AT&T - CINGULAR Friends and Family Notification Practice could have your 12 year old dealing with Billing. Little Rock, Arkansas

When signing up for AT&T/Cingular cell phone service customers are asked to list the primary name and number on the account.  Then the remaining number(s) are distributed to family or associates that are on the account.

Be prepared that this is NOT the criteria that AT&T uses to contact subscribers of paperless billing.  When bills are due, or past due, or special communications regarding the accounts are sent to the account holder, AT&T's robo text and phone calls are made to the "lowest" phone number on the account.  And AT&T says it is the responsibility of the contactee (even if the person is younger than 18) to notify the primary on the account.  Their explanation?  "That's just the way the system works."

What if your 13 year old does not report the text or phone message to Dad or Mom in time, AT&T stands to make lots of money on late fees and reconnection fees.  If the child has the wherewithall to ask AT&T Customer Service to contact Dad or Mom, Customer Services tells the child it is the child's responsibility to tell Mom or Dad, and AT&T Customer Service says it cannot do anything more unless the child knows the last four digits of Mom or Dad's social security number.

In our case it has also taken four months and four attempts to force the primary number to become the contact number for billing and text questions from AT&T.  Each month we think it's been changed and the next month a new text or phone call is again made to the "lowest" phone number on the account.

Our personal issue is finally cleared up (I hope), and we did get AT&T to wave ONE late fee due to this notification practice, but I'm sure tens of thousands of others are still dealing with "the way the system works" and paying late fees in the mean time.