Actually, my girlfriend received a lawyer letter for some unpaid amount of mobile phone charges. And I would like some advice on this. I'm not staying in US but I think laws in most countries are quite similar. Here's what happened. More than a year ago, my girlfriend subscribed to a mobile phone service. The charges for every month were $21 subscription fee plus call charges. The service was not contract bound and could be discontinued at anytime. A few months later, my girlfriend went overseas to work, and had completely forgotten about the service. She didn't have the service discontinued. More than one year later she came back and found letters asking her to pay up $300 overdue charges. But we are baffled by a statement in all the bills she received. The statement says:" Please be informed that your ABC line will automatically be disconnected in the case of any overdue bill". Now the thing is, my gf stopped using the service more than one year ago, but the overdue charges never stopped accumulating since then, by $21 every month. My thought is that the phone company should have disconnected the line after the first few overdued months and stop pilling up the charges. That's what they say in the statement. We have no problem with having to pay the first $70 overdued charges, but not the rest. The lawyer letter even says that "our further action is to take court action through post or with court order to advertise summon in all local newspapers whereby all costs for the legal action will be shouldered by you" (translated). So, what do you think? Is it my gf's responsibility to pay the $300? What should we do? Thanks.
well from got out of your story is that your GF never cancelled the service....i def think the company has the right to charge those months. It might be nice of them to not charge you, but i dont see that happening..
I would say you shouldn't have to pay after the first letter that said your service will be discontinued. They told you they would discontinue and then did not do so. What if you had received that letter and thought to yourself, "cool, they'll cancel it, I don't have to call them." What country is this in? In the States, they wouldn't have lawyers threatening to sue, they'd sell the debt to a collection agency and put a black mark on your credit. In this case, it would depend on how important my credit rating was to me. Right now, mine is important. My parents, though, have reached a point in their lives where credit isn't too important anymore, so they can be jerks about it. The Canadian government has been trying to get my dad to pay for some decade-old speeding tickets. He knows he owes it, has the money to pay, but just doesn't want to because they can't get him as long as he's in Texas. Anyway, $300 isn't justified, but they're probably hoping you'd rather pay than be hassled. It's extortion.
When you get insurance, isn't there a question where they ask you if they can see your credit? I always said no.
Which would be just one more reason for me to guard my credit closely. I'm not recommending to anyone that you throw away your credit rating. I was just mentioning as an aside that there are some people who have reached a point in their lives where the credit-rating threat doesn't hold much power anymore. In any case, threats to zhao's credit weren't mentioned anyway. It was just a tangent. So, what do you think of the threatened suit?
Yes credit rating is important for my girlfriend at this stage. And we just don't have the time to fight/argue with this company regarding the bills. We are staying overseas and only return to the country for a few weeks every year. So I guess the easiest way out would be to pay up, and have the company take care of their own lawyer. For the past few days I didn't feel right with the whole thing. But now, after venting out in CF.net, yeah I think we should just s*ck it up and get on with our lives. No point wasting our precious little time back in the country over this $300. So guys, thanks for the advice and for listening.
