Service with a smile
Sometimes things happen that really piss you off. It doesn't have to be a big thing, but something that strikes your nerves just right. As some of you know we recently upgraded our cell phones. Our old plan was a holdover AT&T Wireless plan. In the last year or two Cingular bought out AT&T wireless. Because of the buyout we officially had to switch over to a Cingular plan when we bought our new phones.
We returned from Disney World a day or two before we got the new phones and plans. Through a miracle in scheduling that happened to be at the end of the Cingular billing cycle, so we had a cell phone bill that included a vast majority of our vacation waiting for us when we got home, about $150. We had previously setup for our bill to be automagically withdrawn from our checking account, so the bill explicitly said "Do not pay, the balance will be automatically withdrawn" or language to that effect. It should also be mentioned that before we left for Disney World I lost my debit card and it had to be replaced.
Fast forward, the Cingular payment never comes out of our account. Whether that is due to me losing my card or the changes in plans I don't know. I don't hear anything from Cingular, I figure I will just wait for the next bill and contest any late charges.
Lat Friday the bill came, the late charges were insignificant, about 35 cents. So I set up a bill pay to send a check and nearly forgot about it. Until we got a call Monday, and Tuesday, and today from a Cingular rep demanding our late payment and saying that if we didn't pay in the next 10 days our service would be cancelled.
Now, we've sent the money already, I suspect they will have it by tomorrow. What I don't like is being overtly accused of intentionally not paying my bill. Couldn't Cingular have called us when the original payment didn't go through, just to say "hey, it appears something is wrong here." Where was the courtesy call? Instead we get, "pay up asshole, or your phone will be disconnected" like we did something wrong. I don't know, that really just rubs me the wrong way. So, when our contract is up I believe we will be switching cell providers.
Moral of the story, don't use auto bill pay, it'll screw ya in the end.
We returned from Disney World a day or two before we got the new phones and plans. Through a miracle in scheduling that happened to be at the end of the Cingular billing cycle, so we had a cell phone bill that included a vast majority of our vacation waiting for us when we got home, about $150. We had previously setup for our bill to be automagically withdrawn from our checking account, so the bill explicitly said "Do not pay, the balance will be automatically withdrawn" or language to that effect. It should also be mentioned that before we left for Disney World I lost my debit card and it had to be replaced.
Fast forward, the Cingular payment never comes out of our account. Whether that is due to me losing my card or the changes in plans I don't know. I don't hear anything from Cingular, I figure I will just wait for the next bill and contest any late charges.
Lat Friday the bill came, the late charges were insignificant, about 35 cents. So I set up a bill pay to send a check and nearly forgot about it. Until we got a call Monday, and Tuesday, and today from a Cingular rep demanding our late payment and saying that if we didn't pay in the next 10 days our service would be cancelled.
Now, we've sent the money already, I suspect they will have it by tomorrow. What I don't like is being overtly accused of intentionally not paying my bill. Couldn't Cingular have called us when the original payment didn't go through, just to say "hey, it appears something is wrong here." Where was the courtesy call? Instead we get, "pay up asshole, or your phone will be disconnected" like we did something wrong. I don't know, that really just rubs me the wrong way. So, when our contract is up I believe we will be switching cell providers.
Moral of the story, don't use auto bill pay, it'll screw ya in the end.
posted by Chris at 6:57 PM
1 Comments:
We got a similar call from AT&T for our house phone, but they had our address incorrect so we never received the bill.
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