How to stop “disappearing data”

I had a different case of "disappearing data":

I bought Vodacom data through the Capitec app, and received a "Transaction successful". I assumed that everything was fine. The next day my data was gone. The Vodacom support was totally useless, and I was blamed for using all the data.

It turned out that the data was actually never loaded.

It took so much pain to convince Vodacom & Capitec that something was wrong, and to get a refund.

The issue was not with Capitec, or intermediary Blue Label: When the data was loaded, Vodacoms' system replied that the data was loaded successfully, when in fact it wasn't.
 
And what can I do when I have my sim sitting in a draw and my airtime still disappears?
 
Lets start to stop disappearing data on Windows 10. .LOL.
 
You bought a smart phone, anything from R3k to R22K and yes, it is so smart that it can update apps and itself, to protect you from new found vulnerabilities and improvements, the updates are not there to eat your data... I promise you, no cellular provider has ever paid an app developer for making users use more data....
Your Smartphone keeps you up to date with the latest news from around the world or from your friends on social media, that can't happen if you turn off background app refresh....
Your smartphone keeps track of your location so that when you are looking for a coffee shop, you only get results of places nearby you and not halfway around the world ... now you will have to search again and specify the town you are in, more data usage, oh and then once you select a place and open your maps you realize that the one you selected is on the other side of town... ok just do another search... and another and then just go home and make some coffee...
Your Smartphone wants to help you, assist you... let's imagine you are connected to a crapy WiFi network, your smartphone don't want you to get frustrated when you try to use online resources, your smartphone will actually Assist you by letting you use cellular data to make your online experience actually usable.... Your smartphone has a extremely high quality screen and you paid for it, why would you want to watch content at a reduced quality?
and as for cloud services like iCloud, Dropbox, etc that can automatically synchronize/backup your photos, contact etc.... well gone are the days of losing your photos and info because YOU forgot to do a backup... your smartphone does it for you.... your smartphone is really smart and all it wants to do is make your life easier... IF you have enough data... well then, why don't you have enough? Oh yes because we are being ripped off by the cellular providers !! Yes some of them where quick to say that they halved their out of bundle data rate... do you know what that means? Well instead of paying R2 per MB (megabyte not gigabyte) you now pay only 99c .... that is still R1000 per GB !!! And they are quick to blame the background updates that use your data without your knowledge... well I have news for you.... if you are on a prepaid/topup plan and you decided that 3GB per month is what you can afford.... well the moment your 3GB is depleted you would expect to get a notification that says your data is deplete please purchase more data.... but no... they just use your airtime to data at 99c per MB !! That means your Facebook update now cost you R100 !!! Vs R14.90 if you used your normal data at R149 per GB (still crazy) I can't even compare it to your home WiFi as most of us have uncapped service... but I did a quick search and found telkom Adsl data cost R99 for 20GB... so that means that the same Facebook update (100mb) would cost you ... 50c !!!
Recap Adsl = R5 per GB, Cellular data bundle = R149 per GB and out of bundle = R1000 per GB
So why such a monster difference? Well to get your data to your home requires cables that has basically no running cost (cable theft) vs cellular towers that require land rental and electricity, but based on the amount of users they have I would guess even 5c per month from each user would cover that... (remember you are already paying them for your airtime that covers that already, we are only talking data here)... but what gets me down on my knees arms stretched to the heavens screaming WHY OH WHY ! Must there be such a big difference IF ANY between data bundles and out of bundle rates !??
So dear Mr Cellular provider take your unhelpful tips and shove them where your towers can't fit !
This would be similar that the petrol companies telling you that although you bought yourself a four seater car you should rather only drive it with one person as that would save your fuel cost.... I think not!
 
Ekron said:
You bought a smart phone, anything from R3k to R22K and yes, it is so smart that it can update apps and itself, to protect you from new found vulnerabilities and improvements, the updates are not there to eat your data... I promise you, no cellular provider has ever paid an app developer for making users use more data....
Your Smartphone keeps you up to date with the latest news from around the world or from your friends on social media, that can't happen if you turn off background app refresh....
Your smartphone keeps track of your location so that when you are looking for a coffee shop, you only get results of places nearby you and not halfway around the world ... now you will have to search again and specify the town you are in, more data usage, oh and then once you select a place and open your maps you realize that the one you selected is on the other side of town... ok just do another search... and another and then just go home and make some coffee...
Your Smartphone wants to help you, assist you... let's imagine you are connected to a crapy WiFi network, your smartphone don't want you to get frustrated when you try to use online resources, your smartphone will actually Assist you by letting you use cellular data to make your online experience actually usable.... Your smartphone has a extremely high quality screen and you paid for it, why would you want to watch content at a reduced quality?
and as for cloud services like iCloud, Dropbox, etc that can automatically synchronize/backup your photos, contact etc.... well gone are the days of losing your photos and info because YOU forgot to do a backup... your smartphone does it for you.... your smartphone is really smart and all it wants to do is make your life easier... IF you have enough data... well then, why don't you have enough? Oh yes because we are being ripped off by the cellular providers !! Yes some of them where quick to say that they halved their out of bundle data rate... do you know what that means? Well instead of paying R2 per MB (megabyte not gigabyte) you now pay only 99c .... that is still R1000 per GB !!! And they are quick to blame the background updates that use your data without your knowledge... well I have news for you.... if you are on a prepaid/topup plan and you decided that 3GB per month is what you can afford.... well the moment your 3GB is depleted you would expect to get a notification that says your data is deplete please purchase more data.... but no... they just use your airtime to data at 99c per MB !! That means your Facebook update now cost you R100 !!! Vs R14.90 if you used your normal data at R149 per GB (still crazy) I can't even compare it to your home WiFi as most of us have uncapped service... but I did a quick search and found telkom Adsl data cost R99 for 20GB... so that means that the same Facebook update (100mb) would cost you ... 50c !!!
Recap Adsl = R5 per GB, Cellular data bundle = R149 per GB and out of bundle = R1000 per GB
So why such a monster difference? Well to get your data to your home requires cables that has basically no running cost (cable theft) vs cellular towers that require land rental and electricity, but based on the amount of users they have I would guess even 5c per month from each user would cover that... (remember you are already paying them for your airtime that covers that already, we are only talking data here)... but what gets me down on my knees arms stretched to the heavens screaming WHY OH WHY ! Must there be such a big difference IF ANY between data bundles and out of bundle rates !??
So dear Mr Cellular provider take your unhelpful tips and shove them where your towers can't fit !
This would be similar that the petrol companies telling you that although you bought yourself a four seater car you should rather only drive it with one person as that would save your fuel cost.... I think not!
Click to expand...

Well if you're moaning about fuel costs, they might indeed tell you tha and some other things,

Anyway, as to the rest, people are suckers for punishment it seems. They could go to Telkom and get 2GB prepaid for R139 for example, that can roam on MTN (so network coverage is not really an issue for most) and where the data use stops without going OOB into your airtime.
 
Root your phone get rid of Google and all the other crap.
Use only the apps you need.
Voila no data wasted.
This only needs a few brain cells to figure out.
 
Just make sure that your apps' background data usage is restricted (except apps that you want to receive communication notifications from, like Whatsapp or your emails), that auto-updates are off in the play store and that the phone doesn't check for system updates. The only thing that will still use data is when Google Play update, but that isn't a lot of data.

Please buy bundles instead of using your airtime! From Afrihost or something similar -- month-to-month and lovely prices. :D
 
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didn't mybb test this by putting new sims in new phones and turn them off leaving them inside drawers for a week or something like that?
 
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