Late fee?

If you choose to wait to get a paper bill in the mail, choose to wait to pay it, and choose to use the slowest method of payment, occasionally being late with a payment isn't unexpected. 

Even if, for some reason, you choose not to pay electronically, you can view your bill online just a few days after the cycle begins. You can mail in the check a few days later and the payment will arrive in ample time. 

Turn on notifications in your account.  This will tell you when your bill is produced.  Check the amount online so you know how much is due.  

Write your account number on it and mail it then.   You can file the paper bill as paid when it arrives.  

If AT&T can not get my bill to me in a reasonable amount of time then they should not offer it as a payment method. I'm the customer and the fact that your suggesting that I spend one second of my time to find out what I owe is ridiculous. I have my own business to run. Doing AT&T's job for them is far down on my list of things I have to do in a day. If I told my customers it was their responsibility to find out what they owed and send it to me I wouldn't have any customers.

You can either take a minute of your time to find out your balance by looking online or take a minute to find out your balance by waiting for a paper bill to come by USPS. 

Bottom line, it is your responsibility to pay what you owe by the due date and if you aren’t doing that by doing what you’re doing, you should either change what you’re doing or accept that you will pay late fees sometimes. 

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@ttheus wrote:

I'm the customer and the fact that your suggesting that I spend one second of my time to find out what I owe is ridiculous. I have my own business to run. 

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You're the customer who got a late fee...

You already excluded the option of taking ZERO seconds by setting up autopay. But you won't take 1 second? 

What exactly is it that you want from these forums?

Doing AT&T's job for them is far down on my list of things I have to do in a day.

Setting up an account and posting here has probably wasted more time than it would have taken you to check your balance on-line for a year.

If I told my customers it was their responsibility to find out what they owed and send it to me I wouldn't have any customers.

We're not talking about your business, we're talking about AT&T and clearly they are willing to lose some business over this, they don't want to deal with it.

On newer accounts, AT&T is giving $10-$20 discounts EACH MONTH for setting up autopay. $5-$10 on some older ones.

They do not want to deal with it, that's what it's worth to them. It's worth $240 a year to them to not deal with anything related to payments. It's debit (but I hear you can pay in advance) but I'm sure it's still costing them $100+ a year per account...

I can’t think of any large business, credit card company, mortgage lender or utility that doesnt expect payment even if your bill never arrives.   

Since the last major carrier (Verizon) has also standardized its due date to the 21/22 days you might have to figure out how to adapt.  

Your bill is generated and mailed 3-4 days after the start of your bill cycle. Those days are fixed in stone and can’t be changed. If the bill is not getting to you for two weeks, that is the USPS. There is nothing ATT can do to make the USPS deliver your bill faster, so not sure what other resolution you expect. You could easily have your payment in the mail within 4 days of your bill cycle if you just view the bill online instead of wait for the paper copy. As long as you choose to wait for that paper copy, you risk being late.

Thanks everyone for taking time and giving input. Looks like I'm going to have to change how I do things or worry about my payment being late. Change it is.

Ace, I use electronic bill pay in some cases; I use the online banking; And I have had an email account for notification since the early 1990s. But, AT&T is being irresponsible and I think they are using their might to make a lot of extra money in late fees. What to do? AT&T is not the only cell phone service in my area. Goodbye AT&T.  Goodbye Direct TV because they too have gone downhill since the association with AT&T. By the way, I could buy into AT&T's push to have electronic withdrawals, but I do not trust them. Thanks for the nudge. Time for me to change. 

[Per Guidelines:  Keep it Relevant and Appropriate].