I received a text message from my service provider that my account payments are past-due. I owe them $287 for my cell phone and there's an extra charge of $197. Like, what the fuck! I get ONE bill and that's only for my internet. Every time I call in for my cell phone balance, the automated recorder says $0. Not once, did I get a cell phone bill. Now they want almost $500 dollars. I cannot pay all of this in one shot.

CC, do you have similar stories? fuming

You used the cell phone, right? Of course there is gonna be a bill associated with it.

I don't really have any similar stories, except for the couple of times I'd think I paid something, only to find out, OOPS I didnt.

Wait, have you never paid the phone bills before? There is no way that it costs $0, even if your balance state so. I would have called my provider right away.

The last time I called my provider about a $0 balance, the person on the phone told me I didn't have to pay anything.

And you really thought you'd just be allowed to use the phone for free?? Lol.

- I had this happen with a power bill. I'd just moved countries and wasn't sure if they did monthly or bimonthly bills. We called 3 times after they didn't send us a bill and each time the call centre (an actual person) said it was ok, we didn't owe anything yet, they'd send us a bill later. Then, a couple weeks later, we got a bill with a late fee! Since electricity charges change per month, there was really no way for us to guess how much we owed them.

I have noticed that over the past several years that companies are getting worse and worse about these sorts of slip-ups. They are trying to cut costs by firing/outsourcing help staff, which ultimately makes for long wait times, many errors, and poor customer service.

Perhaps you are using a provider I'm unfamiliar with but I'm confused as to how you've not been billed monthly for your cell phone usage. You might want to check that with them, it could be a glitch in the system. Obviously, it's not free.

I'm not the one responsible for paying for mine as I'm included in a family plan with my mom and step family but still have the notion because there was once a time, before my step family was in the picture at which we did NOT have unlimited texting and I'd went over the 200 a month limit a few times without realizing it until my mother had told me. Though I'd say the first offense doesn't count because that was when I learned that a limit existed.

daw, that sucks! have you asked them about a payment plan? i definitely suggest looking at itemized versions of bills in the future so you can be sure on what you are/are not paying for. also suggest looking at the bill online instead of calling to ask about it.

i've been pretty broke lately (my college experience is going on longer than i'd anticipated), so i didnt pay my phone bill for feb, march, or april. anddd my phone service was shut off from mid february until last week (when i was finally able to make a payment), but i still had to pay the full bill for the months when my service was cut off -__- so essentially i just paid $300 for a brick, huzzah ;P

Obviously no cell phone is free. I don't know why every time I called in the balance was $0

I would definitely inquire as to why they don't send you a monthly bill (either by mail, email or text) because you should be getting one if you're using a cellphone...

I had a wonderfully hefty phone bill when I got back from Italy. I broke my leg over there, so naturally we needed to use my phone quite a bit (and of course I didn't buy an international plan before we went...), so it was a tad alarming when I got home and received my bill, haha! Thankfully I managed to contact my provider, explained our situation, and they were very gracious and got the total down a bit, which was awesome.

Hopefully you find the money to pay the bill. If you call and explain the situation, they might be a bit more forgiving and let you pay the bill over a few weeks, instead of putting a significant mark against your name.

I have a similar experience. Sort of.

Second semester of 2014. It was my second year of my Bachelor of Education. My parents had set up my account so that my fees would be automatically processed. That way, I could focus on learning and teaching without actually having to go through administrative process every single semester.

Fast forward to the last day of the semester. I've done all of the work and I've attended every single class. Every single lecture, tutorial, placement day, and exam! I've done everything. I wake up to a letter beside my bed that my Dad had put there. I receive a lot of mail from international friends, but very rarely from university, so I opened it immediately.

Essentially, they had cancelled my enrollment. I had "ignored" their prior warning about my fees. I'd never received a letter and had always assumed that my debt was at $0, but I was short about $300 in my account, so the fees hadn't been processed at all. I was livid. We went to the university and complained, but apparently we had missed the payment deadline by one day.

An entire three months down the drain. I left the course after that. I couldn't deal with the stress of re-enrolling and redoing the classes.

Actually, I'm not sure that is similar, but you catch my drift, I'm sure.

OMG! That's terrible. I would probably never go back to school after an experience like that.

They told me my address was wrong when I had called them before to update it. How could it be wrong if I've been recieving my internet bill? They wouldn't waive the fees. They told me I had to pay it. My dad told me he got screwed over a few times with this company and someone else told me the same thing. So, I think after my two year cell phone contract, I'll be switching back to my last provider. I've never had a problem with them.

I want to go back to school eventually, but not that school and not for teaching. It's left a sour taste in my mouth for now. I do intend on taking up teaching again but not for ages. Maybe when I'm forty.

I went to pay my bill yesterday and the guy said that I'm not the first person this has happened to. Some company, eh?

Sounds like they're scamming a whole lot of people. I would write up a review of them, if I were you.

Gosh, I'd be unmotivated, too pissed off frankly, to redo everything as well. What exactly was the cause of the missed payments if it was done by automatic transactions? Was it the account over drafting?

Did you let them know when you complained that you didn't receive the warnings you'd allegedly ignored? If that was the only reason you'd missed the deadline and it was known to be a malfunction of their system then they should have had to answer for that.

Not surprising. I'd file a formal report if that's possible, leave the provider and spread your experience around via Yelp to help prevent the same happening to other potential costumers.

I was just short a few hundred dollars, so their system wouldn't process it. I thought it was stupid. The few thousand I had in my account would've easily paid for most of my classes, and it should've recognised that so that I could get the credits for those classes. Since it basically hit a wall though, it didn't process anything at all. I told them about the missing warnings but they basically shrugged and said "That's not our fault!"

Wow, assholes. Yeah I'd totally switch schools.