Quick intro: I bought a new TMo SIM-card together with a new handset in October and activated $30/month (100 minutes) Monthly4G plan on it. I also received $50 refill card together with the phone, but haven't used it immediately.
In November (before the end of the first month) I had to leave abroad for 1+ month and I haven't refilled my account, so the day it should have renewed (I think, it was around Nov 12), I had $0 balance on my account, thus I had somehting like "Insufficient balance - Pay as You go Pending" in My T-mobile. As I had no chance to use this phone abroad, I simply haven't refilled it that time.
I'm coming back to the US in a couple of days, so I decided to refill my account online using that $50 card. It is still less than 60 days from the point it should have been renewed in case if I had had enough balance on my account in November.
I entered my Refill card PIN in My T-Mobile and got a shocking message - "$20.00 has been added to your account (...) Card value redeemed: $20".
Obviously to solve this quickly for now I just took another $10 refill card and reached $30 balance that is enough to renew my Monthly4G account.
So, what was that!?
1) Was it just a system glitch and my $50 Refill card has been mistakenly treated as $20 card?! Quite shocking...
2) Was it a kind of a "penalty" from T-Mobile for not renewing Monthly4G account on time?! If so, why hasn't it been announced properly!? (e.g. "Your balance is $-30. Your refill amount is $50. Your new balance is $20" instead of what I got: "Redeem value: $20"). My balance was $0 based on what I saw in My T-Mobile. I used $50 card and got a message that $20 has been added. I'm totally confused...
I simply don't understand what I paid extra $30 for - I have not used my phone even a single time over last 45 days... And if it's a penalty, why it is $30 exactly, but not $30/month prorated for all ~40 days of inactivity?? And if so, is it better to just toss a sim-card every time I have to go abroad for 1+ month and then register a new one after coming back in order not to pay $30 for the period of inactivity? (Basically - IS THERE any payment for inactivity as I found no information on it anywhere?)
I'm not really complaining now, but simply can't understand what happened. My T-Mobile is completely useless as it doesn't even have a Refill history, let alone any information on charge history to have at least rough idea on where your money disappeared...
Thanks a lot in advance for your reply!
Cheers
Ilya