# Can a company charge late fees if they haven't delivered a bill? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 5, 2016, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-company-charge-late-fees-if-they-havent-delivered-a-bill/759148 "2016-07-05T18:36:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2016, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-company-charge-late-fees-if-they-havent-delivered-a-bill/759148/21 "2016-07-06T18:02:03Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > Perhaps I’m a rarity in that almost all my monthly bills are as close to being fixed as to make no difference. Generally my electric bill only goes up and down when I’m running the heaters, which I won’t be this next month, so I know $50 will keep them happy. > > Late fees are not strictly for profit … there’s an overhead to getting your due money late … that doesn’t mean there _no_ profiteering on late fees … just that’s it’s not solely for profit. I don’t think that’s the rarity, I think the rarity is that it hasn’t happened to you yet. Wait until you go to a doctor, then two months later you get a bill with a late fee or, worse, a collections letter threatening to destroy your perfect credit. IME, it’s common to get a medical bill anywhere from 30 days to 6 months after the appointment. Finding out you have a $30 late fee because the post office messed up or the billing office dropped the ball somewhere along the way might make you wonder if things need to change. ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2016, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-company-charge-late-fees-if-they-havent-delivered-a-bill/759148/22 "2016-07-06T18:38:32Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > I know, that’s a bit extreme, I’m just saying, one or the other. If it’s my responsibility to get the money to you on time, it should be your responsibility to get the amount due to me on time. It’s the service-provider’s responsibility to provide the service. If they’ve done that, it’s on you to pay them. The bill is an accounting convenience, not a requirement. If we had the system that you imagine would be fair, what would change is that service providers would stop providing services before getting paid. Sure, you can have television! Just make sure we receive the payment for next month before the 1st, or we’re cutting you off. I expect that in the case of a legitimate postal strike, most service providers will make an exception, since the bad PR of charging the cutest littlest oldest grandma anyone can put in front of a television camera a late fee on her oxygen machine rental (or whatever) is not worth the late fees. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2016, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-company-charge-late-fees-if-they-havent-delivered-a-bill/759148/23 "2016-07-06T18:44:12Z")
> [@mmmiiikkkeee](#): > > They do that anyways despite it not working; when I was a utility operator doing disconnects for non-payment probably at least 1/4 people said they didn’t get their bills. They were always very sincere and confused looking… but they didn’t know how many of their neighbors gave me the same line that day. > > If the mail system were (as they claimed) really so messed up that a quarter of all mail got lost, the town would be up in arms because the good mail (like their paycheques) wouldn’t show up either. But apparently only bills, photo radar tickets, and other bad mail gets lost :rolleyes: That’s some bad math. One-quarter of the people being disconnected from the utility reported missing mail. But what fraction of the people using the utility were being disconnected? If one percent of users were being disconnected, and a quarter of those reported missing mail, then that implies a mail loss rate of a quarter of one percent. Furthermore, it’s quite possible that some mail gets lost at a higher rate that other mail, especially if there’s a problem caused by the mailer before/as things get mailed. You’re likely right that the people were lying to you, but the reasoning you present in your post here does not support it. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2016, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-company-charge-late-fees-if-they-havent-delivered-a-bill/759148/24 "2016-07-06T21:01:21Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > That’s some bad math. > > One-quarter of the people being disconnected from the utility reported missing mail. But what fraction of the people using the utility were being disconnected? If one percent of users were being disconnected, and a quarter of those reported missing mail, then that implies a mail loss rate of a quarter of one percent. > > Furthermore, it’s quite possible that some mail gets lost at a higher rate that other mail, especially if there’s a problem caused by the mailer before/as things get mailed. > > You’re likely right that the people were lying to you, but the reasoning you present in your post here does not support it. Let’s be fair, you can’t argue that Mike’s math was bad then turn around and flat out make up numbers. Where did the 1% you came up with come from, that you then extrapolated that 1/4 of 1% of mail get’s lost and said that Mike came up with that number? Eitherway, Mike wasn’t in anyway implying that the mail was getting lost, just that 25% of the people he dealt with used that particular excuse, I’ll bet, if asked, a good chunk of the other 75% used a small handful of other excuses. Most people in customer facing jobs hear the same jokes over and over and over and over, this is no different, just gets excuses instead of jokes. I cater lunch into offices at least once a day _someone_ will say ‘oooh ooooh, right here, that goes in my car…har har har’. It’s never, not once belonged to the person saying that. And just to back to Mike for a second, I don’t know of any utility (even cable) that disconnects you after one notice. It’s my understanding that you can skip several bills, then get a few disconnect letters before getting a final one that says ‘we’ll be here on [date]’. Unless you’ve been throwing all your mail out for months, you probably know this is coming…and I think you get even more chances in winter or the middle of summer when you really do need the heat/ac. This isn’t about not seeing one piece of mail. ---
