CHICAGO, Jan. 6 /PRNewswire/ -- With the price of a U.S. Postal Service first-class stamp rising to 39 cents Sunday, ComEd customers can beat the increase by joining the growing number of people enrolled in the utility's e- Bill program and the Automatic Bill Payment Plan.
Online billing and bill payment programs are part of a growing trend that provides customers the convenience of viewing accounts and paying bills at home, work, or on the road. Participants don't have to buy stamps to pay their bills.
For the first time ever last year, more than 30 percent of ComEd's customers did not use the U.S. Postal Service to make their payments to the utility. They used other payment options such as e-Bill, the Automatic Bill Payment Program, dropping off bills at authorized agents, or paying by phone using a credit card, debit card or electronic check.
More than 124,000 ComEd customers currently take advantage of the e-Bill program. By enrolling in e-Bill, customers receive their bills by email, view them online, and have the ability to pay them with a click of the mouse once a payment account is established. With e-Bill, customers also can pay their bills through other payment options, such as by phone or authorized agent.
More than 296,000 ComEd customers use the Automatic Bill Payment Plan. Customers who pay automatically each month with this program never have to purchase stamps to pay their power bill, never write another check to ComEd, and never worry about forgetting to pay a bill. Participants receive a monthly statement in the mail 21 days before their payment is deducted. The payment is automatically deducted from the customer's bank account the day the bill is due.
ComEd's billing department sends more than 44 million pieces of mail each year to its customers. The utility expects to pay about $670,000 in additional postage fees in 2006 as a result of the increase.
"We encourage our customers to consider enrolling in both e-Bill and the Automatic Bill Payment Plan," said Irene Johnson, manager of bill processing for ComEd. "In addition to providing customers a convenient way to manage their bills, both programs save customers time and money."
Commonwealth Edison Company (ComEd) is a unit of Chicago-based Exelon Corporation , one of the nation's largest electric utilities with approximately 5.2 million customers and more than $14 billion in annual revenues. ComEd provides service to approximately 3.7 million customers across Northern Illinois, or 70 percent of the state's population.
