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Grex > Agora47 > #76: If I'm DEAD, will my Credit Report show an unpaid bill? [long] | |
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other
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If I'm DEAD, will my Credit Report show an unpaid bill? [long]
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Oct 10 06:24 UTC 2003 |
Subtitle: How evil is Comcast, really?
The Background: In June of 2003, I opened an account with Comcast cable
for cable television and broadband internet services. At the time I
ordered the account opened (by phone), I received no indication that I
needed to provide a billing address at the time I placed the order.
When the technician came and installed the service, I gave specific
instructions that the bills should be sent to my PO box address, as
anything sent to the service address would not be received. At that
time, I was given no indication that that information would not be passed
along, or that I needed to give it to anyone else in order that it be put
into effect.
Time passed. I didn't receive any bills, but in the midst of my life
during a typical summer, I simply didn't notice. Then came early August.
I gathered up all my bills, paid two months in advance for the ones that
made sense to do so, paid up the rest as appropriate, and left town for a
month. Three days into my trip, I received a voicemail from Comcast
saying to call them to discuss an urgent billing matter.
I called Comcast from a campground in New Hampshire. I was told that my
account was in arrears. I told them that *IF* I had received a bill (I
couldn't honestly remember whether I had or not) I would have paid it,
and if they sent me one in time to reasonably expect it to be paid by the
due date (four days later than that conversation) then I must have paid
it. I patiently explain that I'm away from home for a month, I do not
have the bills in front of me, and I will not expect to be able to do
anything at all about it until I get home around the end of the first
week of September. That was 11 August.
Fast forward to early September. I'm still on the road, maybe in Austin,
maybe on the way there. I get that same voicemail from Comcast. I
ignore it. I'll be home in a few days anyway.
I arrive home on 8 September to find a disconnection notice on my door.
The service had not yet been disconnected. I call Comcast to find out
what the deal is, and they tell me they haven't been paid since the
installation. I check my records, and find out they're right. The only
conclusion I can draw is that I never received the bills. I'm not in the
habit of losing my bills. If I get 'em, I pay 'em (assuming they're
legit). So, I report that I had not received any bills. They check
their records, and it turns out they were billing me at the service
address. When I mention that I specifically instructed the technician
that I would not receive bills at the service address, I am told that I
needed to say that when I placed the order. I complain that if I am
never given this information, I cannot reasonably be expected to act upon
it.
Eventually, I suggest the possibility of paying the bill by credit card,
over the phone. Note that *I* had to suggest this. I pay the bill, get
the billing address corrected and request an itemized bill reflecting the
services for which I just paid and confirming that all late charges had
been dismissed. I am assured that the disconnection order is cancelled,
and all is well. That was 11 September.
13 September: I come home from work to discover that my cable modem will
not let me connect to the Internet. I call Comcast to find out what the
trouble is and get it fixed. I get a youngish sounding female tech who
very tentatively asks me if there's been a death in my family. A death
in my family?! No, why? Well, the computer says the account is closed
because you're dead. The reports of my demise have been greatly
exaggerated. (Thanks, Mark Twain!) Anyway, I'm not dead, so can I get
this turned back on? Sure, no problem, I'll see if I can catch the tech,
and I'll call you back later today to confirm everything was put back.
OK! Finally! Someone who seemed not only to be nice, but also willing
to fix things and follow up to make sure it was done right. (I'm
guessing they've fired her by now.) Later that day all was indeed
restored. Fast forward three weeks.
1 October: The cable modem is out again. I call Comcast. They insist I
go to their service center and show some ID. I, in turn, insist that
they have screwed up, and they should connect me with whomever it is that
has the authority to fix what they've done. After getting VERY pissed
off over the next hour and a half, I finally get connected with someone
who wont tell me her full name, insists that her job title, in full, is
"Senior," and tells me that I have to go to their service center and show
some ID to prove that I'm not dead. After another half an hour or so,
she finally asks me enough questions about the account information to
satisfy herself that I am who I say I am. She even asks me for a code to
be placed on the account to insure that all orders placed with regard to
that account are authorized by me (as the only person with that code. I
won't even go into the flaws in that idea.). I ask how this could have
happened and she assures me that there is absolutely no way that Comcast
could have caused my account to indicate that I was deceased, so someone
must have gotten my account information and called them and told them
that I was dead.
