You experienced the infamous glitch where it shows suspended for a few hours, while in actual fact it's not. After a few hours that corrects itself but it's sure scary.

You can ask Koodo for the extra money back, or just leave it to use for the next top-ups.

Yeah, it’s something like that — it seems like that “48hrs” Koodo cites as the turnaround time for payments to reflect/apply, is not so much a “maximum” window of time (as it is with most companies), it’s a “minimum”. Which means, a top-up payment has to be made no less than 48 hrs before the expiry date, otherwise, this glitch happens. 

I looked back at my monthly top-ups since I started my account on August 7, 2020, and there has been a consistent top-up/funds-applied pattern up until now. I get paid on the 1st of every month, and this worked out fine cos since August 7, my expiry/renewal date was the same, thereby giving me about a week between my payday and the expiry date to make a payment and get topped up. 

But here’s the caveat : the “30 days” I’m prepaid for literally means THIRTY days, so all those months with thirty-ONE days moves my expiry date UP by one day ; August 7 took me to September 6 (cos of August’s 31st day) with my expiry date being the next day, September 7.

That took me to October 7 (as September has an even 30 days), and then from October, my November expiry date got moved up to the 6th and so on : November 6th to December 6th, December 6th to January 5th (of 2021), January 5th to February 4th...

At this point, with the short month of February’s 28 days, I actually got “2 days BACK” onto my expiry date, which pushed it back and February 4th carried me to March 6th. The span between the 1st (payday) and the expiry date was still enough of a window to top up and have it applied without any hiccups : 
March 6 to April 5
April 5 to May 5
May 5 to June 4
June 4 to July 4
July 4 to August 3
August 3 to September 2

Those following months (April-August) til now continued to deduct a day with every 31-day month that passed, bringing my expiry date to September 2 — and there it is : less than 48 hrs between my bank deposit on the 1st (even though I topped up immediately at like 4 AM on the 1st) and the expiry date (presumably midnight, one minute after 23:59 of September 1st). 

Let the confusion begin! LOL

I logged in to my Koodo account online to check my status and that’s when I was greeted with the “suspended” message.  Panicked and confused,  I made another payment in case that might help “trigger” something… and it did (sorta), cos  after the 2nd payment, I got the message “your account is now restored” (or something to that effect)… but I was still getting the “Account Suspended” message from before, despite now having $50 sitting in my balance. 

That was when I posted this topic, utterly confounded… 

But later it dawned on me, how until this month, I always had well over 48 hrs between the day I made a payment (same day I got paid) and the day of the expiration date. So I figured I’d give it a couple of days, to let that first $25 payment have a full 48hrs to be “processed” or whatever it needs to do… and sure enough, on September 3rd, I got the usual text message alerting me that my account has been topped up for another 30 days. 

So, I now have things back to normal plus an extra $25 sitting on my account, and at first I was gonna request it be refunded, but then I realized it’s probably more hassle to get a refund than to just leave it for next month’s payment (like you suggested). 

I wish Koodo would modify that “expiration date” thing, so that if you start your account on the 7th, then your expiry date is ALWAYS the 7th of every month, regardless how many days are in the month. I thought “30 days” was just a general term for service for the month. But no, they literally mean THIRTY days. 

Now I know. Haha. 

Thanks for your reply, Sophia, and sorry for the long-ass message.

I figure I’ll just keep this long-ass explanation posted for anyone else who might have the experience I did, so they can rest assured it’s not an actual problem with their account or some “fast one” being pulled by Koodo ; it’s just a “timetable overlap” kind of glitch.

So, for everyone else out there who may top up less than 48 hrs before your expiry date, you’ll probably experience this “suspended” status (as far as your online account is concerned) as I did. 

Your actual service should NOT be disrupted – at least mine wasn’t. I tested my service with my landline while I was getting that “suspended” message and things still worked fine, as I could make and receive calls no problem. Mind you, I think my “test”was after the second payment which “lifted” the suspension, so that may be why? This may require some experimentation...

