Changed Plan - My $52 Credit was removed

[mscott]

When I signed up I was given a month for free (52$ credit to my account).  I decided I needed less of a plan, so after my first month I changed my plan to the $40 plan.  I was shocked to see my credit card was charged $40 because I thought I had the $52 credit from when I signed up!!!

How do I get my money back for this charge?  I am really confused

[Mary_M]

Hey @mscott,

thank you for taking the time to post on our community ! 

As explained throughout the thread, you will be charged the entire cost of the new plan if you decide to change prior to your renewal date. Now, from my understanding, you had 52$ and you activated a 40$ plan yet your balance has dropped to 0$, which should not have happened if in fact the cost of the plan was less than your available balance - the difference should be remaining. Either way, we can look into this for you. Can you please send us a private message including your account details as well as the plan you desire? 

I look forward to your reply 🙂

Mary

[srlawren]

@stonechucker you're right, I completely misread it.  My bad.  

[stonechucker]

Even if @srlawren description was correct, there should still be $12 in credit remaining from the $52 for the free month.

Did you have any issues when attempting to change your plan?  Delay in webpage updates, error messages, something else?

Did you immediately change your plan, or did you setup a future dated plan change?

[computergeek541]

Perhaps a possible solution would be to ask that you be put back on the original plan and just have the $52 put back into your account for the second month? 

Keep in mind that when you do change a plan like this, you do lose what you have already paid for this current month.  As to why the full $52 credit amount for your second month was removed, that clearly is some type quirk in the billing system.  At the very least I would still expect to  receive a free month on whatever plan that you're on (as long as it's less than the original $52). 

Two issues are at play here - the original $52 that you would have lost  from the payment for the first plan, and the $52 account balance for your free month that has dissapeared.

[Someone_here]

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@srlawren wrote:

@mscott there is an explanation for this.  When you do an immediate plan change, what happens is that your current cycle is immediately canceled without any sort of rebate/refund for any unused portion/days remaining, and a new cycle is immediately started, and you are charged for the amount of the upcoming 30 days.  In your case, you had a $52 credit on your account to cover your second 30 days on your original plan.  When you changed plans, you were due to pay $40 for the new cycle starting immediately, so $40 was debited from your available funds balance of $52.  This is all normal behavious for this pre-paid system.

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Apparently not what happened here... OP said "I was shocked to see my credit card was charged $40", so the $40 was taken from their credit card, not their available $52 funds...

[srlawren]

@mscott there is an explanation for this.  When you do an immediate plan change, what happens is that your current cycle is immediately canceled without any sort of rebate/refund for any unused portion/days remaining, and a new cycle is immediately started, and you are charged for the amount of the upcoming 30 days.  In your case, you had a $52 credit on your account to cover your second 30 days on your original plan.  When you changed plans, you were due to pay $40 for the new cycle starting immediately, so $40 was debited from your available funds balance of $52.  This is all normal behavious for this pre-paid system.

For future reference there were two better options available to you:

1) Use the "schedule plan change for next renewal date" button instead of the "change plan now" button.  This would let you continue using your first 30 days of the $52 plan until the end, and then upon renewal you would have switched to the $40 plan and your available funds would have been debited $40 then instead of now, OR

2) if you needed to make the plan change immediately, you could contact the moderator team to do the plan change for you.  They can assist with this type of immediate plan change but without the penalty of losing the remaining portion of your current cycle.

[Luddite]

Unfortunately you will need moderator assistance. Click this: message to moderators to send a private message to the moderator team with your phone number, account PIN, and an explanation. Moderator hours are: Monday - Friday 9AM (ET) - 9PM (ET); Saturday - Sunday 9AM (ET) - 7:30PM (ET). Response is generally within few hours, but may take 24.

 "Credits" are likely treated as Rewards, unless they appeared as Available Funds. These are not applied to your account until the renewal date.