Like many before me, I feel Cingular has sold me a bag of goods with its contract for a cell phone for my daughter.
The plan that I purchased back in April, was for $29.99 per month (with a lot of extra charges, comes to roughly $38 per month without overages), giving me 250 Peak minutes, 3500 nights and weekends, free phone, free long distance, no roaming charges, and free voice mail.
First, I had a problem last month (Sept.), with being billed for minutes from prior months. It was explained to me that when you use your phone out-of-state, the out-of-state company has up to 90 days to bill. My issue was that had the minutes been billed in the months that the minutes were accrued, they would not have been billable minutes as my daughter had enough room during those prior months to absorb thoses minutes. I was given a $11.60 credit.
Now, this month, I get a whopping $5437.50 bill! In closely examining this bill and last month's bill, I realize that free voice mail apparently doesn't mean the messages are free. We were charged for those minutes used during the voice mail messages.
I bought a cell phone for my daughter who was going to college because I thought it would be cheaper than my long distance plan, instead it is costing about 5 times what it would have cost to simply utilize my long distance plan on my home phone.
I cannot afford to pay this bill and there appears to be no recourse. HELP!!!
Rebecca
Altamont, New York
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