We had a mortgage and a money market account with Bank of America. The house was sold and the account was emptied only a few months ago. When I went to get some year end data for 2009 (interest paid, taxes) I could not even log in to the account online! Therefore, when you cancel the account, you lose access to the statements!!!

Imagine if you were audited and needed transactions from February 2009? You’ve cancelled the account, how will you access those? You’re screwed or have to call the bank and beg them to mail you something. Now, that’s convenient.

The only way to use paperless is to always save them electronically — dont assume you can just look them up whenever you want to. But realistically, are you going to remember to do that every time? How convenient is it to log in to the account and save the statement? Are you backing up your data?

I think bank should be required by law to allow continued access to closed accounts for five years or more.