As far as I'm concerned, this is less likely to happen than three
separate meteors converging on different trajectories to knock my earring
out while I sleep. I demand assurances that this fiasco is concluded.
Naturally, the only response I get is that if I'd paid my bill it
wouldn't have happened in the first place, and she tells me the service
will be turned back on by a week later, but she'll call me back to let me
know if she is able to expedite the reconnection at all.
She calls me back later, and tell me oops, it was on our end. Someone
hit the wrong key. Anyway, the service should be back on the next day.
While we're talking, the service comes back on, but she doesn't have any
information about why or how. Naturally, this inspires such confidence
in me that I spend another twenty minutes trying to get some kind of
assurance that this won't happen again. Talk about banging your head on
a wall.
It is now 9 October (well, it was when I started this sordid tale) and
here in front of me is a bill from Comcast. Note that I never received a
statement detailing the charges I paid on my credit card, but I did get
this bill, for ** $425.73 **. Yup. $425.00 for "unreturned equipment"
plus assorted monthly charges, taxes and fees.
Naturally, I have no intention of paying this bill. I will call and
bitch someone out hardcore, but I just have to ask: If I don't pay the
bill for the equipment I didn't return that was used for the account that
was closed because I was dead, will Comcast still turn it over to a
collection agency, and will it show up on my credit report?
I can't wait to tell this to a judge when I sue Comcast. What a bunch of
fucking idiots.
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| 46 responses total. |
michaela
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response 1 of 46:
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Oct 10 10:23 UTC 2003 |
They didn't ask for a billing address when you set up your account, and you
didn't find that odd?
You didn't receive a bill for three months, and you didn't find that odd?
True, the "dead" thing was pretty stupid, but you probably should have been
more responsible about keeping track of which bills you had received and which
ones had never shown up. As you said, in the shuffle of summer, you lost
track. That's not their fault.
Our phone bill was almost two weeks late, and I was on the phone with
Ameritech by day 14. I can't imagine waiting three months or wondering if a
bill had shown up or not without calling the company to check on it.
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jp2
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response 2 of 46:
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Oct 10 12:13 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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other
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response 3 of 46:
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Oct 10 14:13 UTC 2003 |
1: The time period for which I didn't see a bill was from the first week
of June through 8 August. During that period was Summer festival, during
which times I was working every single day from 9 June to 12 July, and
was quite busy in the weeks after as well. I had just moved into a new
apartment on 29 May, and was still trying to get settled in amidst my
work schedule. So, between a severely interrupted routine and a
demanding work schedule, looking for unreceived bills was not topping my
priority list.
In addition, I was not familiar with the billing cycle for this service,
and didn't know when in a given month I should expect a bill. Lastly,
when I ordered the service, the conversation was pretty much limited to
pricing of different service options, where to send the technician and
when. When someone asks me my address, I *always* clarify whether
they're seeking a service/delivery address or a mailing address. This is
a habit deeply ingrained after maintaining a PO Box mailing address for
12.5 years.
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gull
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response 4 of 46:
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Oct 10 14:19 UTC 2003 |
Re #1:
> You didn't receive a bill for three months, and you didn't find that
> odd?
I don't know about other, but the extent of my bill paying system is,
"when the bill arrives, I pay it." I've never really kept track of
what's due when, except for really big items like rent and my student loan.
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jp2
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response 5 of 46:
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Oct 10 14:30 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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polygon
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response 6 of 46:
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Oct 10 15:13 UTC 2003 |
I think being abusive to customers on billing issues is an integral part
of the cable-TV business model.
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rcurl
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response 7 of 46:
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Oct 10 19:46 UTC 2003 |
My bill paying system to to queue the payment with my online banking to be
paid four days before it is due.
The Comcast story is "really something". There must be some way to take
advantage of being officially, but not literally, dead.
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janc
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response 8 of 46:
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Oct 10 19:47 UTC 2003 |
Count yourself lucky, pay the bills and stop calling them. If you insist on
being alive when the computer says you are dead, they'll have to send out a
technician to fix the problem.
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cmcgee
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response 9 of 46:
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Oct 10 19:55 UTC 2003 |
other, you may want to check and see if anyone else thinks you're dead.
Seriously, a friend of mine is going through a big credit hassle because he
discovered when he tried to buy a car that Social Security had placed his SS
number on a list of "dead" accounts. Apparently some illegal was also using
his number, died, and got reported to SS.
