I recently noticed that my AT&T bill was a bit higher than usual last month and after investigating the situation found out that I had been hit with a $5 AT&T late fee. While I am typically very good about making my payments for all my bills on time, this particular one slipped by due to the cancellation of the credit card I was using to autopay my AT&T Wireless bill. It was an accident but it still cost me an unnecessary $5 and whenever you get charged a late fee for any bill, you are not being a wise and frugal person.
On the other hand, accidents do happen, people forget sometimes, and other circumstances get in the way. Fortunately, there are a lot of companies that will refund your late fee if you just ask them to. And this is exactly what I did the other day. Below you will see a transcript of my online chat with an AT&T customer service representative about refunding my ATT late fee.
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Thank you for your patience! Your AT&T Representative will be with you shortly. Welcome! You are now chatting with ‘Service Agent’
Service Agent: How are you today Matthew?
Service Agent: What do you mean by automatic billing? Sharmain Hartman: is that the autopay?
Matthew: Hi, I had my account set on autopay to bill a particular credit card, however that credit card was stolen back in early December, so I had to have it cancelled and thus the autopay did not work. Unfortunately I forgot to update my autopay with the new credit card information and I was hit with the $5 late fee.
Matthew: Would you be able to reverse that fee for me?
Service Agent: Yeah, I can see that on your bill right now, well yeah we sometimes forgot to have that updated(me too lol), I can have that waived for you as one time courtesy credit.
Service Agent: I will ask approval right away form my supervisor now, for sure he will approve since you ahve been with us since 2002! oh wow!
Matthew: That would be fantastic, thank you! Sharmain Hartman: ok, Approved!
Service Agent: let me process that now for you
Matthew: Thanks
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After the chat, I logged into my AT&T account about an hour later and sure enough there was a $5 credit to my account which would be applied to my next bill. I do this with any services I use in which a late fee is applied and almost always get a refund just by asking in a polite way and explaining that it was an accident. So long as you aren’t late all the time, most customer service representatives are authorized up to a certain amount that they are allowed to credit a customer.
How Much Is ATT Late Fee?
In my case I was charged a $5 late fee for accidentally missing the payment due date for the month and is likely the case for most AT&T wireless customers. However, if you want to make sure what your late charge would be, you can find out by looking at a copy of your bill and finding the section labeled “Important Information” near the bottom of your bill. In this section it will explain what the ATT late payment policy is and will look something like this:
How To Avoid ATT Wireless Late Fee
I think one of the best ways to avoid a late charge is by setting up automatic payments, also called “autopay” in which you connect to either a bank account or credit card which automatically gets charged each billing cycle. Of course, this does have its flaws as noted in my own experience above where the credit card they tried to charge was no longer valid. It’s in these instances that one must be extra careful to update any automatic payments made for services when a credit card is cancelled for whatever reason.
Another way to avoid late fees is by simply setting up calendar reminders, whether it be a digital or paper calendar, so long as it is something that you will actually look at in order to be reminded to pay your bill on time. Just make sure to mark the reminder well in advance of the due date in order to make sure there is enough time for the payment to be processed.
Fast forward to July 2016 after att did away with contracts and it is now on a month to month basis. Do they still charge a late fee and can I go until the last day of my billing cycle until I make my payment without any repercussions of a late fee chsrge.
They do still charge their silly late fee. They’ll even charge $5 fee on a $15 balance. AT&T should be avoided if possible.
Been noticing a fluxing in my bill,there’s a &5.00 late charge on my bill that isn’t even due,today is 11-28 bill is due on 12-4,they are giving credit for one month,then the next month,they have been keeping it. I have always paid early, also there is $1.50 each month recovery cost for what? Phone is paid for.