L
lonestar21
Guest
I apologize in advance if this is a waste of anyone's time
but I was unsure of where to go with this question. I subscribe to a satellite company for television service and was just penalized a late fee for about the 4th time in the past 6 months. I pay my bills on time (or at least pretty close). I don't doubt this one was received late by them as the bank sent out the e-pay on Nov 2 and that was the due date on the invoice.
In looking at this closely, I noted that the service period for this bill was from 10/16/00 through 11/15/00 (again the bill was due on 11/2/00) so this means that not only are they billing you prior to service being rendered; they are actually charging late fees for service they have not yet provided.
The other disturbing thing is that they charge this fee if they have not received the bill by the due date (no consideration of when it was postmarked). They claim to have received this payment on 11/12/00 even though the bank claims to send out all e-pays within 5 days and I am not receiving late notices from any other companies which I pay by electronic pay. I take this to mean they could basically charge me anytime they wish to and claim to have not received the payment yet.
Any advice would be appreciated. This is an extremely trivial amount of money to me (the fee is $4.00) but the pricipal of the thing bothers me. The company rep including a billing supervisor were very short and rude when I called to ask them about this.
Thanks in advance.
but I was unsure of where to go with this question. I subscribe to a satellite company for television service and was just penalized a late fee for about the 4th time in the past 6 months. I pay my bills on time (or at least pretty close). I don't doubt this one was received late by them as the bank sent out the e-pay on Nov 2 and that was the due date on the invoice.
In looking at this closely, I noted that the service period for this bill was from 10/16/00 through 11/15/00 (again the bill was due on 11/2/00) so this means that not only are they billing you prior to service being rendered; they are actually charging late fees for service they have not yet provided.
The other disturbing thing is that they charge this fee if they have not received the bill by the due date (no consideration of when it was postmarked). They claim to have received this payment on 11/12/00 even though the bank claims to send out all e-pays within 5 days and I am not receiving late notices from any other companies which I pay by electronic pay. I take this to mean they could basically charge me anytime they wish to and claim to have not received the payment yet.
Any advice would be appreciated. This is an extremely trivial amount of money to me (the fee is $4.00) but the pricipal of the thing bothers me. The company rep including a billing supervisor were very short and rude when I called to ask them about this.
Thanks in advance.