Mobile phone plans do they have to be a direct debit setup?

yes

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Some of these pre-paid plans with long expiry can incur very expensive call charges. I note the Aldi 365 day expiry is 12 cents per minute for standard calls. Have a 30 minute chat with someone and you are up for $3.60. A standard unlimited time Australia call is only around 22 cents on NBN.
Others in the past like Telstra and Vodafone charged outrageous amounts per minute for calls. Over a dollar a minute.
Also the time of expiry of credit can depend on how much you recharge. I found this out with Telstra when a recharge of $20 or less expired after 28 days.

Look very carefully at the expected use, and the fine-print details.

Now, whilst porting a phone number from one network provider to another is a Gov requirement put upon the telcos, don’t expect it to be easy. All sorts of verification is needed to prevent phone number hijacking these days.

So @PhilT a simple ‘yes’ does not quite provide the full answer.

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Experiences vary?
Setting up an account requires the Telco to ensure the new customer has met the Govt ID requirements. Whether one chooses to get a new number or port an existing these requirements are the same. At least in our recent experiences.

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That PAYG is a different product than an ALDI Valupack type product ( $99 p.a. unlimited text and calls and 15GB of data for a year) and a different value proposition. Value? PAYG despite the seemingly high cost per call or per minute can be value for someone who spends very little per month.

We have a postpaid PAYG with amaysim (not offered in years and a priceless backup). We get a bill when the balance hits $10 or 3 months go by. It has saved us more than once when Telstra was ‘not there’. Typically 10 calls per month, rarely any data, and that $1.20 per month is not a bad expenditure. Would we use that as a primary service? With our low use it might be reasonable but we have ‘set and forget’ to our services.

It fully answered the question as to whether one can port their number, that is what I interpreted as the question. There are topics such as this one that discusses the plans.

That is also our experience. The account requires verification as a separate issue from getting/porting a number.

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The PAYG (Pay As You Go) plan is increasing it’s payment per minute to 15c, SMS to 15c and data to 6c per Megabyte (MB) as of the 24th of May 2023.

They also have a $15 a month (30 day period) plan and the vouchers for this can be bought over the counter at ALDI, this plan has unlimited national and mobile calls, and SMS within Australia, With the vouchers a recharge can be done at any time but the number of days remaining from the previous recharge are lost, so it is best to recharge on the very last day with them or within 24 hours after the plan has expired (if done within this leeway then nothing is lost). The $15 plan has a small amount of data attached, if the recharge occurs within time and there remains any data from the previous period, this is rolled over (it continues to rollover if the plan is renewed each time within time).

As @PhilT noted there is the $99 yearly plan, though these initially must be purchased when on sale at ALDI, this happens at least once a year. Once purchased it can be continued by making the yearly payment without need to repurchase the entire package from ALDI stores again.

As of January this year all Super plans (including the $99 plan) have had their MMS allowance limited to 12,000 of them a year, calls remain unlimited.

" Changes to Super Packs MMS inclusions

To help you get more out of your ALDImobile plan, we are updating our MMS inclusions so that you can also send Video MMS as part of your MMS allowance.

$249, $299 and $499 Super Packs

Activations and renewals on or after 17 August 2022 will receive 12,000 Standard MMS (including Video MMS) to Australian numbers per recharge, instead of unlimited Standard MMS (excluding Video MMS) to Australian numbers.

$99 and $159 Super Packs

Activations and renewals on or after 25 January 2023 will receive 12,000 Standard MMS (including Video MMS) to Australian numbers per recharge, instead of unlimited Standard MMS (excluding Video MMS) to Australian numbers.

Additional usage will be charged from PAYG credit."

$15 Value plan

PAYG plan

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This is easy to answer, they make a lot more money from the post paid plans.

I’ve recently switched my whole family to Coles mobile prepaid. Cost $99 for a year (ie $8.25 a month) with unlimited calls and texts (including some international calls), way more data than we would ever use. You can set it up to auto renew, or do it manually. Uses the optus network so coverage will be the same as you currently have.

You can easily port your existing number across, took about 5 minutes. You don’t even have to talk to optus, just buy a sim in store and port it across.

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That porting would still require identification and verification that you were the holder of the phone number being transferred. And same phones already registered on the network. And identification when setting the new account(s) with Coles.
That’s the law.

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Aldi have $30 for 12 months. If renewed before expiry can be rolled over.

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YES can keep same number.

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Well of course, but you don’t have to contact your previous provider and no direct debit either.

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I’m not crazy enough to give “help yourself to what you think you need” access to my bank accounts to any for-profit company. I always avoid direct debit. There are a couple of items for which I’ve chosen small, fixed monthly payments using my Visa debit card, because there is are a couple of layers of redress should an incorrect charge be made.

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Totally agree which is why I don’t want to do this. Having an invoice gives you the chance to review the charges before you pay rather than them taking anything they like out.

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Each direct debit arrangement I have seen includes an invoice a few weeks prior to the debit. Are there some that do not do that?

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I haven’t see any but then again i dont have any direct debit billing lol

If they don’t issue a statement/invoice, usually usage and associated charges is available through the provider apps/website logging in to one’s account. Many also store historical statements/invoices in online accounts.

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ID like to know why they won’t direct debit your bank account only a credit card or debit card

Welcome to the Community @Jippy

Which post/company are you referring to? Many members are not inclined to provide banking details for a direct debit. Has a member indicated their telco will not accept direct debiting a bank account? Or have you experienced one that will not?

If the latter, there are a few companies that no longer will DD a bank account, possibly to avoid liability if their systems ever got hacked.

Maybe because its easier to remove a DD and not credit card by the customer

Yes sorry I’m referring to Optus and yes they have told me they won’t accept anything other than credit card or debit card. I have home ,mobile and internet with them. I just was told the other day my phone plan will be going up $15 a month. This is the first I’ve heard of it as they have had no Contact with me to let me know, my contract with them actually finished with them in 2018 and I’ve been paying the same amount ever since. If I didn’t call them up yesterday about a totally different issue I would not have known about the price hike nor the fact that I now have to pay DD or lose my service.

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yeah they are very cheeky. I’ve now had an extra fee added on and the direct debit happens on Monday and have no way of stopping it