Okay, it must be the weather that's causing Telco's to be having episodes of "how else can I aggravate the customer". It's now Telecom's turn.

I have been receiving their monthly bill online only for some months now and have really appreciated the ability to export the data to a spreadsheet and slice and dice it amongst various household members.

Yesterday, I get the usual monthly email telling me the bill is available to view on line and I duly log in - but wait it's new and improved and now available as a PDF only!! Not only that, I no longer have access to any of the previous month's data except as a series of pdf's either. To add insult to injury, there's a link telling me they have made a Change for the Better and that now I can log in and see all of my bills looking just like my yellow paper bills. Well gee if I wanted that, I would have kept getting my paper bills. Oh and also, Bill Online will now be known as Online Bill. Huh?

I used their online complaint form last night and received a prompt emailed reply this morning confirming that "I am sorry this functionality is no longer available. I do apologise if this causes you inconvenience." I've emailed back asking if this functionality will be reinstated, but I guess not seeing that it's a Change for the Better.

Am I being silly about this, or am I right that this is really a retrograde step?