Any lawyers out there?

[Kablooie]

We had TCI long distance account a few years ago.
They charged a few dollars a month for long distance service.
In September 2015 the service stopped working and they stopped sending invoices.
My wife assumed they went out of business so switched to an ATT long distance plan.

Today we got a call from them about not paying our bills.
I checked their web site and they have charges for us every month up to today.

In July 2015 the charge was $7.43
The next month, which they didn't bill us for, was $18.01.
Since then it's been going up every month to $86.59 last June.

This is ridiculous.
They never billed us or informed us of outrageous price increases and now want us to pay hundreds for all the years they never contacted us.

Do we have any obligation to pay?

[TheRealNorth]

1. It would be good to know

What things you should do to cover your ass. It's probably not worth hiring a lawyer, which is what they are probably betting on and figure people will just pay. If your state has a decent Consumer Protection bureau, it might be worth filing a complaint.

[unblock]

2. Better business bureau gives them a "d-". Ouch.

Good luck. Mrs. unblock has far better success than I do at resolving these sorts of things. She has a way of sounding very angry without ever swearing. This seems to be key. I can manage the not swearing part, but not the convincing anger part. Even when I'm furious, I can't seem to project it adequately.

I would assume you're not in the best position if you never formally stopped the service. That said, I would think they have done responsibility to bill you. Some debts you should know even if you don't get a bill, but I don't think a phone bill is one of them. After all, how could you know the correct amounts?

If you can get it down to just paying, say, the three kor maths after they stopped invoicing you, you should probably consider that a win.

My guess is your debt was picked up for pennies on the dollar so they might consider it a win as well.

[Kablooie]

3. Update: It's not quite what I thought.

Looking closer at all the bills, the $86.59 is the cumulative total for over 3 years, not one monthly bill.
Many calls went to Japan, (My wife is Japanese.)
Each month the bill is only a few dollars which is what we signed up for.

The problem is that they haven't been sending invoices.
Reading up on the company many people mentioned they lost their payments and got bills mixed up with other customers.
Apparently they have extremely careless management and accidentally stopped sending us bills while continuing the service.

The bill is reasonable so I will tell them if they send me an invoice I will gladly pay it but they have to send it first.

So it's just carelessness, not a scam.
Whew!

[Gothmog]

4. Does your state have a deceptive trade practices act?

This matter would fit under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices act easlily

[Kablooie]

5. California, so I'm sure they do but I found out it was carelessness, not a scam.

See my post above.