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bills
bills
Man Claims His $800 Water Bill Is An Error Since He Hasn't Used 80,000 Gallons Of Water In The Last Month
By Mary Beth Quirk on January 3, 2012 4:00 PM
103 Comments
Rod lives a quiet life as a 90-year-old retiree and World War II vet on a fixed income. He doesn't run a water park out of his house and didn't set up a gaudy fountain in his back yard. Which makes an $800 water bill for one month of usage pretty odd. More »
(Jezz)
Mother Somehow Runs Up $1500 Verizon Bill
By Ben Popken on October 12, 2011 5:00 PM
151 Comments
Despite not knowing how to use her phone for anything other than making calls, Michelle's mother somehow racked up a $1500 bill for 2,888 MB worth of "music or video streaming." It certainly wasn't the latest Justin Bieber video on loop. Michelle is trying to negotiate with Verizon but all they've done so far is offer a 50% discount. That's still about $600 more than Michelle wants to pay. More »
Credit Card Bills So Bad I Avoided The Mailbox
By Ben Popken on September 12, 2011 5:00 PM
75 Comments
Young, dumb, and full of debt, Beverly was dealing with it in the worst possible way: not dealing with it. Things got so bad that her plan for coping with all the angry letters from creditors filling her mailbox was to simply not get her mail anymore. More »
Debt Collector Evaporates At First Sign Of Resistance
By Ben Popken on May 16, 2011 11:00 AM
48 Comments
Ryan shares with us his consumer kicking booty story of how he got a debt collector to run off with their tail between their legs. It sounded like an amazing deal. He got a letter from a debt collector telling him that they represented AT&T and would cut him a special break and settle for only $69.30 instead of $693.30. Wowzers! Problem was, he didn't owe AT&T any money at all. More »
(d.guija)
I Don't See How My Wife Ran Up 20GB Of Data Charges In A Month
By Phil Villarreal on December 20, 2010 3:00 PM
115 Comments
Tony says his wife got a T-Mobile bill that said she vacuumed up 20 gigabytes of data in a month. He questions whether using that much data on a phone is even possible, and says T-Mobile has been unresponsive. More »
(jgodsey)
Overcome Personal Finance Procrastination
By Ben Popken on November 30, 2010 3:00 PM
12 Comments
The number one cause of personal finance ruin is procrastination, and the number one cause of procrastination is fear of failure. So if you find yourself watching Brideplasty instead of balancing your checkbook, deciding which expenses to cut, or updating your retirement savings plan, here are some tips for making those tasks less daunting. More »
(Lani)
I Refuse To Bow To The Altar Of Holy Envelopes
By Phil Villarreal on October 20, 2010 1:20 PM
80 Comments
Lani is doing what it takes to guard as much as possible against identity-swiping mail thieves. Time Warner Cable sends Lani return envelopes with unprotected holes to show the address, but this is one customer who refuses to play the game, modifying the envelopes until they're secure enough to send: More »
Hyatt Charges Asthmatic Woman $250 For Smoking, Says It Has Secret Photos
By Chris Walters on September 8, 2010 11:30 AM
114 Comments
A woman who stayed at a Hyatt in Milwaukee last month was hit with an extra $250 charge for smoking in her room. The problem, she says, is that she has severe asthma—she offered to show Hyatt her prescriptions—and is not a smoker. When she complained to Hyatt, the hotel's director of operations told her "the Hyatt had photographic evidence of smoking in the room and would absolutely not refund her money." More »
(qbubbles)
American Express Says You're Over 30 Days Late When You're Only 7
By Ben Popken on September 7, 2010 11:00 AM
21 Comments
If you pay your American Express bill 7 days after the due date, the credit card company says you're over 30 days past due. Every other issuer only says you're 7 days late. What gives? More »
AT&T Customer Service Rep Says Store Employees Are Commission-Chasing Liars
By Chris Walters on September 7, 2010 9:30 AM
87 Comments
One of our readers just switched over from T-Mobile to AT&T, but he discovered that pretty much everything the salesperson promised him at the retail store turned out to be a lie. At least, that's what the angry AT&T customer service rep told his wife when she called in to dispute her first bill. More »
Watch For Mysterious Data Usage On Your iPhone
By Chris Walters on September 1, 2010 12:30 PM
52 Comments
