Really, I mean REALLY !!!

[Dezi]

I have a landline & answerphone which I use for 99.99% of my calls.

I have a payasyougo mobile phone for use when we are on the road. Average 6 -8 calls a year.

I am therefore very surprised to read this article, although the consumer watchdog has known about it for several years.

Theoretically I could be meandering along some mountain road abroad and suffer a breakdown only to find that I am phone less, my number, unbeknown to me, has been repossessed / stolen, by the phone co and I am left up the creek without the proverbial propellant device.

Anybody else heard of ?

Fury of pay-as-you-go customers who lose mobile phone credit when numbers are 'recycled' | Daily Mail Online

 

[harrow]

I have a landline & answerphone which I use for 99.99% of my calls.

I have a payasyougo mobile phone for use when we are on the road. Average 6 -8 calls a year.

I am therefore very surprised to read this article, although the consumer watchdog has known about it for several years.

Theoretically I could be meandering along some mountain road abroad and suffer a breakdown only to find that I am phone less, my number, unbeknown to me, has been repossessed / stolen, by the phone co and I am left up the creek without the proverbial propellant device.

Anybody else heard of ?

Fury of pay-as-you-go customers who lose mobile phone credit when numbers are 'recycled' | Daily Mail Online

Yes make sure you make a chargeable call every 6 months, I have a couple of PAYG phones on different networks, which are a remanent from working in London during the London bombings.

Voda used to be the worst for stealing your money !

 

[izwozral]

I am with Giffgaff, they warned me that a dormant number would be reallocated unless the number was used within 14 days. Fair enough, I just made a call with it and it is still mine.

 

[Nabsim]

Yes I did know this as we use Pay Go SIM cards for some customers at work. We only wanted data but while finding out who did what it soon became apparent that all but one in the UK had some sort of restriction where you lost credit and account. The only one that didn’t was Orange but they are no more for new customers

 

[trixie88]

i use my phones the same as you dazi. and yes i found this out a few years ago....put 5 pound on it......only used it a couple of time...for quick calls....of probably less than half minute each.....when i came to make another call, some considerable time later ....my credit had vanished..............was told that if i didnt use it, i would loose it?????? daylight robbery.

again the big companies ruling the roost.........disgraceful.

 

[Herman]

I had a PAYG sim card in the vans tracker, but because I don't use it often when I come to check it's still working it was switched off, I'll took it back to the voda shop and all they could offer was to sell me another which is no good for a tracker.:mad2:

 

[Jeff G]

My contract phone number i had prior to selling to selling my business 15 years ago still hasn't been reallocated

 

[Dezi]

[QUOTE=harrow;950414]Yes make sure you make a chargeable call every 6 months, I have a couple of PAYG phones on different networks, which are a remanent from working in London during the London bombings.

Voda used to be the worst for stealing your money ![/QUOTE]

Hi Harrow,

When i had my first mobile phone many years ago I was also told to make at least 1 call and to top up every six months.

But I was informed at least 4/5 years ago when I upgraded the phone that this proviso was no longer necessary.

Which is why I am surprised to read this today.

Incidently I usually keep it around £40 in credit.

Dezi

 

[Caz]

Yes. I had a Tesco PAYG sim card (O2?) which deactivated itself because I hadn't used the phone for calls or anything in 12 months, lost £7+ credit. It's my emergency phone for when my other has to go back for repair, I am out of EE coverage, or have used my monthly allowances - none of which had happened for over a year. I also use it for music through a bluetooth speaker in the van. They never warned me it was being deactivated and haven't given me the money back.

I'm going to get another sim for it when I get round to it but will check what the policy is next time and make sure it gets used for something every so often.

 

[harrow]

What I do with my PAYG phones both have cases.

So I keep the last used date written on a piece of card tucked inside the case, you could set up some kind of electronic reminder but that works for me.

As far as recycling phone numbers I have found my old ones were NOT reissued.

Again Voda were the worst to deal with.

 

[toasty]

Yes discovered this, and my poor elderly mum lost £35 about 10 years ago.
We persuaded her to get a mobile `for emergencies`, told her to only put a tenner at most on it, but being cautious she put on £35! We couldnt believe it when she told us her money was gone, but the scabby so** had nicked the lot :mad1: Not surprisingly my mum lost all confidence in mobiles and never had another.

 

[trevskoda]

Try onepenny mobile,you can put a tenner in and set up auto top up every 4 mths.
Fore those of you still stuck on a land line with no pc then ditch it and use the above,works out miles cheeper.

 

[mariesnowgoose]

I've never had a pay-as-you-go, but I think this is disgraceful and typical of the way we increasingly have money stolen from us by large corporations who think they are above the law.

Hasn't the toothless wonder (but-sometimes-shows-a-fang) that is Ofcom been pressurised into doing something about this already?

 

[delicagirl]

Try onepenny mobile,you can put a tenner in and set up auto top up every 4 mths.
Fore those of you still stuck on a land line with no pc then ditch it and use the above,works out miles cheeper.

the mobile phone signal round here is utterly dire so most folks have a l/l as well

 

[vindiboy]

Some years ago I used to get Sim cards for Spain and Portugal, pay as you go. on return home from our trips , I knew that the sims would die and I would loose any money left on them because of no usage, wasn't aware that happened here , but I can see why,now though all calls abroad come free from our O2 bundles so the EU actually did good on that one, we have a Virgin landline which we seldom use but had to have it for the Broadband, it came with a new number, but we still get the odd call for the previous owner of the number, but the answer phone deals with that so no problem.

 

[jann]

On two occasions I have'lost' my credit and had to have a long phone call with EE to get it back.
I was told last time if I rang my home number,no need to let it answer or to check my balance then that would keep the number active.It has been OK for a while now. I do try to use it for a short call occasionally

 

[colinm]

On all networks and all frequency bands? That's very unusual in mainland GB nowadays.

It's not that unusual, around where I live all networks are poor reception, and looking at the networks own maps they have almost identical black spots. If we lived in a remote valley it might be understandable, but no we live in a flat area with towns all around. This is why Ofcom are changing the rules and saying the networks must cover a percentage of area and not population.
As for Orange, a few years back I had a PAYG with them, whilst they had lower requirements on usage to keep sim active, if your credit was over a certain age (not sure what now) you lost it even if you used the phone.

 

[witzend]

I had a PAYG sim card in the vans tracker, but because I don't use it often when I come to check it's still working it was switched off, I'll took it back to the voda shop and all they could offer was to sell me another which is no good for a tracker.:mad2:

I have the same set up but just call the tracker occasionally it then texts back its location so in use.

Dezi yes was aware of it has always been the same as far as I remember use it or lose it

 

[mikejay]

Also found this out when using a lebara sim in tracker and lost my £10 credit set a reminder now in google calendar to ring the tracker every couple of months.


Mke

 

[linkshouse]

I know I'm going to get jumped on here but...

In their defence, how many PAYG sims (either in phones or not) do you reckon there are out there that are no longer in use?

When people stop using a contract phone/sim, they cancel the contract for obvious reasons, but when people stop using a PAYG phone/sim they tend to just ditch it.

If all these abandoned numbers were never recycled they would eventually run out of numbers to issue.

NOW THAT SAID.

It would seem to me that a grace period within which to recover the number would seem reasonable, but perhaps a year is long enough.