PAYG Credit Just Disappeared!!

[Deleted User]

Neil_Jones wrote: »

That article is from April 2013. But its advice is still generally valid - most PAYG numbers will disconnect on average after six months if you don't use them.

Whoops, not only was I looking at the date in the wrong place for the date of the article but I also thought it was the 12th today.

Pitchshifter

eDicky wrote: »

There's a difference between the deactivation of service after a certain period of non-use (e.g. 6mths), and the disappearance of credit on a phone service which remains active, which is what appears to be happening here.

Some MVNOs delete your unused credit after a certain period, some 90 days, but if EE has started doing this with their PAYG it would be remarkable. You need to check with them what happened to your credit.

I've got an online account with them for my mobile number that I can top-up with a credit card, view balance and view recent calls etc. I checked the balance and it's at £0.25. It also doesn't display any calls as there's no recent activity. Unfortunately there's no way of seeing what has been charged to the number over the last year.

[Deleted User]

Pitchshifter wrote: »

I've got an online account with them for my mobile number that I can top-up with a credit card, view balance and view recent calls etc. I checked the balance and it's at £0.25. It also doesn't display any calls as there's no recent activity. Unfortunately there's no way of seeing what has been charged to the number over the last year.

Pop into an EE shop and see if their systems tell you anything useful.

macman

Pitchshifter wrote: »

I've got an online account with them for my mobile number that I can top-up with a credit card, view balance and view recent calls etc. I checked the balance and it's at £0.25. It also doesn't display any calls as there's no recent activity. Unfortunately there's no way of seeing what has been charged to the number over the last year.

When did you last make a chargeable call or text on it? As stated above, all PAYG SIMS get recycled after x months of inactivity (the period varies, typically 3-6 months). It's possible that the credit has been lost as a first stage of disconnection.

Mister_G

macman wrote: »

When did you last make a chargeable call or text on it? As stated above, all PAYG SIMS get recycled after x months of inactivity (the period varies, typically 3-6 months). It's possible that the credit has been lost as a first stage of disconnection.

Not quite sure that this is always true. My wife's old PAYG Orange mobile (now on T Mobile apparently) has had £17 of credit on it for the past two years or more. It's her emergency phone that she's had for at least 10 years (Nokia 6310) and it lives in her car.

I know that she hasn't made or received any calls for over a year, yet the phone is still active. As a result of what I've been reading in this thread, I thought that I'd better just check. I've just made an outgoing call and received an incoming one - all ok.

Maybe the time limit just applies to newer PAYG SIMs?

johno51

I know Delight started removing any unused credit after 90 days from top up but thought it was just them.

Pitchshifter

I look at the PAYG options and upgrade pagckages on EE/Orange website and I find the whole lot a confusing mess of what looks to be very expensive ways to pay for phone calls, texts and data I don't need.
All I want is to use my damn phone and make the occasional phone call when going on long journeys etc, and not have to worry about losing my money that I've paid upfront. This demonstrates just what I always knew about these mobile phone companies, they're greedy and the service is a huge rip-off.

I have a house move coming up soon, so I need this phone working on the move day. And may just need to make one call. If I top-up this phone I'll just put £5 on it and will have to keep checking to see it hasn't disappeared, and keep an eye on recent usage to see if some other charges are being deducted. What a hassle.
Another option is buy a budget smartphone and get a cheap paid monthly deal from Plusnet as I'm a broadband customer. But that is something I generally don't need, so it's a bit of a waste of money. Maybe I should just get with the program and join the smartphone revolution like everyone else!

3rd option, use a payphone.

Pitchshifter

Ha- We'll beat their system yet!
So, I just topped up £5, no problem, tested the phone by ringing my home phone for a few seconds incurring the standard (rip-off) 35p min charge.
I went and checked my account and this is correct, 35p has been deducted.

Then, I registered my override provider 18185 on the mobile and tried the same call. No charge deducted as it's a freephone number. 18185 will charge me 5p for the connection then 1.2p per minute to landlines or 6p per min to mobiles. Much much better.
I just need to remember to make a chargeable text or call every month to keep it active.

yeslek

Just had this happen to me halfway through the day.
Had £6.51 this morning, sent maybe a handful of text sent, whilst at home connected to wifi for data as always, then maybe 2 replies to Whatsapp messages, and around 2pm, my data stopped working and I couldnt text/call. My balance was zero - no way did I use that much data in the 2 hours since leaving the house

stragglebod

Temporary drop of connection on your broadband account while you were at home?