What happens if I don’t pay the $150 early termination fee to Cingular Wireless? I switched to a better plan (and better company, Verizon Wireless) 6 weeks before the 2 year contract date was reached.
Cingular Wireless is charging me the full $150 termination fee and I am refusing to pay it. They have already sent it to a collection agency, whom I have received 3 phone calls and 1 letter from so far. What will really happen if I continue to not pay this fee? Will my credit rating really be destroyed? Will I really care?
They have every right to collect this fee, and you should pay it, since you agreed to when you signed the contract. Knowing this, I have no idea why you couldnt’ve waited 6 more weeks to switch service, and thus avoid the potential trouble this could bring.
The collection agency could choose to sue you for it. At this point, it may have already affected your credit rating. If not, I would suggest paying it soon.
Why are you refusing to pay it, again?
Yes. Whether you’ll care or not, however, depends on several things. You may be dinied certain services, like cable TV or telephone service due to a bad credit rating. You may be unable to obtain car financing or be approved for a mortgage one day. Credit cards, other than secured cards with limited purchasing power, will be out of reach for the forseeable future. You may not care now, but someday, you probably will. Pay the fee, you deadbeat.
Yeah, the “i” key is SO close to the “e” key. :rolleyes:
Let’s turn this General Question around. Why did you do that? What were you thinking at the time?
To answer you question directly, it will affect your credit score. You will have an outstanding balance from a credit agency and even if you pay it, it will still affect your credit score but just a little less. You can ignore it and it will eventually go away but it will take at least 7 years for it to drop of the reports of the major credit reporting agencies.
A single $150 outstanding debt is not going to destroy your credit rating, especially if your record is clean otherwise, but it’s not going to help matters. Why didn’t you wait six weeks before switching your service? Would have saved you a lot of trouble.
If the collection agency is AFNI also known as Anderson Financial Network I have found they were reasonable to deal with. You may want to try asking this question at artofcredit.com or creditnet.com for more assistance.
The agency name was American Collection Agency (I think). I didn’t want to pay it because I didn’t feel that I had to since I have been a loyal customer to Cingular Wireless for over 8 years (even when they were Cellular One).
I didn’t wait the 6 weeks because I didn’t think I was still under contract any longer and I didn’t know I was going to be charged this ridiculous fee.
Would it not have been cheaper to pay for the last 6 weeks of service? Depending on how much the monthly fee was, this might have been a better option. I don’t suppose they’d consider it in lieu of the early termination fee?
If you do decide to pay, you might consider paying Cingular directly instead of the collection agency. IIRC, a payment to an agency is also considered a negative mark on your credit record. If nothing else, paying the original creditor drives the collection agency nuts.
As usual, YMMV, and it’s been a long time since I worked in the JCPenney Credit Division so things may have changed.
If you are determined not to pay the bill for whatever reason you can ask that the credit bureaus place a note with the entry explaining your side. While this may help in a detailed inquiry into your credit it will probably not affect the overall FICO score. The other option you have it to dispute the credit record. You must visit all three credit companies (Equifax, Transunion, and Experian) and file a claim against the record. The listing company then has a limited amount of time to confirm the debt with some kind of paperwork/backup. If they fail to do so in the alloted time the offending mark is taken off of your credit report. I managed to do this many times to correct mistakes on my record.
You feel that your contract terms do not apply to you because you’ve been a “loyal customer”? Even though they are clearly spelled out, the early termination section is often in bold print, in said contract?
You did know-- or you should have. It is your responsibility to know when your contract begins and ends, and the conditions of it. Ignorance of the rules does not absolve you of them.
You owe the money, fair and square, and you admit to as much in this thread. You made a mistake, an error of judgement, whatever… but you still owe them the money. You should pay it.
Instead of being obstinate, you should have pleaded stupidity and asked if there was any way of terminating the contract early or if you could pay up the remaining monthly charges and terminate the contract. With only six weeks left, they might have let it go or at least perhaps let you pay out the remaining monthly charges. As it is, though, you’re going to do a lot more than $150 worth of damage to your credit.
When was Cingular ever CellularOne?
Just because it’s in a contract, doesn’t mean that it is moral, legal or enforceable. That’s for a judge to decide. Termination fees for telecommunications contracts are under attack in many places. The carriers would have an easier time arguing that the fees were reasonable if they were pro-rated over the term of the contract. Some carriers also have abusive practices in the way that they renew or extend contracts without making it obvious to the customer what is happening.
Perhaps, but taking it to court is way more expensive than paying the $150. As a rule, never cancel a wireless contract early.
Will that work? I own a business and send around one deadbeat a month to collection. If the person attempts to pay me I tear up the check and mail it back. I sent them to collection and do not feel it is now my duty to send the agency their cut.
I believe (although IANAL) that the customer has the option of paying the original creditor. Laws regarding collections tend to favor the consumer. At JCP, we took whatever we could get. I assume that we then paid the collection agency their percentage but I wasn’t involved in that part of the business, so I don’t know that for certain.