SBC - automatic payment to mileage CC
 

For all of you like me who call every month to pay your SBC telephone bill(s) with your mileage cc, SBC has added an automatic cc payment option. No more waiting on hold every month. SBC agent told me the option started last week.

SBC Easy Charge

Thanks so much AA! I just signed up (unfortunately they only take Visa or MasterCard, not American Express). And I had a 70 cent late fee last month for some reason, so this should help.

Oh well - just tried and it says not available in Connecticut!

Since they just rolled this out, I suspect that it will become available in Connecticut sooner or later.... You could always call and ask.

Thanks. I have been calling in every month and sometimes I am late. So this will be most useful.

Thanks AAgoraku! This makes me very happy. I've been waiting for them to implement this for over a year, dreading the monthly calls to SBC (I think my record on hold was 45 mins, just to earn < 100 miles...sigh!).

...................

The Web form happily took my Amex for Illinois service. It's about time they separated electronic payment from electronic billing. Thanks for the heads-up, AAgoraku.

(And I do take scruffy's admonishment seriously. Unfortunately, I'm so scatterbrained that my local service is at risk of being shut off a few times a year. It was much easier to be disorganized before SBC borged Ameritech.)

Just call your phone company and request a lock on your account. This requires your current company to contact you when a change in phone carrier is requsted. If you have a problem with your billing, you can always have the credit card company dispute the charge for you.



[This message has been edited by sbc94523 (edited Feb 28, 2004).]

I didn't know people still had landlines...

Some of is still need to hold onto them for DSL.

If you ever need to call 911 and are unable to speak, etc... they know where to find you immediately with a landline.

I use MLS service (measured local service) for my landline. It's about $10/month including all taxes, and lets me keep a reliable, clear, no-static landline. Local calls are charged per minute, but they give you a $3.00 allowance each month, and I don't make that many calls from home.

It's nice to have a real phone number for people to call, and it's a good backup to the cell phone.

Plus, having a landline lets me put long distance service on it (and get bonus miles) - and then lets me change that service every 6 months for a 5,000-10,000 mile bonus!!

It's been available in CA for about a year, but it has a two caveats: you allow them to autocharge, and you stop getting the paper statements.
What I need - and get from the most places - is ability get a paper statement and to pay it with a credit card online. Autopay is the worst - you pay first and then try to get your money back, very weak negotiating position!
Besides, who has the discipline to review your phone bill online?

Do you get an email or direct link to your online phone bill?

how do you check your phone bill? is it a pdf?

You need to sign up for some form of on-line account access. I have done this and with my plans being fixed figures (unlimited calling for XX) the price changes very little?

That's interesting that SBC requires that you stop the paper statements in order to sign up for automatic credit card billing. I suppose that this is one way they can offset the credit card discount rate.

As for letting them charge stuff automatically, all merchants that I'm aware of that have this feature make the charge on the payment due date. So, you've had a chance to receive the statement and review it long before the charge is made, so that any corrections or disputes can be filed beforehand. Also, in my case, I always use a Citibank Virtual Credit Card number for these programs. This allows me to invalidate the credit card number if I need to prevent a charge from going through, without needing the cooperation of the merchant or affecting anything else on my credit card account.

I have had my phones bills automatically charged to my AMEX for years - when SBC was Ameritiech here in Illinois.

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Ms.DtG

No. SBC does not require that you stop paper statements. To see your bills on-line you have set-up on-line access but you can still receive your bills in paper format. If you don't want to bother signing up on-line, you can call customer service, and they will mail you the form you need to pay by cc.

Thanks for this info. I didn't realize that Citi's virtual accounts feature allowed multiple months with the same virtual #. I see on the website an example of 12 months. Do you know if there is a limit for how long a virtual # will link to my cc?

[This message has been edited by AAgoraku (edited Mar 03, 2004).]

Qwest is now offering automatic CC payment as well, but you have to agree to receive your bill on-line.

Do you have a link to this? Thanks.

