..turned out to be a good thing.

DH has had a wireless phone with Cingular for almost two years. He had a Razr phone that has been unable to hold a charge for more than a day, even after replacing the battery. However, when we called a few months ago to try and get a replacement phone, Cingular told him he wasn't eligible for one until this May. That made no sense to me - what if it had been lost? Anyway, at that point we decided that in August, when his contract was up, we'd cancel his Cingular account and add a phone onto my wireless account with Working Assets. That would also save us ten dollars a month, since his service was $39.99 a month and mine is only $29.99 a month.

Well, I didn't realize it, but when Cingular got bought by, or merged with, AT&T, the bills stopped coming via email. It occurred to me the other day that I hadn't seen a bill from them lately, but I forgot about it and didn't check.

This morning the phone rang right as I was getting out of the shower, and when I looked at caller ID, it was an 800 number, which I never answer, and because I was upstairs, I didn't hear the message.

About ten minutes later, the phone rang again and it was the same number, so again I didn't answer. As soon as I listened to the first message that basically said "this is AT&T with an important message about your account", DH called and asked if I talked to them. I said no, I didn't pick up either time, and I had just heard the message. He said "they called me at work, said I owed $136 for the past three months, and if we didn't pay immediately they're cutting off the phone and we have to pay $36 to reconnect. I told the guy to call home and talk to you, and he said that if he didn't reach you he was cutting the phone off."

Since I didn't pick up, the phone was cut off. I told DH to call back, find out where to send payment, and tell them that we do NOT want the phone cut back on.

This got us out of the two remaining months on the contract! I've written out a check for the past due bills we owe, and gone ahead and ordered him a new phone & service with Working Assets that is ten dollars a month cheaper than with Cingular. He barely used his phone anyway, since the battery died so often. Also, the new phone was free, and there was no shipping or activation charge.

So, getting called about a past due bill really stressed me out, but it turned out to be in our favor.

The only drawback is that he will be without a phone when get takes the boys camping next week, but I told him he could take my phone. I'll be staying here alone, and I really won't need it.