Yesterday, someone topped up my number with a small amount of credit (pay-as-you-go), and activated unlimited monthly mobile data package.
I still have a data plan (prepaid data, postpaid calls and texts) on my main SIM expiring in a week.
I haven’t used any of it (on secondary, of course), and contacted my carrier’s tech support stating these appeared unexpectedly. Their response was “We would like to inform you that the credit on your phone number was topped up at a point of sale. The unlimited package was later activated at the same point of sale.”
And? Was the tech support person just trying to imply it was likely paid for in cash and I just shouldn’t care because they couldn’t refund it anyway?
Anyway, one annoying thing about this is that it also activated automatic renewal, so if I wasn’t using the number for a few months, I wouldn’t notice my remaining credit automatically draining.
Hell, if I had registered for their online account, it would even possibly pay that directly from my debit card on renewal.
I’m a bit confused. They topped up the SIM, but also turned on an unlimited package which (presumably) costs money per month?
If you don’t want the unlimited data, seems to me the path forward is to just turn that off. Leave the credit in the account. The support agent never directly implied it wad a cash transaction. If it happened to be credit, and the transaction didn’t go to the right phone, then there is likely a charge back already in flight, which may result in that credit being taken back after all.
I would insist that the service terms be restored to what you had before, with no monthly spend above whatever plan you originally had. Just let the credit ride for a few months, if nothing happens to it consider it to be your formal notification to the Universe of “no backsies”…
I disabled auto renewal, but that’s all I can do. It was paid for by that stranger for the next month.
Yup, that’s the best possible outcome. In the unlikely event the transaction gets reversed, the company has a record of your call and could, possibly, eat the bill instead of sticking you with it.
I wonder if it would make the company more money in the long run for people to forget to turn off unlimited and auto renew than it would cost the company to “oopsie! Someone must have paid for this!” And pay for it the first time in secret as a marketing expense.
Barely costs them anything, I’d bet they’re full of shit with the “activated at point of sale” line. We’re at a stage of capitalism where legitimate companies are behaving like scammers.
Mate, you should keep auto-renewal on, and go to the media to rat out your provider for knowingly letting you use another customer’s payment method. That’s one of those consumer segments that makes suburbanites mad.