Skinny auto top up failure (should I say rubbish)

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AKLWestie

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#151820 6-Sep-2014 14:35

My wife and I are on Skinny, and they have been good for months.

Both of us use auto top up to top up each of our accounts by $16 every 30 days. We set the top up a day before the combo renew to make sure our combos will be roll over successfully. It worked for some time.

Just about an hour ago, my wife got a message saying her $16 combo failed to renew because of insufficient credit. I logged on to the portal, noticed the last auto top up was done on the evening of 6th August, so the next top up should be the evening of 5th September. However, the auto top up say the next top up would be the evening of 6th September (i.e. tonight!!! after the combo expired).

Because of the failure of renewal, she lost about 200 roll over minutes (those old ones that never expire)!

THANK YOU SKINNY FOR YOUR FAILURE TO TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 30 DAYS AND ONE MONTH. Please note the following months have 31 days:

January
March
May
July
August
October
December

So, I redo my auto top up, and this is what I found interesting.

When I set up the auto top up, I picked the auto top-up by 30 days option:

But, on the next page, it said monthly.

Skinny, you have been great, but please fix your auto top up. Again, 30 days is not the same as one month.

psychnurse

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#1123143 6-Sep-2014 14:40

I had the same thing happen twice, I emailed them with the issue and they said it's because I didn't have money on the account (I had a credit card loaded to avoid this issue) Their whole auto top up is broken.
Gave up in the end and now just keep and eye on when it's due.

zaptor

741 posts

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#1123347 6-Sep-2014 20:50

Yep. Their auto top-up is broken. Have experienced a failed credit card reload previously as well.

So Skinny, you do have a bug.
It's with your CC auto top-up mechanism.

I realize it's not an easy thing to reproduce because you'd need to trace a live scheduled CC charge in production at the precise time the error scenario is triggering. But, it is there.

AKLWestie

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#1123348 6-Sep-2014 20:54

zaptor: Yep. Their auto top-up is broken. Have experienced a failed credit card reload previously as well.

So Skinny, you do have a bug.
It's with your CC auto top-up mechanism.

I realize it's not an easy thing to reproduce because you'd need to trace a live scheduled CC charge in production at the precise time the error scenario is triggering. But, it is there.

May be some people lack the mathematical and/or technical skill to know this bug only causes problem once every two months (on average).

zaptor

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#1123374 6-Sep-2014 21:59

AKLWestie:
zaptor: Yep. Their auto top-up is broken. Have experienced a failed credit card reload previously as well.

So Skinny, you do have a bug.
It's with your CC auto top-up mechanism.

I realize it's not an easy thing to reproduce because you'd need to trace a live scheduled CC charge in production at the precise time the error scenario is triggering. But, it is there.

May be some people lack the mathematical and/or technical skill to know this bug only causes problem once every two months (on average).

Diagnosing intermittent billing/charging/crediting problems on a real time production system is not trivial. In some ways it would be better if the problem was more widespread - easier to reproduce. But, I'm guessing it's too irregular for the moment to nail down properly.

Running a comprehensive trace (process debug, network stack logging, packet capture) simply kills performance. Typically you'd trace when you know the exact time an issue is about to occur - assuming the issue cannot be reproduced reliably any other way. The problem is knowing when to trace. If you don't know when the issue is going to trigger, it makes things somewhat difficult.

LivingSkinny

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#1123707 7-Sep-2014 17:23

I'm sorry for the issues you have had here and have asked for an update from the team. I'll get back to you soon.

psychnurse

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#1123765 7-Sep-2014 18:57

LivingSkinny: I'm sorry for the issues you have had here and have asked for an update from the team. I'll get back to you soon.

Thanks for looking into this.

AKLWestie

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#1123845 7-Sep-2014 20:53

LivingSkinny: I'm sorry for the issues you have had here and have asked for an update from the team. I'll get back to you soon.

Thanks for looking into this. =-)

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LivingSkinny

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#1124735 8-Sep-2014 22:07

AKLWestie:
LivingSkinny: I'm sorry for the issues you have had here and have asked for an update from the team. I'll get back to you soon.

