Fist Bill Shock!! :twisted:

Hi all,

I’ve been with Cingular since the beginning of May (to be exact, 5/6).
I've just got my first bill, which shocked me tremendously.

I have National $39.99 + additional line $19.99, so my basic charge was supposed to be no more than $60 before tax. But my first bill is over $170!!

Since it is my first bill, I was expecting to be charged for activation fees ($18 x 2) as well as SMS, MMS and Internet I used in order to make sure that those functions worked OK.

However, I was not aware that my charge would be prorated, or at lease that’s what they claimed. From my point of view, what they claim as “prorated charge” doesn’t seem prorated charge to me. That “prorated charge” was the charge I used on previous billing cycle (05/06-06/01), so I think it reasonable. But what I don’t understand was why I have to pay for the billing cycle 06/02-07/01?

When I was AT&T customer, I had to pay what I had used after that particular billing cycle was over, so I just don’t get how Cingular bills the customer.

The entire bill doesn’t seem to have wrong info; I just don’t understand their billing procedure and honestly don’t like it.

Please correct me, or explaining to me if I take it wrong or misunderstood it.
Thank you very much for reading my post.

Cingular charges your first bill with the prorated first month plus the upcoming month in advance. That's why you're paying for the month of June too.

Now I know that's the way Cingular charges.
Well, I don't feel any better, but I know I have to give in.

Actually, I even contacted with its notorious customer service by mail and I got reply promptly.

I as well asked them where my first month rollover minutes go, and that's what they told me:

you should have gotten a pretty little peice of pare called a service summery, ALL reps are REQUIRED to print one with ALL new lines of service your not the first cust to be charged this way and wont be the last one to be charged that way unfortunatly it that rep didnt do it chanced are you went to a walmart or a 3rd party dealer ( non corporate ) store.

Hi BigRUSS,

Actually I signed up my service at Cingular.com.

I guess I didn't read something I had to read before click submit.

Well, at least it seems to be no error on my invoice, so I'd better not complain then.

Bampi - as an FYI, most all carriers now bill in advance so Cingular is really doing what all have been doing. Likely you were on an old AT&T program and it remained as an arrears styled billing/ Thought I'd share..

actuly if he was migrated he would be complaining about advance and prorated they dont do that on migrated accounts

no - all migrated accounts are prorated - final former AWS bill is prorated: charges AND minutes. first cingular GSM bill is prorated for charges, but the full biucket of minutes is also provided. if overage occurs on the final AWS invoice, it can be UNprorated (debit the remaining MRC, credit for minutes that would have been included.) the bill cycle also changes, and between that, and the new forward-billing that former AWS custs are not used to, it can really confuse people. especially since both bills read 'cingular.' the best way to prevent this is for CSRs to xplain this at time of migration. i find 9 of 10 custs i give the heads-up to thank me, realizing it's gonna look rough next month. when they don't like it, they cancel, and that's fine - it's a free world. on a personal note, i truly widh brass would simply give cutomer care the web pricing, and dissallow online migration - a customer has too much opportunity to miss something that a CSR would tell them about if the order was placed through a real live human being. (new account #, new bill cycle, advance billing, proration, voice mail changeover, M2M enhancement, etc.)

Well, here's hopin' that things get a little clearer from now on. Anyway, reps are always around, though I mean this in a good way: Hope to never have to talk to you!

Fist Bill Shock!! :twisted:

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