Supposed past bill turned over to a collection agency

[rileynp2]

We received a bill from a collection agency for over $400 stating that ATT had turned over a past bill to them to collect.  We called ATT and they told us the bill had been turned over to the collection agency so they had no information.  Now we've paid every month and ATT isn't sure why or doesn't have the information on what was past due billing.  Every time we call ATT they can't give us any information and when we call the collection agency they get ATT on the phone to discuss the bill.

Now ATT says they're going to send us in the mail the bill that we're supposedly past due on, but the collection agency says there might not be enough time before they post out collection notices to credit agencies.

And it gets better.  I did add my cell phone # to our family cell phone plan as I just changed jobs where my previous employer paid my cell phone plan and ATT said that no this was not  some billing from the employer paid service that it was from my family plan.  But I've paid every monthly bill in time and never had anything that said I owed any money.  But they did say that this debt was from something in Sept 2012.   I am amazed that a debt from early September while never getting any bill on it would be turned over to collection so soon.  And that ATT couldn't even tell me what the unpaid bill was for.  This episode has already taken several phone calls already with no resolution other than mailing out the supposed reason for the bill.   Hey, don't you guys have email?

[wilcre ACE - Expert]

Some of the information you have stated does not quite sound correct, but not by your doing. When a collection agency takes over an account (no matter what company it comes from) they buy the account lock stock and barrel, thus they are the only ones that have access to any of the previous billing and or account structure from that company, The collection agency is the only ones that can request a copy of the invoice and have it sent out to you, Also unless they have changed the collection agency procedures if a balance is being reviewed/disputed/investigated then they can not take any further action with it till it is resolved, but as for emailing the invoice, to date I have not yet seen 1 collection agency do that, they always work with a paper trail.