How to Find out If I Owe a GTE Telephone Bill

If you had an unpaid telephone bill with GTE in June 2000, when Bell Atlantic and GTE merged together to form Verizon Communications, there are ways to find out if your bill was transferred to Verizon. Before the merger, GTE was considered to be the largest independent phone company in America.

Instructions

Through Verizon

1

Contact Verizon's collections department. Check on Verizon.com for the billing department number that corresponds to the region of the country that your GTE phone service was in.

2

Advise the Verizon representative that you are a former GTE customer. Ask her to check the Verizon database for an outstanding bill for your old account. Depending upon how old the GTE bill is, it may be still be in the Verizon database.

If you have an old GTE bill provide the Verizon representative with the account number on the bill, to aid in the process of locating your old account.

3

Ask the Verizon representative for the bill amount and ask her to send you a copy of the bill. The Verizon representative can then accept a payment for the bill or create a dispute claim for the charges for you.

Via Credit Report

4

Order a copy of your credit report directly from all three credit reporting bureaus:Experian, Equifax and TransUnion. You can also get these reports for free at some online credit report websites.

5

Review all three of your credit reports. If you have a GTE bill that has not been paid, it will most likely show as an unpaid debt on your credit report. The credit report may also show the name of the collection agency that is handling the bill.

6

Contact the collection agency directly, if you want to pay off the debt. The contact information for the agency should be listed on the credit report. In many cases a collection agency will accept a "settlement" payment that is lower than the actual bill amount. Inquire upfront concerning the settlement cost.