**Author:** ![3trew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/3/13edae/32.png) [@3trew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/3trew)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2016, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-company-charge-late-fees-if-they-havent-delivered-a-bill/759148/25 "2016-07-07T05:33:43Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > And just to back to Mike for a second, I don’t know of any utility (even cable) that disconnects you after one notice. It’s my understanding that you can skip several bills, then get a few disconnect letters before getting a final one that says ‘we’ll be here on [date]’. Unless you’ve been throwing all your mail out for months, you probably know this is coming…and I think you get even more chances in winter or the middle of summer when you really do need the heat/ac. > > This isn’t about not seeing one piece of mail. You’d think that, but when you pull up an account where there was the bill that wasn’t paid, and the other bill that wasn’t paid, and the other other bill that wasn’t paid, and the notice of arrears, and the demand notice, and the payment arrangement, and the next payment arrangement after the first one was broken, and the NSF cheque on the third payment arrangement, and all the bills that have gone out during the time this was happening, and the final demand notice, and the verbal notice that if the bill isn’t paid within 48 hours the service will be cut off, and then the week of hoping that they’ll still make the payment because the field agents have way too many other things to do and the eventual person in a truck showing up and shutting off the service, the first thing that the customer will be very angry about is that this was all done without any notice. ---
**Author:** ![usedtobe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ec9cab/32.png) [@usedtobe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/usedtobe)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2016, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-company-charge-late-fees-if-they-havent-delivered-a-bill/759148/26 "2016-07-07T07:42:14Z")
I did some work for Pacific Telephone (so did Scott Adams, _Dilbert_). Their disconnect was a huge system, well and truly regulated down to the Nth degree. The usual scenario: You know that your phone will cease to work in 72 hours (yes, down to that level). Most charmingly common reaction: Sell international phone calls for $10/hour or so. There is no way in Hell that they “Didn’t get the bill” - they know the disconnect regulations as well as did the Phone Company\*. Why, when it had the chance, did ATT NOT change its name to TPC - The Phone Company? (yes, I stole that one) ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2016, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-company-charge-late-fees-if-they-havent-delivered-a-bill/759148/27 "2016-07-07T17:44:45Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > Let’s be fair, you can’t argue that Mike’s math was bad then turn around and flat out make up numbers. Where did the 1% you came up with come from, that you then extrapolated that 1/4 of 1% of mail get’s lost and said that Mike came up with that number? The 1% was an example, and an estimate. No one’s claiming it’s absolutely correct. Perhaps it’s something different. Feel free to supply your own estimate. Regardless of what the percentage of people getting disconnected is, it’s not 100%, which means that the extrapolated 25% mail loss rate is totally bogus. And there’s an obvious connection. If some people actually aren’t getting their bills, they’re much more likely to be among the population getting disconnected for nonpayment. > [@](#): > > And just to back to Mike for a second, I don’t know of any utility (even cable) that disconnects you after one notice. It’s my understanding that you can skip several bills, then get a few disconnect letters before getting a final one that says ‘we’ll be here on [date]’. Unless you’ve been throwing all your mail out for months, you probably know this is coming…and I think you get even more chances in winter or the middle of summer when you really do need the heat/ac. > > This isn’t about not seeing one piece of mail. True, although the existence of that system often leads people to ride the edge. If you know you won’t get disconnected until the “FINAL NOTICE BEFORE DISCONNECTION” bill arrives, and money is tight, you might wait for that one. If you miss it, then disconnection. Sure, they got other notices, but in their mind, those other notices were just polite warnings, not the _real_ bill. It’s like when the rent is “due” on the 1st, but there’s a 5-day grace period. People who get the rent in on the 7th, one day after the grace period, might try to argue that they were “only one day late”, because the existence of the grace period makes the de facto due date the 6th. I’m not saying that they’re justified in this behavior (come on, folks. Pay your bills on time), but this is pretty common. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-company-charge-late-fees-if-they-havent-delivered-a-bill/759148.md?page=1)