Prepaid Money Taken

[Durgon]

My grandmother has a prepaid phone that she adds $10 monthly. There have been a couple times when she has been late with the top up but her piled up money was always returned to her. This time however all of her previous months money was taken, almost $100, and she only has the $10 she just put on. We were told that the money couldnt be taken. What gives?

[polecat]

Duron  My thoughts are with you. But prepaid is $ for certain time limit 30 days or 365 etc.And you have to top up before the days run out. If your topping up manually each time one day could mean the loss of the remaining  $ on account. Help your GM out and get her on a 100 $ 365 plan (top up once a year or lose whats left over) or set up a credit card for the automatic monthly top up. Look at it this way the $ on the account are shown and the 15c and 30c and 50c are deducted from it. Its minutes you have paid for. Don't use you lose. For my use its traveling only-----emergency------- I don't need a cell for everyday use so the $ 100 is good value.

[Durgon]

The thing is though that as I said, she's been late before and her balance was always restored after topping it up, we were told that they weren't allowed to take the money away even if she was late. So for them to take it now doesn't make sense.

[polecat]

Yes i hear you but i have had complete 180 turn   arrounds from one telus rep to the next one.  The one that restored the credits may be away and you got one that follows the rules of prepaid..I think automatic top up is the way to go for you. I am a senior and watch my dollars and plan ahead for payments putting aside a small amount for things like this. I top once a year and then pay the card.

[NFtoBC · Accepted solution]

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@Durgon wrote:
The thing is though that as I said, she's been late before and her balance was always restored after topping it up, we were told that they weren't allowed to take the money away even if she was late. So for them to take it now doesn't make sense.

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There may be a grace period of (I'm guessing) up to 5 days if late, but the support document states it must be completed BEFORE the expiry of the current balance. Pretty sure it is an automated process, in either case.

Prepaid is spent money. There is no obligation on the part of Telus to maintain the balance. As a matter of fact, if your balance were to exceed $300, Telus will place you on a plan to consume the sum. Like @polecat suggests, I use automatic top up to ensure my grandfathered prepaid plan continues, though now it will have $3 removed each 30 days for base plan connectivity. 

You didn't indicate how late the payment was, but unfortunately, you can't carry an un-updated balance and expect it to remain awaiting your next top-up. It's one of the risks of a really inexpensive connectivity plan. Note, the prepaid plans are 30 days, not a month. If she was topping up monthly, she would be getting ever further behind the expiry date, at the rate of about 5 days per annum.