K
klove
Guest
I need some advise on a very distressing situation. My son went to college in an area of Georgia which is out of the "local" calling area for my cellphone (that he uses). I called to cancel the service and was going to get him a local number or some type of statewide plan. I was told I had to come sign a form and give a 30 day notice. I stupidly decided to let him keep the phone for those 30 days and after it was turned off we'd get another number in that calling area. Well, I lost track of time and recently started thinking "they should have turned that phone off by now. I'm certain it must have been 30 days by now". In addition, I began to wonder why the bill hadn't come in. I remarked to a friend "I'll bet that phone bill is going to be $200". Well, to my shock, I received a bill last Thursday for $517. The majority of the bill was for calls less than a minute when he checked his voice mail. I wasn't aware that all the roaming charges were applied when he simply checked his voice mail. I called the company on Monday, 12-4 and they assured me the phone had been turned off on 12-1. This has turned out not to be true, though, as the phone is still in service today. Yesterday, I received another bill with a new total of over $1300. After reviewing the two bills that I received in less than a weeks time, there is a message printed on them apologizing for the bills being late because they went to a new billing system. My contention is that, had I received the October bill on time, I would have gone ahead and had the phone re-programmed with a service in the local area. However, since I was unaware that the charges were so astronomical, I saw no need to have "overlapping" services. My question is: Is my argument valid? Does the company have some sort of responsibility to bill (notify) me in a timely manner of the charges being incurred? If I decide to stand my ground and refuse to pay for anything after the first $517 (which I understand I owe) on the grounds that I wasn't given the timely notice of the charges?