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other than of course if it goes into collection? I've had at&t for 5 years now and I've never seen them report anything.
No, there not extending you credit.
They used to; AT&T I know used to report to the credit bureaus circa 1999, but they took all that information off.
There's an occasional phone record on someone's credit report (positive tradeline) but it's definitely not the norm; no clue how it's actually factored into the score if at all. Might help payment history, hard to say.
If your getting a 2 year contract most major phone company carriers will do a Hard pull on your credit report, but other then that they do not report monthly payments
the only time they would report is if your decide not to pay and default on your contract and they will sell it to a CA and they will report any CO