[saltcured]

I would make even stronger advice.

If you want to verify an email, send me a one-time code with several hours expiry that I have to resubmit through my logged in web identity at your site.

It drives me batty that a financial provider (retirement vendor from previous employer) won't seem to let my "paperless" setting remain active. Only because I don't ping their abusive email tracking pixels etc.

To me, paperless means I can log in and download my quarterly PDF statements and related documents, and they won't be left in a mailbox on the street. It doesn't mean I have to subject myself to reading your silly emails with a promiscuous client.

[infogulch]

To me, paperless means they ATTACH MY STATEMENT TO THE EMAIL. Not signing up to any paperless until they do, none yet have met this bar. The statement is supposed to be a snapshot of the status of the account at a given moment, if you have to open their website to view it they could regenerate it from whatever crap data they have lying around at the given moment. If it can change every time you look at it, it's a quantum statement, it's not a snapshot, it's a vibe. This defeats the entire purpose of getting a statement, I don't know how anyone tolerates this.

[saltcured]

I tolerate it when I get a fixed period statement and can download to review and archive. I don't treat the website as my archive, nor would I treat the email system as my archive. It's just the delivery mechanism.

And they are for the well-defined accounting periods, e.g. monthly or quarterly, not some sort of ephemeral "rollup to time of download". That would drive me mad if they had different periods depending on download timing.

I can't know for certain, but my gut tells me they are just generating PDFs at the same time they perform the general reporting run that also leads to printed statements. And then they have some limited retention history to limit the storage costs.

[arjie]

Unfortunately for quite a few people in non-Western states with whom I share my email, I now have their paystubs and insurance receipts and so on. They just sent me the email after someone either made an error in data entry or optimistically assumed they have [e-mail]

[throawayonthe]

they send important (financial?) documents over email???? who tf does that what vendor is this

[edoceo]

Many places don't attach the statement because it has sensitive information. Add that with "email is not secure" which we've been yelling for years (well, me since 1996). Sending it via email is risk exposure for them.

[teeray]

I really wish you could provide a PGP public key to your bank and have them just email the damn pdf every month.

[RulerOf]

That'd be nice, but I'd even settle for the plain pdf attached to the email.

[mcv]

Unencrypted sensitive data in an email is a really bad idea. I hope they never do that.

Although what I would really like, and think is long overdue, is an extension to email that normalises encryption and sender verification. It's ridiculous that email can be spoofed like that. (The same is even more true for phone numbers.)

[pocksuppet]

Is it really? Who can read it today? Your email provider and theirs? Gmail won't deliver messages without TLS any more, so everyone supports it or they're effectively kicked out of email.

[saltcured]

For things like financial records, I would not want plain PDF in the email. I think it needs encryption for confidentiality.

I am geeky enough to use PGP or S/MIME if they had the option, but I can definitely see how vendors would see this as too fringe with retail customers. I would not like the typical "secure email" which is nothing more than a volatile link back into yet another website.

[wwind123]

Hmm, yeah some people feel that plain emails are not secure for sensitive information. As a result, some banks provide a "secure email" box that's usually PITA to use.

It'd be great if there's a unified API for all financial institutes to provide sensitive info (statements, tax forms etc.) and you just need to run a software tool to download them once in a while or when you need it.