Pre-paid airtime expiry in South Africa

I have a Vodacom prepaid no. I want to de-register (de-activate) from their network.

Should I simply transfer most of the balance on it to another Voda SIM, then leave it for them to de-activate auto. after 210 days (7 months) of inactivity, or take it in to them to get off the network, now ?
If so, would I need a FICA doc. and my ID to do so ?
 
I learned this the hard way- yesterday my cell phone locked and call center said my 120 day airtime window had expired.... this never happened before the days of whatsapp......
 
My understanding is it never expires, cause once you paid for something, whether you use it or not you've already paid for it...
 
How can they recycle a prepaid cell number after the user had to RICA that number. What's the point of RICA if they recycle cell numbers?
 
Odracir said:
How can they recycle a prepaid cell number after the user had to RICA that number. What's the point of RICA if they recycle cell numbers?
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Hmmm, good point...

They'll probably deRICA your name and RICA the new owner (my opinion)
 
Sacheen said:
My understanding is it never expires, cause once you paid for something, whether you use it or not you've already paid for it...
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+1
...and it doesn't cost them anything to keep it on their system...
 
Consumer Protection Act

The Consumer Protection Act (CPA) is very clear: if you buy a voucher, coupon or any other prepaid device, you have the right to redeem it for up to three years from the date of purchase.
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Why do MTN pre-paid data bundles expire after 30-60days?
The expiry is in disregard with provisions in the Consumer Protection Act wrt pre-paid purchases.

http://www.iol.co.za/blogs/wendy-kn...ndly-expiry-dates-just-won-t-expire-1.1140261
The National Consumer Commission’s Phumeza Mlungu said the Commission had served the mobile operators with compliance notices for non-compliance with the CPA, including “the matter of pre-paid data expiry”.

“The cellphone operators have raised objections to these compliance notices, so the NCC will seek for the National Consumer Tribunal to impose administrative fines against them.”

The maximum fine allowed for by the Act is R1 million or 10% of annual turnover, whichever is the greater.
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What can we do to pressure MTN to comply with the CPA?
 
Vice said:
+1
...and it doesn't cost them anything to keep it on their system...
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They claim that if they don't recycle they will run out of numbers.
I wonder what they are going to do when fridges, washing machines, stoves, home entertainment systems etc. can be remote controlled via cell phone?
 
markings said:
They claim that if they don't recycle they will run out of numbers.
I wonder what they are going to do when fridges, washing machines, stoves, home entertainment systems etc. can be remote controlled via cell phone?
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You wouldn't put a SIM card in each of your appliances, they'd probably just connect to your home wireless network.
 
can be an issue for us... and i guess many other folks as well who use simcards as loggers, or, like one of ours... inside one of them LED notice board modems... it doesnt make any calls or sms... it just gets called to update the display... so receives calls but not make any calls.... built inside the board, so will be a schlep to open just to make the odd call out now and then
 
such a fail with the expiry of airtime from MTN....Convinces me yet again to move to Cell C once my contract is up soon.
 
Vice said:
They'll probably deRICA your name and RICA the new owner (my opinion)
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When you RICA a number, all you are doing is RICA-ing the sim card paired to that number. When that specific number eventually gets reissued it merely gets paired up with the new users freshly RICA'd sim.

ToxicBunny said:
What happened to MTN's Number for Life?
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Probably still exists*.

*But you need to jump through this series of hoops... make calls/use it
 
This happened to me on CellC recently with my bicycle phone that I use for emergencies. Luckily I discovered the problem before I needed it on the road.

It would help to avoid inadvertent disconnection if the operators would show the remaining airtime window with the USSD balance enquiry (I think Vodacom does that).
 
lotus123 said:
This happened to me on CellC recently with my bicycle phone that I use for emergencies. Luckily I discovered the problem before I needed it on the road.

It would help to avoid inadvertent disconnection if the operators would show the remaining airtime window with the USSD balance enquiry (I think Vodacom does that).
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or at least send you an sms to say your airtime window will expire in 2 days or whatever
 
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