If you're on one of AT&T's limited data plans, you'd better start carefully monitoring the data usage, because some customers are noticing unexplainable daily hits on their accounts. The support forums at Apple are filled with pages of theories and complaints from frustrated customers, but our tipster David got the following admission directly from an AT&T rep: "She told me that most, if not all, 3g-capable iPhones were being charged erroneously like I had been experiencing. She told me AT&T was unaware of why the data was being charged, and where it was coming from." More »
Use "Remember The Milk" To Organize Your Bills
By Ben Popken on August 19, 2010 11:00 AM
65 Comments
Keeping track of what bills need to be paid when and how much can be a hassle. Here's how you can use the long-time fave productivity and to-do list management tool "Remember The Milk" to simplify it. More »
(slgckgc)
Reader Gets $40 Per Month Knocked Off FiOS Bill
By Ben Popken on August 19, 2010 10:00 AM
40 Comments
Reader Shelve says he was able to get Verizon to give him $40 per month off his FiOS bill. How? More »
Gas Company Wants $0.00 Or They'll Send Me To A Collection Agency
By Phil Villarreal on August 11, 2010 2:30 PM
83 Comments
Avi recently went to his mailbox and found a notice from Philadelphia Gas Works warning him that he was going to have his account referred to a collection agency if he didn't pay the $0 past due balance on his bill. More »
How To Avoid An Emergency Room Bill That Sends You Back To The E.R.
By Chris Walters on August 9, 2010 11:30 AM
25 Comments
Emergency room bills bring a special sort of sticker shock, because they don't usually show up until weeks later, and then come packed with all sorts of over-inflated fees and add-ons. The New York Times calls them "notoriously high and perplexing," and although it's unlikely you'll ever end up paying the full amount listed on the bill, there are strategies you can use to bring that initial figure down. More »
Mike)
College Student Goes To Cancun For A Week, Comes Back To $11,667 Sprint Bill
By Chris Walters on July 26, 2010 11:30 AM
212 Comments
Stacey says while she was on vacation with her family in Cancun for a week recently, she checked her Facebook page from her Evo phone "maybe 5 minutes a day," but never uploaded or sent any photos, "only a handful of texts." Sprint says she managed to burn through either 600 MB or 4.7 GB of data during that period, and now owes them $11,667.73. (Note: Stacey doesn' t specify whether the 4,918,228 kb of data is in kilobits or kilobytes, so I don't know which number is accurate.) More »
Western Dental Upsells Relentlessly, Then Pulls Dirty Trick With Billing
By Chris Walters on July 26, 2010 9:00 AM
76 Comments
Ryan recently went to a clinic operated by Western Dental Centers, a franchise that operates in California, Arizona and Nevada, and now he regrets that decision. He writes that first he was forced to endure $800 worth of upsells while he was stuck in the chair, even though he was just going in for a cleaning. What happened with billing, though, was worse and may lead to lasting credit issues. More »
Like Being Single? That'll Be $388,059, Please
By Meg Marco on July 21, 2010 12:45 PM
51 Comments
According to a British price comparison website, the cost of being single from 22-75 (in the UK) is £254,082 or $388,059. The extra expense comes from having to carry mortgage, holiday costs, insurance premiums and utility bills alone — do they not have roommates in the UK? More »
(Zevotron)
We're Actually Using Less Electricity This Summer
By Chris Walters on July 21, 2010 11:30 AM
66 Comments
Despite the record-breaking heat in some parts of the country, total U.S. energy consumption this summer has actually fallen compared to 2009, and peak demand levels—when electricity consumption is at its highest—have dropped as well. More »
Internet Sales Tax Bill Introduced Again
By Chris Walters on July 6, 2010 9:30 AM
113 Comments
Last week, Massachusetts Rep. Bill Delahunt introduced a bill called the "Main Street Fairness Act," which is a stupid name for a bill. The text of the bill hasn't been released yet, but if passed, it would presumably set up a process where sales tax could be collected on purchases made over the Internet. As anyone who has shopped online over the past decade is probably aware, this has been an ongoing and thorny issue, since billions in online sales tax would provide a welcome revenue stream for struggling states. More »
