Anyone have trouble with false billings from Cingular Wireless?

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

I just got a call from a collection agency, claiming I owed Cingular $450 for an account I never had. They had my old mailing address and my SS#, but I never started an account with them nor do I recall even APPLYING for one, nor signing anything. I told them to take a flying leap because they weren't getting one penny from me.

This pisses me off. Has my identity been stolen? (I just checked my bank account and nothing's gone, but I'm gonna be worrying for a while now...)

They said they had tried to call me yesterday, but my phone log does not show their number (it's an 866 number).

Somehow, I KNEW this day was gonna hold a surprise or two... :mad:

[AllegroRondo]

1. that sure sounds like identity theft

I'd get in touch with the credit reporting agencies right away, and put a stop on any new credit requests in your name.

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

3. Good idea.

I just had my credit rating repaired a few months back, so I know the guy to call who can help me.

Thanks for the tip! :yourock:

[wildhorses]

2. i have not had anything like that from cingular

sounds phishy to me

[Whoa_Nelly]

4. Would recommend you contact the FTC

You may need to file a police report as well. If your SSN is being used, someone stole it.

My son, and his wife, have both have their SSNs hijacked and used for utilities in Detroit (son lives in CA, has never been near Detroit in his life!), and they are still fighting this after a year re: collections, the Detroit electric company still putting them in collections, etc. Their numbers as stolen have been flagged to all credit reporting agencies, and technically, they aren't liable for the money due, but it all still mega-sucks.

It's a difficult thing to go through, but once you learn that your SSN is being used, best to follow up on it.

Here's the FTC ID Theft site:
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/microsites/idtheft/

[MissB]

5. It does sound like identity theft.

Dh was a victim last year. It started with a phone call from a cell phone company, checking on some conflicting info when someone went to open an account.

I suggest you contact Cingular Wireless directly. Hopefully you've taken down some info from the annoying collection agency- like the account number (phone number) of the fraudulent cell phone account. Give Cingular Wireless a call and ask to talk to their billing department. Once they figure out the account info (and write it down - keep a log of this stuff!), ask them to open up a fraud investigation on the account. Ask them to spell your name, confirm the address and the last four digits of your SS#. The fraud investigation can take anywhere from a couple of days to a week or more. They should send you an affadavit to sign and send back, and then you need to make sure that they follow up with a letter that tells you that you are not responsible for the debt. Keep a file!

Once you've figured out for sure that someone has opened a cell phone account in your name, you'll need to call one of the big three credit reporting agencies. Try http://www.experian.com/ for starters. Somewhere on their site they should have an 800 number to call to report identity theft. You can put a fraud alert on your credit report- and doing so should trigger fraud alerts on your credit report at the other two agencies. When I had to call, there was a recording afterwards that told me that the info would be passed along to the other agencies, and sure enough within a few days I had letters from all three agencies telling me that a fraud alert had been put on dh's credit report.

You can also get a free copy of your credit report each year. You only need one - so pick an agency, go to their site and print it out. You can do that every four months, going to each of the agencies once every four months to encompass the full calendar year for free.

On dh's credit report, we saw two credit checks for cell phone companies. Someone opened three different cell phone accounts under his name within a few days. Unfortunately, we didn't find out until well after the fact about one of the other two - because of the lag time between the account opening and the account being unpaid and sent to collections.

In all three cases, we were able to get the stuff cleared up fairly quickly, except for a Qwest cell. It took many months and many phone calls to get that straightened out. They never checked dh's credit report, btw.

When you do confirm identity theft, call your local non-emergency phone number for the police and file a report. You'll get a case file number that you'll be able to give to the cell phone company.

On collection agencies- if you explain that you've been a victim of identity theft, they'll usually give you the contact info for the original debt (the cell company). If they're nasty, hang up, call back, and try again (I had to do that a few times - collection agency people can be quite nasty).

[masshole]

6. Did you have an old AT&T wireless account?

Before they became Cingular (now AT&T again). I had a wireless account with AT&T and shortly after Cingular was created they notified me that I was eligible to "Migrate" to Cingular at no charge, and since they offered my a brand new phone for free I did it. Big mistake.

I just switched to Verizon after being a AT&T/Cingular customer for 6 years due to their continued faulty billing system(s). Payments posted incorrrectly was my biggest problem, and last year when they finally admitted I was overcharged for over a year and agreed to a refund, they credited half the amount to my account and the other half of my overpayments they turned into "Rollover" minutes, without my knowledge or approval as if that was of some bonus to me (It's not - I never go over my monthly minutes). This overpayment was supposed to be applied to a balance I had with AT&T at the time I migrated to Cingular - it never was, and it was sent to a collection agency.

Every month on the phone for at least an hour to straighten out the bill.
They suck, and will continue to suck. Get out as soon as you can!

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

7. Nope

Actually, I've never had a need to put a phone account in my name since moving here- my BIL has a T-Mobile account with several spare numbers, and I've just rented a number from him. I moved here in 2000 and started renting from his account about three and a half years ago. Before that I had no need for a number.

:shrug:

UPDATE: I just called the 866 number back, and they at least seem legit- they provided me with their case number for me, also the original Cingular account number. At least that's something I can take to the cops.