OK so I have a bit of a public service announcement tonight. I took Sadie Kate for a walk (side note....it turned cold again up here....insert me pouting!) and brought my mail in as usual tonight. And noticed a little something from AT&T. Odd considering I no longer have service from AT&T. I opened it to find a bill. A past due bill at that. For $13.51. Now I know this is not a huge amount but I am 100% certain that I fully paid off my bill before I switched services last month when I got my blackberry. I called and talked to the woman and made sure I was even steven. So this $13.51 baffled me.
I called immediately of course. Sweet southern girl answered and tried to tell me it was something about being left-over from my final bill. Um, no ma'am, try again. Then she thought it was a late charge. Wrong again, will the third time be the charm? I was nice but totally serious about not budging on paying for this mystery bill for a service I have not had in more than a month. Turns out it was for some download thing (insert me flipping out because I have never ever, not even once in my life, downloaded a single thing on that or any other phone. I don't even know how. I use the un-fun ring that comes with the phone.) called "PredictVote." Sweet southern girl said that it happened to her too and she paid it for six months before she realized it was on her bill. I can all but guarantee I have done the same. I am totally guilty of never looking at my bill specifics. I see the amount and pay it. I know, its terrible. Because when you don't pay attention to the details, you end up paying for stuff that you shouldn't be paying for!!
Sweet southern girl was kind enough to take away the charge and the late fee so I am back to a zero balance again. Whew!! She said companies like this can scam you out of $ if they only have your phone number. And because it is a relatively small amount, dummies like me don't notice it right away (or, um, ever apparently!).
So let this be a lesson to all of us. Pay attention to the individual charges on your monthly bills, ladies! I can't imagine how long I have been paying for this thing. But I promise I will pay close attention each month from now on! Because $13.51 times forever is like, a lot!
LinkWithin
9 comments:
I hate when that sort of thing happens. I'm convinced my old university used to tack on a $50 late charge to every bill (we always payed on time), just to make a few more bucks from people who don't notice/fight it.
Ohhhh- and if it as AT&T charging you- call the Better Business Bureau!
So sorry this happened to you. Good for you standing up to sweet souther girl like that. Great that you didn't back down. :) It's hard to notice stuff like that and usually we don't until we get a bill after we had already canceled something. I say Psahw!
Something similar happened with my dad on my parents' cable bill - they switched to a new service and were automatically signed up for the Spanish channels and didn't notice the extra charge for a few months. In fact, he even requested they remove the extra channels and they forgot until 3 months later and still charged him!
So true... companies especially get away with it now with paperless billing. No one pays attention!
Wow! Thanks for the heads up!!
Geeze, you can't believe what these companies do to people! And you are correct Miss Crocodile, we really need to check our statements, every time.
Thanks for the tip!
tp
This totally creeps me out. I have ATT as well and NEVER look at my bill. It could go up 20 dollars every month and I would probably never notice. Thanks for the heads up!
Wow - I never look at my phone bill either. Now I will!
Post a Comment