$705 for phone bill?? Please help

[tarah86]

My mom wanted to get a family plan for me and her at Cingular Wireless. Well my mom pays on the bill good for a while, then she stops paying on it and it was cut off in late march 2007. The phone was cut off in April 2007. We received a bill on April 15, 2007-it wasn't opened until I opened it on May 13, 2007- saying the bill was $218.26 and said they going to send her to the collection agency and put it on her credit report(forgot the term they used, I think it's default) unless she paid the $218.26 by May 15 2007.

We called Cingular customer service to set up a payment arrangement on May 13, 2007 only to find out our account was cancelled so it cost $175 each for them to deactivate our phones. Making the bill $568.56. My mom got mad and told the customer service person for Cingular that she was going to switch her service and hung up. Cingular called my mother the next day and said the bill was actually $705 and not $568.56 and since she has good credit so far they wouldn't put it on her credit report . She set up a payment arrangement the same day Cingular called her for them to take $235 from 3 paychecks to pay the total bill.

My mom wants to stay with Cingular, and put them on her BellSouth bundle service, I want her to leave them Our phones have been cut off before, but that was less than $400.

Bundle 4 Services from Bellsouth
Less than $150 per month

* Local & Long Distance Calling
* High-Speed Internet
* DIRECTV® service
* Cingular Wireless®


The collection agency sent her the bill and said in the note if you don't send a letter saying you don't agree with this claim amount in 30 days, this claim is consider legit.


My questions are:
Is there something fishy about Cingular calling my mom the next day and changing the amount of the bill after she told them that she was going to another wireless service provider?

Is it better to find another wireless service provider or go with Bellsouth bundle service?

Should we dispute the claim?

[deca]

Sounds like you got hit with a contract termination fee. Which your mother probably signed an agreement acknowledging it when she bought the phones and calling plan. You can't usually get cell phone service without signing a contract, unless you do some kind of prepaid deal.

So, the charges are most probably legit and your mother has to pay them. Maybe she can work something out to get them turned back on and finish out the contract though.

[mom-from-missouri]

I'd drop it and go with a prepaid phone.
We pay $120 a month for our Cingular family plan that includes 4 phones, their autoclub on 3 of the phones and unlimited text msgs on 1 of them. In a year we will drop one of the phones off. It belongs to DD#1 who will be graduating from college and she can pay for her own then. But, since she is going on full scholarship, we pay for her cell phone. Her part usually runs us around $18 a month--pretty cheap as far as we are concerned since we don't have to pay her tution, room or board.

[tarah86]

Are you talking about cingular's go phone mom from missouri?

[JanH]

DD had Cingular until recently when her contract ran out. A couple of years ago, she had accidently run out of her rollover minutes and racked up a huge bill. I called the company for another reason and they told me about the bill. It was in the 600 range I think. I was so stunned. They did me a favor. They lowered it 400 down to 200 or so since I was going to change her minutes and stuff anyway. But that did mean she was locked into another 2 years with a higher contract. So they got the money back. I do think the companies are more stringent about the cancellation charges because we have paid two of those. Maybe you could call again and ask about what specifically all the charges are for. You might get a really nice person this time. Good luck!

[mom-from-missouri]

I have no idea what the program is called-it just says family plan on my bill.
i have had trouble bill billing issues in the past with cingular. reps refuse to adjust it, but supervisors will. several times we have had "downloads" on our bill, that we did not order.

[tarah86]

DD had Cingular until recently when her contract ran out. A couple of years ago, she had accidently run out of her rollover minutes and racked up a huge bill. I called the company for another reason and they told me about the bill. It was in the 600 range I think. I was so stunned. They did me a favor. They lowered it 400 down to 200 or so since I was going to change her minutes and stuff anyway. But that did mean she was locked into another 2 years with a higher contract. So they got the money back. I do think the companies are more stringent about the cancellation charges because we have paid two of those. Maybe you could call again and ask about what specifically all the charges are for. You might get a really nice person this time. Good luck!

thank you for the information. I might get my mom to call them back

[jeffrey]

a couple more comments: Cingular Charges $705 For $218.26 Phone Bill (Your Advice) - Personal Finance Advice

[tarah86]

thanks jeffrey, the advice on the blog was very helpful. I'm going to go and discuss this with my mother on the tomorrow.