Thread: what happens when cingular sends me to collections?

It seems like there has been fault on both sides. Hopefully my friend's opinion will help. He works as a Manager at the AT&T Store in Arcadia.

1. When you said you "disregarded" the bill, AT&T simply "rolled-over" your bill to the next month. It seems that according to what you were saying, that you only paid for the first month but not the second.
2. A Cell Phone bill can go up in the hundreds or thousands if you're doing stuff on the phone that you're not paying for. This can include overages on minutes (45 cents a minute over your plan), overages on texts (20 cents a minute over your plan), or every KB you use on the internet (5 cents minimum charge). This can easily rack over $1000 if you're not using an unlimited or special designated plan that includes texts or more minutes.
3. AT&T has a Collections system that will lock out your account until it's paid. I also believe you that you have paid your bills, so I strongly suggest you go to an AT&T store and talk to a manager there. They can help you better than Customer Service can.
4. It's not different for cell phones - if there's an issue with the bills and it's not resolved, it will just continue to roll over and charge you more.

Hope that helps and good luck solving your issue.

so, cingular screwed me on my cell phone bill for 2 months in a row, and i decided to go with a different company. basically what happened was, the first month my bill was triple what i usually pay. so i paid it and then 3 days later after i called and payed it was 300 dollars more than what it had been. i dont see how a bill goes up that much in three days but i disregarded it. i called, changed my plan and everything was supposed to be good again. i was told i wouldnt suffer and prorated charges because i had changed plan at beginning of cycle. well the next month when i opened the bill, it was a little over 700 dollars. how does a phone bill for 1 person who didnt even have the internet go to that high? they said i had the past due bill but i paid it. trust me, i went without anything for a month to pay that. so now, im in collections for a little shy of 1500 dollars and i would like to know what happens now. i know what happens with credit cards, but i feel like its different for cell phones? any info is great thanks!
by saying disregard, i mean that when i called to make payment arrangements, the girl told me that the bill would reflect the prorated amount but since i changed on the first day of cycle it would right itself when my next bill came out. so the next few days later when i saw the extra 500 dollars on my bill, i assumed thats what this way. when i paid the first outrageous bill off, that was the only money i owed. at that point there was no overdue bill.