<human>: Over three years ago, I ported my cell phone number from Verizon to Sprint upon graduation from college. I updated my address with lots of organizations, but I apparently forgot about Verizon.

Fast forward to last week, when my mother received a letter from a collection agency demanding the $34 I owed for my last Verizon bill. I called Verizon account services and spoke to a manager, who said that Verizon took the following steps to bill me:

* Sent a letter to the (college) address on file
* Sold the debt to a collection agency after three months

The first one obviously didn't work because I failed to update my address. The supervisor told me that **verizon never calls former customers to bill them** unless they have a separate *contact phone number* on file. They also never send email to notify their former customers of bills. He verified they have my email address and phone number on file, but asserted that it was a security risk to attempt to contact me. He confirmed that Verizon was aware I ported my number out, and he explained it still wasn't a valid contact number because "what if I changed it" and "what if we needed to troubleshoot a hardware problem?"

I have yet to find out why the collection agency sat on the debt for three years before simply looking up my address with the SSN on file. 

I'm totally mystified here why it took them over three years to inform me of my debt. I realize it's my fault because I didn't update the billing address. At the same time, I have trouble believing it is really that hard to reach me with a working phone number, email address, and social security number. If I had been aware, I would gladly have paid them right away.

Thanks for reading.

Give me the gist of the text in a nutshell
<bot>: If you move and port a phone number, Verizon will NOT call the number to collect the last bill before selling the debt to a collection agency.