Cingular Wireless
Fiance's phone balance collected from his parents despite do-not-pay notices

My fiance has had a horrible experience with Cingular. He got his phone and service through the school district that he was working for at the time. Cingular led him to believe that the balance for the phone bill would be taken out of his paycheck every month.

Come to find out, they were only taking partial payments out. When he contacted Cingular to ask why and how he was supposed to know that (since it was clearly not in his contract), they informed him that it was his responsibility to call them every month to find out whether or not he owed them any money.

He received 2 bills from them, both showing that a certain amount had been credited (the amount taken out of his paycheck), and showing a past due amount. Along with the bill, Cingular sent an notice to disregard the past due amount; that it was not owed and he did not have to pay it.

Well according to them now, he does owe the past due amount. All $1000 of it. But did Cingular send him a notice saying he owed that? No. They sent it to his parents. Apparently, Cingular has been calling and harassing his parents (my fiance is 30 years old and lives 5 hours away from them), and telling them that "they obviously didn't raise him right, because he can't pay his bill." The customer "service" lady actually said that to his sick mother.

Now this past due crap is on their credit report. Cingular has acknowledged that this shouldn't have happened, but offer no explanation or solutions.

Other than the 2 "do not pay" bills he received, he never, ever received a bill from them. They still insist that he was responsible for contacting them every month to find out if he owed any money.

He doesn't work for the district anymore and they shut cancelled his phone service. This was all many months ago. We thought we were done with Cingular, and now, like a thief in the night, they've crept up again.

Where does the responsibility of the company lie? Why should we as consumers be responsible for our own mistakes as well as those of the company? Something must be done about this. These people should not be allowed to profit one more cent of our hard earned money!

Company: Cingular Wireless
Country: USA
State: Texas
City: Dallas
Site: cingular.com

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