How do you pay from a balance?

[ynk1121]

I'm feeling rather stupid right now... What do I have to click to get them to charge me from the balance? I see an option to pay from check card or checking account or to add a refill card. I already have money in there from a refill card...

[ynk1121]

Outsourcing is bad. Outsourcing is bad. Outsourcing is bad. Outsourcing is bad. Outsourcing is bad. Outsourcing is bad. Outsourcing is bad. Outsourcing is bad. Outsourcing is bad. Outsourcing is bad.

After 2 hours on the phone and two calls I finally got it taken care of. The first guy says he doesn't have access to that much of the system and needs to transfer me to the higher ups. I have to repeat myself 3 times before this next guy understood me. He says that it's an error with their system but he can fix it. After ages on hold again he says it's corrected. I check my phone and I have bars. I hang up and check my account to make sure I got billed correctly. They took $30 out but they changed my plan. I had unlimited web and text but now I'm on 30mb web!!! My android phone will burn through 30mb in a few minutes. I call them back. Again I'm on hold for ages. Again the first guy can't do anything. Again on hold. Finally the next guy straightens it out. This better not be a monthly issue because I'll dump them before I spend another 2 hours of my life on the phone.

[ROM66]

If you have sufficient balance to cover your monthly charge amount, it will automatically be deducted from your account on your next due date. There is nothing you need to manually do.

[richardho]

If you have sufficient balance to cover your monthly charge amount, it will automatically be deducted from your account on your next due date. There is nothing you need to manually do.

That is the way it is supposed to work, but apparently doesn't in some cases. The original post shows a $63+ balance, but the account status is "unpaid". The account status should never be "unpaid" if there is a sufficient account balance to cover the renewal charge. I notice that there is no "next charge date" showing -- maybe that is a clue for something amiss. From other posts I've seen with this same problem, it seems to happen when refills are placed far in advance of the renewal date.

[Seashellmama]

Yes, the lack of "next charge date" seems like a big clue. Here's what my my-tmobile graphic looks like:

[Telekom]

You already have enough of a balance that it will last you two months. If you want to go beyond two months you'll have to add some more money in the form of a refill card or refill PIN. As long as you have enough money in your account to pay for your charges you don't need to add any more money to your account. If you need to add more money to your account just add a refill card, refill PIN or key *ADD (*233) from your phone and pay for time with a major credit card.

[richardho]

And what is the customer supposed to do when there is sufficient account balance to cover the next charge when due, but it doesn't renew automatically (i.e. it remains in an "unpaid" state and doesn't draw from the existing balance to pay the charge).

[piggygirl]

When you do #999# from your phone, what does it say?? Maybe it's just the website that's not updating properly

[Telekom]

And what is the customer supposed to do when there is sufficient account balance to cover the next charge when due, but it doesn't renew automatically (i.e. it remains in an "unpaid" state and doesn't draw from the existing balance to pay the charge).

And this has happened to you? If you have money in your account it should be deducted to pay for charges.

[richardho]

And this has happened to you? If you have money in your account it should be deducted to pay for charges.

No, the OP says it happened to him/her (see posts #1 & #2). Note in post #1, the account balance is sufficient to pay the charge, but the account status is shown as "not paid". I have seen at least two other posts about the same problem. Why would the status ever be "not paid" when there is more than enough account balance to pay the charge, i.e. why isn't the charge paid from the account balance?

I know how it is supposed to work, but these people are reporting it doesn't work like it is supposed to for them. I am assuming that when the website shows their account in a "not paid" status, they do not have service. (I can confirm that when my account status was "not paid" I did not have service, but in my case the "not paid" status was intentional.)

I personally have not had this problem, because I don't keep an excess account balance. I refill my account only after the 30 days expires, and it goes to "not paid" status. As soon as I refill, the account returns to "paid" status as it should.

[ynk1121]

To clarify: Yes, my service was 100% gone. This was not the website reporting wrong. I had a $60+ balance from a refill card I entered in about two weeks earlier.

I came from Virgin Mobile where you had to manually pay from a balance so that's what I was looking for at first (the reason I made the post). It's much nicer to have it automatically take from the balance... if it worked. I hope this doesn't happen again because they have some of the worst customer service. The second guy I spoke with understood less English than my cat.

[piggygirl]

To clarify: Yes, my service was 100% gone. This was not the website reporting wrong. I had a $60+ balance from a refill card I entered in about two weeks earlier.

I came from Virgin Mobile where you had to manually pay from a balance so that's what I was looking for at first (the reason I made the post). It's much nicer to have it automatically take from the balance... if it worked. I hope this doesn't happen again because they have some of the worst customer service. The second guy I spoke with understood less English than my cat.

I hope this isn't a scam by t-mobile.
If there is a balance in the account to cover then it should be illegal to shut the account down.
If the accounts shouldn't be manually refilled, then t-mobile should not allow the website to do it.
This plan has been going on since last year, these renewal mistakes should be solved by now.
T-Mobile should state plainly on the website not to manually refill the accounts or if there is a max limit what that max limit is.

[bendee]

I have the same issue the OP has - balance more than sufficient to cover my bill (from a refill card), but it just shows as unpaid. Before today, it listed the next charge date as 2/21/2012, and now the next charge date has disappeared and the status is changed to unpaid. Is there any way to change this without a phone call to support?

EDIT: My situation would match up with what richardho says - I refilled my account about 3 weeks ago +/-

[richardho]

@bendee
A cautionary note: I've seen several posts wherein a call to customer support for auto-renewal failure results in the account being changed to some other plan. They seem to have problems dealing with the $30 unlimited web plan. Just curious - has your account ever renewed automatically like it should?

[sectime]

I just signed up for this plan. The Tmobile rep said add money to the account to cover minute overage. I put in $100, I will use about 200 minutes a month. Should I use auto renew for the $30 or manual pay every month??