Auto Renew experience

[Michael_T]

I am interested to know what other’s experience of the seamless auto renew process?

I’ve been with SMARTY around 4 months, and every month, on the anniversary date,  my account goes into pause at midnight.  It renews, but I am unclear whether it has or not because both the app and website do not update?  I have to wait several hours before I receive an email confirming my card payment has been taken, and only then the website and app show I’m live again.  In the app I have to logout and log back in again to update it, as it still shows in pause otherwise?

[Jack0x]

Hi Michael.

Card payments are taken anytime up to 3am in my experience, once a card payment has been approved your service will continue as it should. You'll be cut off for a brief time, which is normal.

This was through my experience.

NOTE: I am a SMARTY customer, not an employee.

[Michael_T]

Thanks for your response Jack.  It is interesting to hear you have the same experience.

I would be interested to hear other examples here, because it doesn’t feel seamless, in that service goes off until payment is taken by the systems?  I’ve not been up late enough to test whether it still works or not.

I have parents who are aging and need to feel my service is not going to go off on my anniversary date, until the financial systems behind this process kick in!

I’d be interested  to hear the official answer from SMARTY on how this works, as there isn’t anything in the Q&A that explains this?

[Jack0x · Accepted solution]

The way auto renewals work is payment should be accepted automatically. 

However, if for any reason there's a payment failure (not enough funds for e.g). You will yes have a app saying service is paused but you won't be cut off until 12 hours after payment failure. This is a grace period so you've got time to make the payment.

Once the grace period is up, you won't be able to send or receive calls, texts or use any mobile data. 

[Michael_T]

Thanks for clarifying this Jack. It is helpful to understand how the process actually works, given there is very little information on this from SMARTY themselves?  
It sounds like “seamless” here refers to only part of the actual experience…so, the ability to make and receive calls for the 12 hours grace until the systems catch-up and realise the payment has been made!  That’s not a great experience, as you would expect your dashboard to be accurate and up to date as soon as that money leaves your bank account really.

I feel, like WelshPaul I perhaps need to test this is the actual case when I next auto renew.

[Jack0x]

You can use add ons if the service is cut off as addon ons never expire (unless it's a data pass). 

[DavidRo_1305343]

I have spent ages talking to two banks on another telephone.  They are insistent that the funds are not the issue for us.  They can even see money being attempted, the exact correct amount.  It is wrong for a Smarty system failure like this to cause us this grief.  We have no idea what to do or where to turn. 

[Jack0x]

Contact SMARTY on the website, seems as if there's been a fault with your transactions.

Since I've not had faults with any transactions going through. 

[Jack0x]

You could try to go to a PayPoint to add the funds to your account. Just show the cashier the barcode SMARTY provides in your account, and you can pay in cash or card. 

[Mohamef_1198208]

I just want to but say that you to contact us

[JJP2]

That’s not the case in my experience,

Even though since I joined Smarty on June 2nd this year, I have had a positive balance, as I usually add £20 or so monthly via the pay point top up, when my plan renews,  my account / app always says my service has been paused, and I need to log in again, which is a pain.

HOWEVER, that’s “just” the website / app, as CRUCIALLY the actual smarty service is not paused, I still have signal, can still make and take calls, and use data. There is an anomaly in the Smarty renewals process, which gives the impression that a users service has been paused, when it fact it hasn’t. 

Obviously, the process above only applies when people do have a positive monetary balance within their account. 

 

[DavidRo_1305343]

I am that bemused aged parent.  All I can see to do is to leave Smarty and get another SIM.  It worked for month and months then stopped. We can't do anything but use the Smarty website.

[JJP2]

I just sent this reply to your child

Even though since I joined Smarty on June 2nd this year, I have had a positive balance, as I usually add £20 or so monthly via the pay point top up, my account / app always says my service has been paused, and I need to log in again, which is a pain.

** HOWEVER, that’s “just” the website / app, as CRUCIALLY the actual smarty service is not paused, I still have signal, can still make and take calls, and use data. There is an anomaly in the Smarty renewals process, which gives the impression that a users service has been paused, when it fact it hasn’t. **

Obviously, the process above only applies when people do have a positive monetary balance within their account. 

[JJP2]

Even though since I joined Smarty on June 2nd this year, I have had a positive balance, as I usually add £20 or so monthly via the pay point top up, when my plans renews, my account / app always says my service has been paused, and I need to log in again, which is a pain.

** HOWEVER, that’s “just” the website / app, as CRUCIALLY the actual smarty service is not paused, I still have signal, can still make and take calls, and use data. There is an anomaly in the Smarty renewals process, which gives the impression that a users service has been paused, when it fact it hasn’t. **

Show this thread to your parents, and tell them not to worry 😃👍

Obviously, the process above only applies when people do have a positive monetary balance within their account.