Anyway… RULE OF THUMB for all us prepaid customers :

Allow a FULL 48 HRS (or more) turnaround time between the day of your payment and your prepaid’s expiry date to avoid these anxiety-inducing glitches.
:-) 

Cheers.



 

I get the scary message regularly on my husband's account and his payments are automatically withdrawn by Koodo. I ignore it now, but it caused some panic the first time I came across it. It has been going on for years so not sure why it hasn't been fixed - I guess Koodo likes scaring their customers.

“I guess Koodo likes scaring their customers.”

Right? That and/or they like to gaslight us into making multiple payments to see if that “fixes” the issue, as I almost fell into. 

Have you noticed if the time between when your payment is auto-withdrawn and your Koodo account restores its proper status is the same every time, like 2 days or 3 days in between? Just wondering if your situation supports my theory about the 48-hr turnaround time?

There should indeed be an additional message that explains it more clearly to customers, or just revise and fix that silly protocol to something more logical for more seamless and hiccup-free transitions/transactions altogether and avoid such disruptions and confusion. 

I don't think they are doing it to gaslight people - it is more like they tend to ignore the poor cousin Pre-paid. My husband is on Pre-paid, but I am on Postpaid and the systems are entirely different with Postpaid definitely the superior of the two

If I am recalling correctly the message shows up on the evening of the automatic withdrawal and it clears away the next day. When I set my husband up with prepaid 4 or 5 years ago, I watched his account to make sure that the first auto payment was withdrawn as I had read in the forums that sometimes there were issues with the first payment. Of course I got the scary message and was a little upset, but by the next morning the message was gone (and the payment was withdrawn as scheduled). I have come across the message now and then if I have coincidentally been checking his account on the day of the autopayment. It has never caused an actual issue with using his phone, but Koodo should really do something about this - even just changing the wording.

They did change the wording briefly, but I believe that's been reversed again. Ironically prepaid as a service is very robust, I have had no issues with it in all the years I used it. It's just that the online self serve portal stinks.

Yes I agree. Prepaid itself works great with reasonable prices. 

Prepaid is a poor cousin, but what works WORKS. Never had any problem with 5+ years of phone service in Canada or the US, but the software is a relic almost up to Windows XP speed. Any attempt to re-write and correct might bring other things crashing down.

The unnecessarily nasty messages have been a feature since way back when and were reported years ago. Some minor changes in phrasing were made, but the core of the system remains unchanged.

Stick to:

• 30 days is 30 days, not a calendar month
• don’t look at your self serve in the 3 days bracketing your top-up.
• keep your credit card data up to date, since an expired/revised card WILL cut your service without warning
• do a screen capture of your services before adding any boosters (just in case)
• always manually add money to your account ahead of time if you need more funds to buy boosters.

Prepaid is a poor cousin, but what works WORKS ~ but the software is a relic almost up to Windows XP speed. Any attempt to re-write and correct might bring other things crashing down.

That’s a good point. I still use XP myself (for a myriad of reasons) and my only complaint is its SPEED now (everything else is still fine). So I can see how pulling at a thread could unravel everything. 

I guess as long as there’s a suitable workaround and/or peace of mind in knowing that despite the messages, things are still working, then it’s okay to leave well enough alone. 

But Koodo better not tinker with the site to the point my XP system (and its browsers) cannot access the site and/or my account anymore. This is becoming a trend and it’s infuriating. I cannot afford to buy a whole bunch of “devices” and pay for expensive monthly service plans to activate/use those devices just cos of all this unnecessary “updating” of “security” on the site.  Anyway, that’s another gripe for another thread at another time. 

I’ll copy & paste Bob’s point-form tips  for dealing with this little glitch cos they’re more digestible than my previous diatribe, lol : 

Stick to:

• 30 days is 30 days, not a calendar month
• don’t look at your self serve in the 3 days bracketing your top-up.
• keep your credit card data up to date, since an expired/revised card WILL cut your service without warning
• do a screen capture of your services before adding any boosters (just in case)
• always manually add money to your account ahead of time if you need more funds to buy boosters.

Thanks, Bob!