Cingular bill for 3 days of service

Cingular sends a bill after 3 days of service. It is prorated but the govt charges USF and something else, I believe are the same whether it is one day or one month. So actually for 3 days service customers pay a higher amount. It is funny the way cingular does this at the customer's cost. What do they care, the customer pays. It is only a few dollars, but think about hundreds of thousands of customers signing up with cingular every month.

Maybe some cingular rep in this forum can explain the rationale of billing after 3 days of service instead of a month.

I'm not a Cingular rep, but if they're like every other company, they prorate the billing. Actually, you said this in your original post. Your first bill is going to be the remainder of the current billing cycle and next month. They're not going to give you the remainder of the current billing cycle for free. There's not much you can do about government taxes though. I don't really understand that complaint. Maybe you should write to your congressperson.

it's all about the billing cycle dates. you most likely signed up/changed your price plan 3 days before the billing cycle ended, so therefore, you only have 3 days of a bill, and it's prorated.

It does not seem to be about billing cycle. I talked to my retailer and he confirmed the cingular send a bill in 3 days after signing up. I know one other person who signed up on a different data and he too got a bill after 3 days. Cingular does not have a fixed billing cycle for all customers.

I've never worked for Cingular, but I have worked for three other companies. Out of all of those companies, none of them had a fixed billing cycle for all customers. Each account has a separate billing cycle depending on when the phone is activated. Cingular may just start the billing cycle 3 days after you sign up. You pay for the three days of use for the current billing cycle plus the first month of service on your first bill.

You got that right. Yes, each one has a different billing cycle depending on when you signed up. However you would expect that if you signed up on 3rd of a month, you billing cycle would be 3rd to the 2nd of next month. This would be perfectly fine.
But have you noticed the there is a regulatory cost recovery charge on you bill. This amount I belive, is $1.25 for a month. But even if your billing cycle is 3 days, you still pay $1.25 and not "pro-rated". I think it is the same with Universal Svc charge. These are like fixed amount irrespective of the number of days in the billing cycle. No one would mind if instead of 30 days it was 25 days. But for 3 days to be charged the full amount of these mandatory charges is kind of unfair. And the government or FTC does not insist on cingular making the first 3 days as the billing cycle for the first bill. It is just cingular who has this wierd practice. Obviously they dont care since it does not increase their cost. However it does increase the cost to the constomer that he pays the fixed cost for only 3 days of service instead of 30 days.

Anyway, no point in pursuing this point here since only the cingular reps can answer why they send a bill out after 3 days instead of a month. I guess they just want to collect the money from you ASAP and dont care if you pay a few dollars more.

One more thing, Cingular and verizon both charge you a month in advance, so for your current month you have already paid your monthly fees. T-mobile on the other hand charges you after the month/billing cycle has ended.