T-mob wandering off with £200 credit

nids

Bought three phones about 9 months ago, topped them with £50, £50 and £100. They've since sat in my drawer, forgotten about (I bought them for a specific situation, which never materialised), turned them on today and none of them can make a call!

I know T&Cs say that credit expires after 180 days of no-use, but this feels ridiculous. I'm now £200 out of pocket and someone at T-mob is enjoying his bonus pay cheque!

What can I do about this?

ZhugeEX

nids wrote: »

What can I do about this?

Nothing really.

You can try complaining but chances are T-Mobile will just refer you to the T&C.

d123

nids wrote: »

Bought three phones about 9 months ago, topped them with £50, £50 and £100. They've since sat in my drawer, forgotten about (I bought them for a specific situation, which never materialised), turned them on today and none of them can make a call!

I know T&Cs say that credit expires after 180 days of no-use, but this feels ridiculous. I'm now £200 out of pocket and someone at T-mob is enjoying his bonus pay cheque!

What can I do about this?

So why are you complaining if you knew what was going to happen?

Have you spoken to T-Mobile, I have a faint recollection that the sims could be reactivated for a £10 payment for a period after deactivation (but I can remember the actual time period).

nids

d123 wrote: »

So why are you complaining if you knew what was going to happen?

I knew credit expired, and my experience with this is that it expired after a year, and not 6 months.

Since finding out that they all had zero credit, I did some reading and found out that it was 180 days.

I'm trying to work out how/if I can get my money back an/or credited - seems like there might be an option to reactivate the sim, which would be nice.

NiftyDigits

They didn't give me my £51.75 back. Scum.

d123

NiftyDigits wrote: »

They didn't give me my £51.75 back. Scum.

It's pretty standard across the industry, basically, if you don't show them you want to keep it, they eventually take it.

It's been like that for many years.

NiftyDigits

d123 wrote: »

It's pretty standard across the industry, basically, if you don't show them you want to keep it, they eventually take it.

It's been like that for many years.

Not so good for me when I'm out of the country for four to six months at a time.

anotheruser

The only thing you can do now is learn the lesson.

d123

NiftyDigits wrote: »

Not so good for me when I'm out of the country for four to six months at a time.

You could always take the sim with you and put it in your phone, switch on, and send a text every 5 and a half months.

ste_wilko

It is standard practice to deactivate the SIMs after certain periods. The operators have to so they can recycle the numbers, if they didn't there would be a shortage in numbers in next to no time.

Don't put £200 on 3 serperate accounts in one go, especially if you don't intend to start using it there and then.

You need to speak with T-Mobile and appeal to their better nature and see if you can recover some of the money. You really can't get annoyed with them if they say no though because it is standard practice and it is in the terms and conditions. Plus, getting irate with them will make them less likely to be inclined to help. Be persistent but polite.

I think there was a thread on here a few days ago where someone had a similar experience and they managed to sweet talk the network into giving them the money back on a new SIM.

Good Luck!

NiftyDigits

d123 wrote: »

You could always take the sim with you and put it in your phone, switch on, and send a text every 5 and a half months.

This was a mobile broadband SIM...and I have other things to do than to continually consider the validity of a SIM.
My SIM was still working. They just stole the money and refused to give it back.