Yup, 54 grand! Cingular buys AT&T about a year ago. I was an AT&T customer. After the merger, they make me switch to the Cingular network (even though they are the same company.) So much for being transparent. Idiots! After switching, I get a collection notice saying I am delinquent. I am confused cause I have been paying my bill, but I think, shit maybe I missed something so I send in the amount requested. The next month I get a call saying I am still delinquent and I am in collections. I'm like what the . . .? So I call the collection agency and they, as you can imagine, are just straight-up assholes. I guess dealing with delinquents all day works on your patience.

I talk with the girl she tells me I owe 350 bucks or something stupid like that. I'm like no way. Remember, I just paid the last notice I got. I call Cingular to get it figured out. The problem; Cingular still has two billing systems that DON'T talk to each other. I know you know what happened. I am going along paying my bill, they are crediting the WRONG ACCOUNT! To make a long story short, they see the problem and agree to move the $350 plus credit I have in my new account and pay off my old account. Problem solved.

I wish. Knowing how these things work, I get Cingular AND their collection agency on the phone together and get agreement that I was never late, that it was a billing mix up on their (cingulars) part and that it never should have gone to collections in the first place. I then get commitment that the case is closed, that it was a mix up and that their would be no impact to my credit.

Speed ahead 6 months. I am buying a new home. I get a call from my mortgage broker. She says to me "What the hell did you do to your credit?" I'm like: "Nothing"

That's right you guessed it. Those dip-shits reported my to the credit bureau. Not only did they report me, they reported me in collections AND that I still owed them money.

I found this out in Dec 06, I wasn't closing until March 07. I'm thinking I got time to clear this up. WRONG! I called at least 15 times, burnt at least 18 hours of phone time, one instance I was on for two hours and talked to at least 5 people. I talked to customer reps, managers,and managers managers. Every time I had to call back because they didn't get it done like they said they would, I had to tell my story all over again. Sometimes I had to tell it 3 times in a single phone call, because I would keep getting transferred. One time, a rep kept trying to transfer me. It appeared no one wanted the call, so she finally came back and said . . . "there is nothing I can do. I can't find a department that can help you" I asked her what I was supposed to do and she said she couldn't help me. She literally thought I should just hang up the phone with out any resolution. WOW! Another time, I got a very helpful woman who felt bad for me. She saw all the notes and how nothing was getting done. So she called their collection agency with me on the line. She and I got transferred three times, one of those times she was telling the collection agency rep the situation when they just got off the phone and went and got someone else. She was talking to empty space for almost a minute. When the manager got on the phone, he kept telling the cingular rep there was nothing he could do and how it was their fault. My Cingular rep and their collection agency rep got into a full fledged battle with me still on the phone. Yelling and screaming at each other with me just hanging out on the line. It was crazy. Good entertainment, but still NO RESOLUTION!

Needless to say, after 3 months 15 plus phone calls, 18 hours of phone time, at least 20 different reps, countless arguments, numerous dolts, ungodly number of story recounts to rep after rep, I finally get it resolved by hunting down the account manager for the collection agency who works DIRECTLY with the Cingular collections department. Once I got a hold of her, it was resolved in 3 days!

So how did all this cost me 54k. By reporting me to the credit bureau and taking over 3 FRICKIN MONTHS to get it resolved. By putting me in collections has having an outstanding balance my credit rating dropped from the high 700's to the mid 600's. This drop put me in a different lending pool. This drop in credit score cost me an extra quarter point on my mortgage. This quarter point cost me an extra $150 bucks a month. 150 X 12 months=1800 dollars a year X 30 years is 54k dollars. That is correct. Cingular is costing me an extra $150 every month.

You don't pay them, they move like the wind, phones turned off, collection agencies notified, credit bureaus reported to. They owe you or they screw up, frickin forget about it! This truck don't back up as easy as it goes forward. Assholes! Anyone know a good lawyer? 54k is some big ching!