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iamabitch's profile

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Monday, August 20th, 2018 7:37 PM

lead time between receiving a bill and due date

I received my att bill via usps on the 20th and it is due on the 27th. if I was paying by usps there is no way to get toh payment to att on time. I am using internet banking to pay this bill and must submit it promptly. if I am on vacation during this period I cannot submit the payment on time. can I change the lead time to a more reasonable period. I know that credit card companies, by law must give a 21 day lead time. Why is att exempt of this practice. what can I do to change the grace period so that I will not incur a late charge? Or are late charges att's best profit stream?

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ACE - Expert

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14.1K Messages

6 years ago


@iamabitch wrote:

I received my att bill via usps on the 20th and it is due on the 27th. if I was paying by usps there is no way to get toh payment to att on time. I am using internet banking to pay this bill and must submit it promptly. if I am on vacation during this period I cannot submit the payment on time. can I change the lead time to a more reasonable period. I know that credit card companies, by law must give a 21 day lead time. Why is att exempt of this practice. what can I do to change the grace period so that I will not incur a late charge? Or are late charges att's best profit stream?


Everyone's bill is due 21 days after the billing date (though credit card autopay customers are charged sooner). Your bill is available about 4 days after the billing date and is mailed about the same time. That's about 15-17 days before it's due. Once it's handed over to USPS, when it gets to you is a factor of the type of service AT&T chooses and USPS logistics. 5-7 business days for the slowest class of mail to get to you isn't unreasonable. Besides, there's no reason to wait for the bill to come in the  mail to look at it online, especially since that's how you're going to pay, anyway. 

New Member

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2 Messages

Late fees are the icing on the cake.

ACE - Sage

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116.6K Messages

6 years ago

Your bill arrives online 4 days after it is closed (your must be on the 10\11th of the month.  The streamlined paper bill is mailed for your files.  The details are now ONLY online if you want to see or print them.   There is no reason you cannot view and pay your bill by mail on the 10th/11th when the bill is posted.  

Att is saving a tree, you can too.  

BTW electronic auto pay is the most secure way to pay your bill.  You can pay via your bank using E-bills or pay directly to ATT.   

ACE - Expert

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64.7K Messages

6 years ago

The billing process is all automated and the dates are fixed, your due date is always 21 days from the beginnng of your bill cycle. I’ve never heard of anyone getting anything changed. Your bill is available online within 3-4 days of the start of the bill cycle. That is also the earliest the paper bill is mailed. Rather than waiting for the paper bill, you can check the bill online in plenty of time to submit payment.

Contributor

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2 Messages

5 years ago

Lizdance40 is undoubtedly correct in the assumption that (A) the ATT execs have decided late fees are a good income stream and/or (B) they don't want the expense of mailing out paper bills and this is the best way to force everyone to pay on line. My last few paper bills have arrived exactly two weeks after the billing date and thus exactly one week prior to the due date. It is clear that ATT could easily get paper bills to customers much sooner if they wished to do so and that the delay is intentional. Does anyone know if Verizon has a similar policy?

ACE - Expert

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16.5K Messages

5 years ago


@gabbro wrote:

Lizdance40 is undoubtedly correct in the assumption that (A) the ATT execs have decided late fees are a good income stream

I don't think she said that...

 

My last few paper bills have arrived exactly two weeks after the billing date and thus exactly one week prior to the due date. It is clear that ATT could easily get paper bills to customers much sooner if they wished to do so and that the delay is intentional.

I think it's more of a convincing you to go to on-line billing than a revenue stream...

 

ACE - Expert

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64.7K Messages

5 years ago

It is clear that ATT could easily get paper bills to customers much sooner if they wished to do so and that the delay is intentional.

@gabbro Can you prove it’s intentional? Doesn’t the envelope have a date stamp on it? Can you prove the US Mail was not the delay?

ACE - Sage

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116.6K Messages

5 years ago


@gabbro wrote:

Lizdance40 is undoubtedly correct in the assumption that (A) the ATT execs have decided late fees are a good income stream and/or (B) they don't want the expense of mailing out paper bills and this is the best way to force everyone to pay on line. My last few paper bills have arrived exactly two weeks after the billing date and thus exactly one week prior to the due date. It is clear that ATT could easily get paper bills to customers much sooner if they wished to do so and that the delay is intentional. Does anyone know if Verizon has a similar policy?


(A) I did not say or even imply that.  

(B) Absolutely.  It’s cheaper for ATT not to mail a bill, but that’s doesnt mean they are creating a delay.  

They surely do want everyone to pay electronically.  It’s the most secure way of paying your bill.  The check can’t get lost or credited to a wrong account, it takes almost no time to pay on line or by text as opposed to the time and $ to mail a check.  

   How about YOUR expense.  First class mail is going up to 55¢.  The cheap checks are about 10¢ Envelopes maybe 2¢.   Thats $8.04 a year just to mail in your AT&T bill.  How many do you write a month?   10?  That’s $80 a year.  20 checks a month?  $160.   

Re: Verizon does.  They just changed their due dates this past summer to fall in line with the 21/22 day due dates of other carriers.  

 

 

 

 

ACE - Expert

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16.5K Messages

5 years ago

@lizdance40 I agree, money is saved by AT&T when people pay electronically (no employee interaction) and no mistakes are made (employee interaction) and no problems occur with the mail (human interaction). Making it faster, cheaper and more accurate. 

 

 

Contributor

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2 Messages

5 years ago

My mistake, I was replying to the post prior to lizdance40 that stated "Why is att exempt of this practice. what can I do to change the grace period so that I will not incur a late charge? Or are late charges att's best profit stream?" and incorrectly attributed it to lizdance40. Sorry for that. The post to which I was actually responding questioned why banks are able to provide a much longer time gap between a customer's receipt of their paper bill and the due date for payment on their credit card. I'd note that my cable company also is capable of getting a paper bill to me more than two weeks prior to due date. Clearly, the USPS is able to deliver those bills on time year after year. Regarding intent, perhaps AT&T does not intentionally compress the time between mailing out their bills and requiring payment, I could not possibly know what factors control decisions made at the corporate level. I do know that I (and the person making the original post) consider this an example of poor customer service by a company that I have been loyal to for decades. Comments regarding whether or not electronic payment is superior to paper billing are not relevant to the original topic, which is related to the short time gap for customers receiving paper bills. Naturally, if I remain with AT&T I will switch to electronic payment simply because the company has made it almost impossible to continue with my preferred mode of payment. Finally, anyone who still gets paper bills will know that the envelopes are not postmarked, so it is impossible to determine when they were mailed. Thanks for the comments; I guess there really isn't much more to be said on this topic. 

 

 

ACE - Sage

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116.6K Messages

5 years ago

@gabbro

Credit card companies are a completely different business model and have different requirements by law.  

Cable bills are also different as they don’t have the same delay in order to include usage information.  

Our cell bills aren’t created for 4 days after bill closing in order to let all data usage catch up.  It can take up to 3 days (72 hours) for non ATT towers to report back all usage.  So this is already taking a bit out of the 21/22 days cell carriers provide.  So from day produced the number of days is already going to shrink to 17 days.   

   On that 4th day, the bill is posted online.  I have notices set in myATT account, so I get a text notice and email on day 4.   There is no reason one cannot mail a check on that day, logging in and pay online, or pay by text.

    My bill closes on the 17th, and yesterday, the 22nd, my bill posted and I was notified it was available online.   

 

 

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