TR Forums

This popped up in my inbox the other day.



Though I am not a huge fan of paperless billing because of the problems it causes when you need a copy of the bill for legal reasons, I understand the reasoning behind it and can certainly back the reduction of paper. Why the F* would you want your bill as a video? What genius thought that up and how much money did they spend?

To be fair , I haven't gone and watched it so I have no idea what it is actually like. I just can't bring myself to.

--SS

Ugh. I hate this trend toward moving things to multimedia that don't need to be. Video news, video reviews, and "vlogs" all need to go away. щ(ºДºщ)

In fact videos in general, honestly, could go away; there is no reason for you to waste my time making me watch a video than letting me read something. I can read pages and pages of text in seconds; I don't gain anything with a video -- I just lose a bunch of time. TV is boring and movies are a huge waste of time. I wish all video media would just go away. s(・｀ヘ´・；)

auxy wrote:

TV is boring and movies are a huge waste of time...I wish all video media would just go away

If you're talking pop culture (like reality shows, then yes I agree), but there is a lot of good tv out there that is worth watching and so I'm going to have to disagree completely 100% with you. Just because you don't like something doesn't mean no body else does. Maybe I find reading people's blogs boring and just wish the Internet would go away. Yeah, that's it.

However, back on topic, yeah, that does seem a little odd. I wonder if it's simply a generic video explaining a generic bill, or if it's actually personalized?

Sargent Duck wrote:

If you're talking pop culture (like reality shows, then yes I agree), but there is a lot of good tv out there that is worth watching and so I'm going to have to disagree completely 100% with you. Just because you don't like something doesn't mean no body else does. Maybe I find reading people's blogs boring and just wish the Internet would go away. Yeah, that's it.

Opinions are like opinions! ┐(￣ヮ￣)┌ Isn't it weird how everyone's is different?

If you're so offended by me expressing my opinion that all TV and movies are garbage, then perhaps you should examine the reasons you like the things you do. (☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞

Ignoreing the more high-strung individuals...

I did go watch it and you can too. It is semi personalized in that it uses my first name an was generated with items from my bill. So, yes, if you watch the video you can find out my first name (which is not the name I go by) and how much I paid on my last wireless bill.

From what I can tell, it's supposed to be somewhat explanatory and such, but I still think it's weird, useless, and a waste of money.

--SS

Link doesn't work for me.

just brew it! wrote:

Link doesn't work for me.

Interesting. I wonder if there is some sort of IP verification or cookie. The original link in the email has a bunch of tracking info, including my AT&T login id. That link is a direct copy out of the browser when the video is playing and works fine for me if I click on it.

--SS

It works for me. And I'm in Canada...

I stopped watching after 1 minute. 2.5 minutes to explain a bill seems a bit long.

Works now. Wasn't working earlier.

Wow, that's a waste. The upbeat background music is bad enough, do we also need the sound effects?

Its not a bad idea really. I suspect they focus tested and found a large enough segment of the pop would actualy like this and so just offered it as an option for those people.

Always remember there always exists a group of people.. rather large in number who think completely differently from you.

The really shocking thing is how much you USAians pay for mobile phones.

The video bill idea should indicate to AT&T how bonker-town crazy their billing structure is. But instead of fix that, they'll just invest in some sort of tech that builds semi-customized videos that explain it.

If you go back to paper billing, they'll also send you a DVD to explain your bill.