 

[WelshPaul]

Interesting topic...

I wasn't aware that there maybe a short period of time where my service would not work until SMARTY's backend system processes my renewal payment. This really shouldn't happen, it should be seamless. What if i'm in the middle of an emergency and encounter this issue? Hardly reassuring! I'm going to test this out on my next renewal and see if I encounter an issue making calls.

[JJP2]

See my reply to @Jack0x re my experience 

[DavidRo_1305343]

Luxury!

Yesterday I clicked on renew and was taken through payment processing and then it said it had an error.  Retry doesn't and cancel just stops retrying (which is not what I want!).

My bank says it set 1p aside (standard is it live test) and then it does no more.  Bot can't help and online customer services were/are useless. 

Added another card.  Same thing.

[Jack0x]

Try again in a day or so, or when the grace period is up. 

Or just keep trying to contact support until you get the issue resolved. 

[jassingh]

My 2 cents. Not had any issues with the renewal stage or any disconnections - I thought something would happen on my last renewal which was on a Saturday and so I thought that there might be a chance that the payment would not be taken until the Monday, so 2 days of no service, but that didn't happen. The payment did go through, so the banks will 'reserve' this amount to be collected. 

Just have to make sure that funds in the account are sufficient. Also, the time it takes to 'clear' the transaction vs when it was requested from Smarty can be different - but you shouldn't be cut off anyways unless Smarty has some difficulty in trying to get the money and they keep retrying.

Not too sure about manual payments and top-ups, however!

[MSF]

@jassingh  Totally agree with you. I have had auto-renew set up since I started with Smarty at least 200years ago (OK, perhaps I am exaggerating a little!) and it has always worked smoothly for my account and for my wife's account too.

I link my payment via PayPal, which in turn goes to a credit card that I keep mostly for that use.

My reasoning is that it keeps the transactions further away from my real bank account; in case of problems I could shut down that credit card with its very small credit limit quickly and still have access to funds.

[jassingh]

Yeah totally @MSF ‌👍‌ good point you mentioned its also more peace of mind especially if you have that pesky subscription that you need to nuke quickly (and they're playing difficult) and if they don't budge you can set up the payments different or use 'virtual cards' .. no real payment info shared so no harm done.

I was trying to find a way to use Google Pay for payments but I couldn't find more info about how to get it setup or which devices are 'compatible' as the article suggested. 🤔

[MSF]

@jassingh No experience of Google pay unfortunately. I have used Apple Pay on my phone regularly but I tend to use PayPal purely for the reason that it has proved reliable for me to date. I'm working on the principle "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".

I fully realise that I have probably just jinxed the whole thing 😱 and will now have to re-think my whole financial empire!! (yeah right!🙄)

[TimHigh_2676498]

Its absolutely shocking. No sooner did I join - albeit with a low data tariff I realised it was used and would not renew for 20 days. I cannot make it renew straight away (like Giff Gaff). I have paid £20 for a data addon, did not see it activate, paid another £20 and this has still not activated, with the first one disappearing.

So I have paid nearly £50 as a new customer and have no working service.

The Support is simply a load of bots which give links, and if you ask for an actually human, all you do is get spammed on asking if they have resolved the situation ? NO they have not as they have asked no questions and done absolutely nothing about it.

This is so far a rip off.

Even posting on the community seems to see the post disappear into a black hole, with it being unsearchable to see if there are answers. The site says I have made one post - however a simple page showing all a users own posts appears to be lacking, so its useless.

In short its a disappointing rip off. SMARTY should look at GiffGaff for good user experience, and not this sham of a money maker that SMARTY is.

The extra 1Mb download for my location is not work the hassle.

SMARTY - wise up and get some actual developers.

I am leaving and demanding refunds from my credit company.

[JJP2RidesAgain]

Read my reply on the other thread that you started re add ons etc 

A lot of problems we see on this forum are quite clearly user error ! 

Some of the posts here beggar belief quite frankly, some people would be better off with two cans and a piece of string ! 

Using Smarty isn’t shocking at all, unless you are clueless and hard of thinking with no clue what you are doing !

[MSF]

@TimHigh_2676498  Don't get me wrong - I understand that these things cane frustrating.

Instead of venting to forum members, would you not be better off following through the web chat and ,if that does not sort it, raise a complaint with Smarty.

Accusing them being a rip-off doesn't really help anyone. As my dear old Dad used to say - you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.

GiffGaff? - Good customer service? - Crikey, I wonder where that happened? - certainly not when I was with them!

I'm sure it can be sorted.