New Telephone Bills Arrive After Delay

People are not usually anxious to receive bills, but some credit-conscious Harvard students can't wait to receive their redesigned telephone bills after a two-week delay.

Five to ten percent of Harvard students have yet to receive their September phone bills, which were sent out two weeks ago, said Nancy M. Kinchla, manager of planning and administration at Network Services.

Most of the late bills had incomplete address labels, Kinchla said. "We did get quite a few [bills] back," she said. "Many of these did not have the [mail] box number."

While Harvard mail centers normally sort letters without box numbers, Kinchla believes that the volume of telephone bills discouraged this process.

"They tended to be lumped together," she said, "and some were not sorted at all. A number of houses said they simply did not have enough time to sort [the bills] themselves."

Kinchla said that in all the confusion, even correctly addressed bills were mistakenly returned.

"Neither the mail system nor the Student Telephone Office (STO) believes this is a good practice, but the numbers of letters prevented people from dealing with the problem," she said.

Ursula J. Moore, manager of the Harvard University Mail Service, said the large number of mail centers prevented the university from dealing effectively with the problem.

Some students yesterday said they feared being assessed late fees as a result of the delay in receiving their bills. "I guess I'd be worried that they'd make me pay for it, and it's not my fault," said Rachel E. Eelkema '97.

But Kinchla said students who receive late bills need not fear overdue charges. "The STO will be flexible with the payment deadline, especially the first month," she said.