This whole story is long, so I'll summarize & hope it's enough information.
When my son moved to the state he would be going to college in, he took a cell phone. The number he had is part of my mother's account.
He had gotten his grandmother's permission to add texting to the number, which she arranged. He went to buy a new phone, and was bullyied into a separate contract. They even forged my mom's signature to release the number.
He called me the same day, I looked up the company's terms & policies, and he had about two weeks where he could go back in and cancel that contract with NO penalties.
He went back well within the company's established timeframe, they cancelled the new contract and supposedly returned his number back to my mother's account. Because they had charged him a promotional rate on his phone before, as part of the separate contract, they made him pay the balance of regular price for the phone.
Shortly thereafter, he got a bill in the mail for that phone number. After he & my mom made numerous calls, they both had the understanding that he would need to pay that one month's bill, and after that, all would be like the number had never been removed from my mom's account. However, he got another bill the next month.
Phone calls were made, 40 mile round-trips back to the place he'd bought the phone happened, and ultimately, my son & mother would assured, this time everything was fixed for real.
For a while, caller ID showed his name, but during this time, it returned to my mother's, leading us all to believe it was really being fixed.
Only, it wasn't. The mess continued. My son had to fax the receipts (original and reversal) to customer service, my mom had to fax the same documents.... I can't even tell you how much time they spent trying to get this fixed. It's ridiculous.
This time, with my mom & son thinking it was fixed, the company shut my son's phone off for non-payment. My son was in college, six hours away from home.
My mother was furious. She's had her account with this same company for over ten years. She called and insisted on someone higher up that would actually FIX the matter. By the end of the call, they had my mother pay the "past due" amount in my son's name and told her they would go through the account and retro-rate the charges for that number (on a separate contract, that number was being billed over $40 a month, plus it had been removed from it's calling network, while under my mother's account, it was about $17 monthly with taxes). My son's phone would be turned back on immediately and once they'd gone through everything, they were to credit back my mom's account.
Finally... finally, they got the number back on my mom's account. Of course, she threatened legal action against the people that had forged her name and my son had gotten the Better Business Bureau involved. However, my son is still getting a bill. They are trying to collect again on the amount my mother paid to have his phone turned back on.
Right now, my son is in Basic Training, and the cell company has turned him in to a collection agency. He gave me power of attorney, but this is messy because I don't have the legal right to my mother's account information.
What do we have to do to get this resolved? Once and for all?... this has been going on since July.
When my son moved to the state he would be going to college in, he took a cell phone. The number he had is part of my mother's account.
He had gotten his grandmother's permission to add texting to the number, which she arranged. He went to buy a new phone, and was bullyied into a separate contract. They even forged my mom's signature to release the number.
He called me the same day, I looked up the company's terms & policies, and he had about two weeks where he could go back in and cancel that contract with NO penalties.
He went back well within the company's established timeframe, they cancelled the new contract and supposedly returned his number back to my mother's account. Because they had charged him a promotional rate on his phone before, as part of the separate contract, they made him pay the balance of regular price for the phone.
Shortly thereafter, he got a bill in the mail for that phone number. After he & my mom made numerous calls, they both had the understanding that he would need to pay that one month's bill, and after that, all would be like the number had never been removed from my mom's account. However, he got another bill the next month.
Phone calls were made, 40 mile round-trips back to the place he'd bought the phone happened, and ultimately, my son & mother would assured, this time everything was fixed for real.
For a while, caller ID showed his name, but during this time, it returned to my mother's, leading us all to believe it was really being fixed.
Only, it wasn't. The mess continued. My son had to fax the receipts (original and reversal) to customer service, my mom had to fax the same documents.... I can't even tell you how much time they spent trying to get this fixed. It's ridiculous.
This time, with my mom & son thinking it was fixed, the company shut my son's phone off for non-payment. My son was in college, six hours away from home.
My mother was furious. She's had her account with this same company for over ten years. She called and insisted on someone higher up that would actually FIX the matter. By the end of the call, they had my mother pay the "past due" amount in my son's name and told her they would go through the account and retro-rate the charges for that number (on a separate contract, that number was being billed over $40 a month, plus it had been removed from it's calling network, while under my mother's account, it was about $17 monthly with taxes). My son's phone would be turned back on immediately and once they'd gone through everything, they were to credit back my mom's account.
Finally... finally, they got the number back on my mom's account. Of course, she threatened legal action against the people that had forged her name and my son had gotten the Better Business Bureau involved. However, my son is still getting a bill. They are trying to collect again on the amount my mother paid to have his phone turned back on.
Right now, my son is in Basic Training, and the cell company has turned him in to a collection agency. He gave me power of attorney, but this is messy because I don't have the legal right to my mother's account information.
What do we have to do to get this resolved? Once and for all?... this has been going on since July.
