They have a computer that will generate a letter 6 days before next due date , print it then send it by mail (United states postal service). So how ever long it takes to get though AT&T mailing before postal service picks it up you might only havve 5 days. Then if there is a weekend involved you lose a day. So now your relying on postal service to get from Carol Stream, IL to your house in 4 days. Now if you dont pick up your mail every day or you work out of town and are not there to get your mail everyday it could be a problem. Also applies if you didnt pay in full on any given month because you use a local trusted banks bill pay service online, and you acciently left off $50 on your bill. They do not send out reminders by text or email that you have a past due bill and that your service will be suspended. You will only get a letter in the mail. So you just had your service suspended, mail slow, not home to get it, Etc, and your at work. You realize you cant make a phone call or wireless internet, so you call with a different phone find out that your service has been disconnected due to overdue balance. Ok not a big deal except you cant make a payment because you dont have any credit cards and only keep a small balance in your debit card account due to all the horror stories of peoples card numbers getting stolen from using credit/debit machines. Never thought it would be a problem I would just use my phone and transfer the money from one account to another EXCEPT you cant use your phones internet. Still never would have thought it would be a problem until I tried to log into my bank accounts to transfer money using a trusted coworkers phone and realized my bank doesnt recogonize the IP address and needs to send me verification via text message to the phone I cant use because it has been supended due to accidental reasons.
To sum it all up there is not alot of grace period on past due amounts, even if you consistently pay your bill every month, and some times more just to keep things even in the checking account.
I will be transfering to a different service next month, I went with the NEXT plan and have to pay for the phones on the next plan, After paying them a few thousand dollars a year for a few years for wireless service and more or less consistent with the bill they have a computer that automatically suspends accounts and there is no way for customer service reps to unsuspend accounts because the computer will lock it right back up again.
Service wasnt that great anyways the signal they use does not penetrate through buildings that well compared with verizons signal. Still was better service than sprint.
I think I will take my phones to straight talk and try that for a while, even if my 4G gets buffered when you use to much at least my phones are paid for and fo $50 a month I still have unlimited talk, text and some 4g usage. And if I dont like that I can always sell my G6 phones and G4 phones via craigslist and go to Verizon maybe they will be a little more understanding when accidental things happen.
Cheers