That annoying moment when you want to place an urgent call, only to discover that your airtime mysteriously disappeared. But you had loaded credit the previous night. Where has it gone? You may wonder with fury in your eyes. The feeling of being ripped off makes you almost consider changing to a new network where grasses seem greener.
Telecom companies have made it easier to obtain airtime loans when you can’t find airtime. This debt is covered the next time you recharge. Sometimes you may take long to pay back, and even forget about the loan you owe to the telecom, but the company never forgets. Your airtime is bound to disappear to clear off this outstanding debt. You need to beware of your unpaid debt so you load enough airtime that can clear the debt and still have something left to make calls.
You may have accidentally dialed some USSD code that subscribed you to news, sports, love messages, caller tunes among others. These will all be billed against your available airtime. If you can’t unsubscribe yourself from these, call your telecom’s customer care help line and ask them to unsubscribe your number. Otherwise, your airtime balance will continue to mysteriously vanish.
Telcoms now have an auto renewal feature for their most used services such as SMS, data and voice bundles. This is meant to save you time especially when your a continuous user of a certain bundle. Casual bundle users may land into the unknown territory of auto renewals and get their airtime turned into bundles they don’t need just because they innocently chose auto renewal option while buying that certain bundle. Here, you only need to be vigilant while buying bundles by selecting the right option and keeping in mind that whatever you choose affects how your airtime will be spent. When buying bundles, choose the one off or one time option.
Some telecoms start using up airtime balance when your data bundle is depleted or expired. This slashes a large chunk of your airtime until you realise. Luckily, telecoms now give you messages about what percentage of your data bundles you have used. You should buy a new bundle before the existing one expires. Also take note of the time your data bundle will get expired. Check if you have a running bundle before you activate an Internet connection.
Lots of people want to keep their expenditure as low as possible. This pushes them to want to make calls or send texts, or even activate bundles on their own phones using another persons phone that has airtime. And obviously they won’t tell you! You just need to watch who you give your phone to. Put a good password on the phone to stop snoopers.