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Free Frequent Flyer Miles

I conflated two separate issues above. In this neck of the woods, it was (still is?) impossible to make ad hoc on-line credit-card payments to SBC without signing up for "eBill" and losing paper statements. This is, of course, different from automatic billing, but it still seems odd.

I signed up for EasyCharge on Mar. 2 and had a hard time with the online form. I discovered through trial and error that it would only let you go to the second page if you selected "business" as the type of service. I did that figuring that I could correct that on the confirmation page. That worked. I sent SBC a note explaining the glitch and got a nice response and saying that it would be up and running in Texas by Mar. 25. So I could sign up, but it will not start until the next billing cycle. They said that it would show up on my paper statement. EasyCharge and Ebill are two different animals.

Thanks for this thread.

Not true!!

I signed up for EasyCharge based on this thread, and today I received my CA SBC paper statement in the mail that stated my credit card will be charged.

[This message has been edited by Chetney (edited Mar 16, 2004).]

ANOTHER REASON TO LOVE FT Thanks so much

Now if Verizon would match this...

P.S. Landlines also work in power outages thanks to the redundancy and battery-back-up built into the system.

Just ask the folks in NYC how reliable cell phones can be!

This is getting off-topic, but I was ticked at what I perceived as LD gouging a couple of years ago, and went looking for cheap LD regardless of quantity, with no per-period fee and cc billing. Ended up with ZoneLD. Web based signup, cc billing, a couple of free 800s, etc., $0.039/min. Don't even know if they have humans; I've never had to talk to one.

No affiliation, no referral, etc.; just another way at a few miles every month.

--Laird

(Actually, after I posted, I went and looked; they do have some sort of torturous referral program, but you'd have to send me your email address to get an invitation, etc. If you are going to do this and feel like it, send me your email address; if that's too much trouble, don't worry about it.)



[This message has been edited by lairdb (edited Mar 17, 2004).]

I just signed up online using the link in the original post. As others have noted, contrary to what someone in this thread said, the "pay your bill automatically by credit card" and "get an electronic bill and stop getting paper statements" features appear to be unrelated. As far as I can tell, I will continue to receive paper statements even though I've signed up for automatic bill payment.

When you request a new virtual number to be good for multiple purchases from the same merchant, you specify the validity period, which can be from 1 to 12 months, regardless of the expiration date on your actual card (that is, whether your physical card expires in 6 months or in 3 years, the maximum validity period for a virtual card number is 12 months).

The site does not work. Here is what I get after repeadly entering the data correctly.

# # # # # # # # #

http://www.sbc.com/gen/general?pid=1599#SBCEasyCharge

# # # # # # # # #

ERROR

Please enter your First Name
in the space provided.

Please enter your Last Name
in the space provided.

Please enter your Address
in the space provided.

Please enter your City
in the space provided.

Please enter your State
in the space provided.

Please enter your Zip Code
in the space provided.

Please enter your Email Address
in the space provided.

If you do not have one, please enter 'n/a'.

Please enter your
10 digit Home Phone Number
in the space provided.

Make sure you enter numbers only
(ie. 1234567890).Please enter your Full Name
in the space provided.

Please enter your Address
in the space provided.

Please enter your City
in the space provided.

Please enter your State
in the space provided.

Please enter your Zip Code
in the space provided.

Please choose your Expiration Month
from the menu provided.

Please enter your Credit Card Number
from the menu provided.

Please choose your Expiration Year
from the menu provided.

Invalid Credit Card Number

Please re-enter your Credit Card Number
as it appears on your card in the space provided.

# # # # # # #

Anyone else had this problem?

Brandy

Brandy, please read my post above for the solution I arrived at.

Good luck!

I selected Residential and did not have any of the above-reported problems. I'm in Texas, if that helps any.

Ditto on the no problems with residential.

I'm in California.

Of course, it will take a few weeks to see if the switch to a credit card actually worked! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif


Kathy

Just sign up using the link on the first message and it work in Michigan. Also, Amer. Express was available.