$35 LATE Payment PENALTY from CINGULAR

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On Verizon, the late payment fee is the greater of 5 or 1.5% and this applies to unpaid balances. Looks like Cingy is a credit card company lol. When/why did Cingy choose to charge 35 for late payments?

 

OUCH! That is alot of $$$$$$$$

 

cingular is always trying to think up ways to nichol and dime you to death.:loony:

 

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I hope that increased late fees won't become a precedent for others to follow.

 

easy solution, pay your bill on time.

 

yeah!!! what he said!!!

 

Is this for the due date or end of billing cycle? Cause Ive gone round and round with Cingular about getting my bill to me in a timely manner. At times Ive even mailed the check the DAY AFTER I recieved my bill and STILL had my phone shut off!

 

boy that does not sound fair, at all.

 

I totally agree. I have my bill on autopay and I even cancelled my paper bills because I stopped even opening them. I view my bill online once it becomes available.

-Jay

 

Ditto. I have had T-Mobile for over two years and I have never once paid them late.

I still get paper copies of bills because I like to have hard copies on file... perhaps I'm paranoid.

 

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I'm not complaining about the principle here. I'm just grateful that service isn't always shut off for late payment. Sometimes life happens and one has to deal with the consequences.

 

I guess they aren't as concerned with cash flow and aging on accounts.

 

Alltel doesn't do that either that I know of.

 

i always pay my bill on time, but still thats too much.

 

Alltel's late fee is just a flat $5 per month.

 

I would imagine that is more than just 'late'. More like it is 'past due ' by the time they shut you off.

 

Actually VZW does charge late fee. I was very careful to prepay all my bills before I went on vacation but the VZW one fell through the crack and after 4 years of having always paid their bill ahead of time they charged me a late fee of $5.00 on the next statement. They did however take it off after I told them what happened.

 

This late fee is recent & I believe they have another method behind it. The late fee is charged for after the "Due Date", I still get a paper bill and my cycle ends on the 15th, my bill arrived on the 25th and the payment is due on the 8th.

This gives me just about 2 full weeks to pay the bill, now expect up to 1 week for delivery & posting the payment (per their bill) so that brings you down to 1 week to pay & mail the bill.

For some people that don't get paid weekly this can be a juggle match of getting paid & them receiving the check and depositing it.

My thought is they want people to pay online and this for some people is enough to force them to auto deduct or pay online, since they may be late with payments on this schedule.

Now I haven't missed a payment in the years I have been with AWE or Cingular, but I can see 1 small mistake happen & whamo a $35.00 charge.

Now this isn't how it will work for some people, but it does seem like a way for them to get other people to use their online or auto deduct payment system for them to get the money faster & stop sending out paper bills.

 

I think someone is confusing the $35 fee as a late fee when it is in fact something else that may be related to being late, such as a re-activation. I posted this in the other thread Jones started on the topic, but for this audience...this is a copy/paste from my online Cingular bill terms:

 

Nichol? Don't you mean michael?

 

I had a similar problem with T-Mobile. My bill due date would change every month, often by 10-14 days. I would get my bill usually 3 days before it was due. And it NEVER was available online until AFTER the bill was past due. T-Mobile actually put a note on my account because they could see what was going on but had no idea how to fix it.

 

No i think he meant nickel.

 

ITYM "nickel".

 

I also realized he did 2 posts on this and as well realized the possible problem with maybe the check bounced and that added the $30.00 additional fee over the $5.00 late fee. and did the same thing as you with the bill T&C.

 

When I had Cingular, it seemed to take forever for Cingular to get the bills generated. I hated receiving the paper bill so close to when it was actually due. Like a previous poster mentioned if you're not paid on a weekly basis then it can become a problem. For all my services now, I tell them to stop sending me paper bills and that to send me an email to let me know when my bill is available online. I guess they even can stop the emails to as I constantly check my accounts online anyway. Doing it that way gives me plenty of time to get it paid and I haven't had any problems.

 

I don't believe the $35 fee is just a late fee. I think there's more to the story that Jones either doesn't know or is not telling us. It might be a bounced check fee which usually range in that area of $30 to $35 dollars.

 

This thread is a duplicate from the one in the Cingular Users forum. Please follow up there. This one is closed.

Here's the link:
http://forums.wirelessadvisor.com/cingular-wireless-users/59184-35-penalty-fee-from-cingular.html