I got a bill last week for my wife's phone with Cingular. It's under my name. Anyways, I open up the bill and proceed to pay it, the payments come to the usual number I pay every month, so I never really look at her bill. Just as I'm separating the lower portion to mail with the payment, I notice the page being very thin...and realize it's only one page. On top of the lower part I just cut off is a notice that says that their records show that my payment wasn't received, and there will be a service interruption. I know for a fact that I paid this bill on 3/18, I have everything documented for proof. I proceed to go online and log into my bank to check the status only to see that the check was never deposited/cleared. I call up Cingular and tell them that I made the payment, and that i'm showing that it wasn't deposited yet, so it must have gotten lost in the mail. They said that it's not their problem, and my service was suspended as of this past monday. We never noticed that it was disconnected because my wife can't use it at work, she has no service at all, and usually goes home after work, so if I ever need to call her or vice versa, she calls me at work, or I call her at work or home. I couldn't believe that they sent me a warning and gave me such a short amount of time to react before suspending the account. What got me fuming was when the bitch on the other end responded to my saying that it must have been lost in the mail that "It's not our problem". So what does that mean, it's MY problem???? That it got lost in the mail? COME THE F@CK ON!!! Not only that, they want me to pay $36 to re-activate the service when I get my next bill in a few days. I promptly asked to speak to a supervisor, in which after putting me on hold for 5 minutes told me the supervisor was in a meeting and that she could transfer me to her voice mail if I wanted to, which I did and still have yet to get a call back (I called this morning)..This is a joke, right? I can't believe this bullsh!t! I've had credit cards, cell phone bills, car bills for like 10 years without missing a payment, NOW I decide to not make a $50 payment? I called my friend who I got the phone from, they called in and had them waive the reconnection fee, but I have to wait for them to receive the payment to re-activate the phone. This really blows man...I'm eagerly waiting for my contract to end to get rid of this POS service!
Ed

 

Simular thing happened to my mother in law with Cingular.

 

they are real assholes with that stuff, you need to have your bill paid w/in 2 weeks of receiving it, that is wrong

 

I usually pay the bill within a week of getting it. I can't believe this nonsense. I had a similar problem with Nextel a few mos back, they also claimed that they didn't receive payment, but they didn't shut my service down. Turns out there was a mixup with the checks when I was paying it, I think the Nextel check was put into my wife's Macy's bill, and of course Macy's was able to deposit the check into their account, even though it was made payable to Nextel with my account number on it..So much for people being careful about checks being deposited! Glad that's over with!

 

Online Payments > USPS

 

pretty much a guarantee, but i still don't make asingle payment online

 

I’m the exact opposite.
95% of my bills are automatically deducted or I manually pay them online monthly.
I have reminders setup in MS-Outlook to remind me when they’re due.
Even with a house, 2-cars and a wife I only write out 2-3 checks a month.

 

i need to do that to save me the fawkin stamp, envelope and check

 

I love that I get to make payments online, though occassionally I nearly forget because I'm busy. Which reminds me, bills due soon.

 

Automatic Credit Card Charge > Automatic Electronic Funds Transfer > Online Payment > USPS

Explanation

Deduction @ due date + adding miles/cash back > Bank Deduction @ due date > 2-3 days online submission before due date > 7 days before due date via USPS + 37 cents

Avoid the hassle, go automatic.

Talk again with cingular, explain the problem, they can reconsider. I always got my problems solved with cingular, they even credited me $10 in calls to Canada

 

thats nuts...verizon lets you be late up to 60-90 days depending on your credit rating and is only a 15 dollar reconnect fee if they have to shut your life off...36 dollar is nuts...

 

Again I used to pay or go to the store to pay by hand. You can just drive to the cingular store and use their autopay machine if you have to.

Since about 2 years ago I've been using the online pay and it has worked fine.

Bills aside I do have some problems with Cingular reception in my home but that is a whole another slice of pie.