill Delivery Method" has no link whatsoever, even though the section below (Payment Preferences) has two "Edit" links.

To resolve this, I called AT&T. Their response: you can either have paper billing, or e-bill, but not both. Their attitude is if you want to pay online, you can't get paper bills, and vice versa.
In response, I fired off the below missive to their customer service:

Ever since I chose to help you reduce your costs, by switching to online bill payment, I have not received a single paper bill. Today, I called to inquire about reinstating my paper bills, and the customer service agent I spoke to, while very apologetic and helpful, could only recommend turning off e-bill in order to resume receiving paper bills. I find it ludicrous that I cannot get both a paper statement AND pay my bill online. However, according to the CSA and his manager, that's precisely how it works - even though I NEVER agreed to it. In addition, the website has NO WAY of resuming paper bills - but at least 3 "opportunities" to stop the paper bills. To conclude, please reinstate the mailed delivery of paper statements, allow me to continue paying my bills online, and fix the website so that I can personally choose whether I do or don't want to receive your paper statements. I'm also filing a complaint with CPUC because this is clearly abusive behavior on your part.

Then, as promised, I filed the following complaint with the CPUC:

Earlier this year, I chose to pay my phone bill using then-SBC's online payment service, through the sbc.com website. After setting up the account for online payment, each and every time I logged on to pay my bill, I was asked to choose to stop my mailed paper statements. Each and every time, I selected "No, Continue to Online Billing", and paid my bill online. However, I also noticed that I have not received a paper bill/statement in at least the last 3 months - even though I NEVER asked to stop getting paper statements, and ALWAYS chose not to discontinue when asked. I called ATT (the new owner of SBC), at 800-310-2355, and their response is that I cannot have concurrent paper statements AND online bill payment, which strikes me as ludicrous and as a possible violation of some laws. On the bill payment website, in "My Profile" section, there's a sub-section called "Bill Delivery Method", to modify bill delivery. However, that section does not have an option to change anything - it just says "Stop/start your paper bills", with no link to actually change anything. Then, there's the "My Bill" section, which has a "Delivery Method" sub-section. That page only has a link to "Stop my paper bills", and there are no other options. Please take a look into this matter, and review this unethical behavior. I understand that stopping paper bill is somewhat helpful for the environment, but if AT&T was really concerned about the environment, they would have sent out statements on recycled paper. Instead, this is a cost issue - AT&T doesn't want to pay for sending out statements, so as soon as someone signs up for online bill pay, their paper statement gets taken away - and the customer service representatives cannot do anything about it, because the management refuses to.

Now, let's see if they do anything about it. I wouldn't hold my breath, though.