Now my friend can't get any credit, and is having a hard time proving that
he is alive. Social Security was a problem even though he had his original
SS card to show to them. He's pissed, but working thorough the paperwork,
one day at a time to get a credit rating back.
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cross
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response 10 of 46:
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Oct 10 20:02 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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gull
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response 11 of 46:
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Oct 10 20:14 UTC 2003 |
Re #8: That doesn't sound as threatening when you remember that the
technician will invariably show up when you're at work.
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scott
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response 12 of 46:
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Oct 10 20:35 UTC 2003 |
Dress up as a vampire, go to the billing office, and demand that they change
your status from "dead" to "undead".
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jp2
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response 13 of 46:
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Oct 10 20:37 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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scott
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response 14 of 46:
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Oct 10 20:42 UTC 2003 |
Wrong again, Jamie. That would require making a technician actually perform
"work".
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lynne
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response 15 of 46:
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Oct 10 22:06 UTC 2003 |
re 8: I think the point is that he already paid the $400 they are trying to
bill him for now.
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michaela
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response 16 of 46:
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Oct 10 22:47 UTC 2003 |
Other - I didn't mean any offense. For some reason, I read your login name
wrong (I'd been up 40 hours) and thought you were someone I'd been arguing
with. I'm sorry. :-P
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jp2
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response 17 of 46:
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Oct 10 22:55 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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other
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response 18 of 46:
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Oct 10 23:06 UTC 2003 |
No offense taken.
I haven't paid the large bill, and when Comcast called me back today
about it, they took the charge off and reported that my current balance
is now a whopping $10. I'm still waiting for the next screwup.
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lynne
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response 19 of 46:
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Oct 10 23:39 UTC 2003 |
oh--different mistake? I assumed that they were billing you a second time
for the backlog that you had previously paid by credit card. Either way,
it's generally a bad idea to pay bills that one doesn't owe, so I still
disagree with #8.
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gull
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response 20 of 46:
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Oct 10 23:52 UTC 2003 |
No, they were billing him because he died without returning the
equipment they installed.
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michaela
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response 21 of 46:
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Oct 11 03:47 UTC 2003 |
#20 made me laugh. :)
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tsty
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response 22 of 46:
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Oct 11 05:00 UTC 2003 |
comcast asd time-warner are evil - just get used to it . story here
but i will not regle you .. it's in court.
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scg
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response 23 of 46:
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Oct 11 06:37 UTC 2003 |
I generally figure that if somebody who's supposed to bill me doesn't, the
bill must not need to be paid yet. This is especially the case, since for
just about everything I get billed for, the amount varries from month to month
(rent is constant, but rent never involves receiving a bill, so it's an
exception). For utility companies that neglect to send a bill, or even if
I lose the bill, they bill me again the next month, and I pay it. I'm more
careful with credit cards, since they actually go on my credit record.
I did at one point get into a situation with Pacific Bell where they stopped
billing me. That is, they stopped sending me regular statements. Every few
months, they would send me a shutoff notice, with instructions to pay some
amount of money, which I would pay promptly. Eventually I wanted to order
something else from them, at which point they made me spend a few hours
sorting out the mess, but the experience didn't make me wish I'd given up
those hours to fix their billing problem sooner. It just wasn't worth it;
it was their screwup, and there was very little in it for me.
That said, in any large company (and even small companies I've worked for)
the technical people tend to be pretty far removed from the billing process.
If you want to be billed somewhere other than the service address, the person
taking the order probably has far more access to make that happen than the
installer, and the installer may not know how little access he has (putting
something about billing in the notes for the install ticket doesn't mean the
billing people are going to be reading the install notes). If nobody says
anything else, the service address does seem like a rather logical default.
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mcnally
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response 24 of 46:
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Oct 11 07:17 UTC 2003 |
The place I lived in Bellevue, WA, I had terrible problems with mail
delivery. It wasn't until I tried to cancel a gift magazine subscription
a family member had given me that I realized the extent of my missing
mail problem and started looking into it (in the case of the magazine,
I thought I'd received one issue and missed one. It turned out I'd
missed the gift card, missed four issues, then received one, and then
started missing again..)
Since I'm not a person who anticipates when irregularly-scheduled bills
are due, and since I was travelling a lot while residing there, the
results were not good.
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