I guess my question is really this...will it hurt my credit if I just refuse to pay this bill? And will it help to talk to the credit card people?
I am in my mid 20s and I have never had to deal with anything like this before, so I just don't know what I should do at this point. My credit is great and I have never had any problems such as this before.
Yes. It would behoove you to try to get the amount reduced and pay it. Failing that, pay the whole thing and then lose the Verizon account as soon as possible.
Don't let a non-paid telephone bill ding you for 7 years.
Yes it will hurt your credit. You incurred these charges, yet refuse to pay.
One word of advice: most companies have a procedure to dispute charges, and it almost always has to be in writing. Send a polite letter to that address by certified mail. Maybe they'll give you a discount.
I discovered it during a routine credit check. I called them to find out why they never sent the bill to me. That's when I found out that they were sending it to old addresses. I asked them why they didn't send it to the address where they had sent every other bill over the past year, and they just said I'd better pay what I owed them. I told them I didn't dispute the amount, and asked whether they would take it off of my credit if I paid the bill. No. I told them that I didn't think it was fair for them to destroy my credit because of their mistake. Their answer? Too bad. I sent them a copy of my credit report, which shows my house note, car notes, credit card history, and asked them if someone who has excellent history in all other areas would just not pay a $100 bill. They basically called me a dead beat, which infuriated me.
I asked a friend of mine who is works in this field, and he said that although my credit is now in the dirt (I went from near perfect score to low 60s), he said most lenders don't blink much when it's an unpaid cell phone debt because cell phone bills are disputed so often. I don't know how much faith you want to put in that, but I told Verizon to stuff it, disputed the debt, and decided to just wait out the seven years or whatever it is for the report to fall off of my credit.
Good luck. Verizon sucks donkey tails.
That depends a lot on your current credit status. If you are a good or great credit risk, this shouldn't hurt you too much. Ask the folks at Equifax how you go about adding a notation to your credit report. Actually--give Equifax a call and explain the situation to them. See what kind of advice they give you. They really don't have any kind of a stake in the outcome so they'll answer honestly.