Thanks for looking into this. =-)

The issue with top-ups being completed monthly rather than 30 days has been fixed, so all future auto top-ups will be scheduled OK. We are reviewing any account that has topped up a day late or the next top-up is due a date late.

ckai

45 posts

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#1124799 9-Sep-2014 09:10

AKLWestie: My wife and I are on Skinny, and they have been good for months.

Both of us use auto top up to top up each of our accounts by $16 every 30 days. We set the top up a day before the combo renew to make sure our combos will be roll over successfully. It worked for some time.

Just about an hour ago, my wife got a message saying her $16 combo failed to renew because of insufficient credit. I logged on to the portal, noticed the last auto top up was done on the evening of 6th August, so the next top up should be the evening of 5th September. However, the auto top up say the next top up would be the evening of 6th September (i.e. tonight!!! after the combo expired).

Because of the failure of renewal, she lost about 200 roll over minutes (those old ones that never expire)!

THANK YOU SKINNY FOR YOUR FAILURE TO TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 30 DAYS AND ONE MONTH. Please note the following months have 31 days:

...

Skinny, you have been great, but please fix your auto top up. Again, 30 days is not the same as one month.

Did you contact Skinny to tell them what happened? I had a similar issue a while back, and called them in a panic. They added everything back onto my account so I didn't lose anything. No issues at all.

Hope they sorted that for you.

After it happened I changed the top up to occur 2 days before it was needed. Eliminated, the monthly/30 day issue and it gave me enough time to sort any issues if they happened. Yeah it was a bug but you just don't know when companies are going to fix these sort of things.

old3eyes

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#1124983 9-Sep-2014 12:55

ckai:
AKLWestie: My wife and I are on Skinny, and they have been good for months.

Both of us use auto top up to top up each of our accounts by $16 every 30 days. We set the top up a day before the combo renew to make sure our combos will be roll over successfully. It worked for some time.

Just about an hour ago, my wife got a message saying her $16 combo failed to renew because of insufficient credit. I logged on to the portal, noticed the last auto top up was done on the evening of 6th August, so the next top up should be the evening of 5th September. However, the auto top up say the next top up would be the evening of 6th September (i.e. tonight!!! after the combo expired).

Because of the failure of renewal, she lost about 200 roll over minutes (those old ones that never expire)!

THANK YOU SKINNY FOR YOUR FAILURE TO TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 30 DAYS AND ONE MONTH. Please note the following months have 31 days:

...

Skinny, you have been great, but please fix your auto top up. Again, 30 days is not the same as one month.

Did you contact Skinny to tell them what happened? I had a similar issue a while back, and called them in a panic. They added everything back onto my account so I didn't lose anything. No issues at all.

Hope they sorted that for you.

After it happened I changed the top up to occur 2 days before it was needed. Eliminated, the monthly/30 day issue and it gave me enough time to sort any issues if they happened. Yeah it was a bug but you just don't know when companies are going to fix these sort of things.

Just wish that Skinny would move away from the 30 day month to a calender month as some months have 31 days. Not as bad as Vodafone AU that uses a 28 day month on Prepay..

Regards,

Old3eyes

zaptor

741 posts

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#1125215 9-Sep-2014 17:53

LivingSkinny:
The issue with top-ups being completed monthly rather than 30 days has been fixed, so all future auto top-ups will be scheduled OK. We are reviewing any account that has topped up a day late or the next top-up is due a date late.

My auto top-up for the current 30 day period was erased - again.

So, had to manually top up, and then re-added an auto top-up.

Not sure if the auto top-up had been erased prior to the latest "fix", but, here's hoping the fix works for the next scheduled auto top up.

Does it really have to be 30 days? A calendar month would probably be much easier on your BPL. Just saying.

Also, when configuring auto top-up via the website the message is incorrect:
"You're setting up a scheduled topup, which will top you up $16.00. We'll do this monthly, starting on xx/xx/2014 at x:xxam."

Plus, would it be possible to remove password block for pasting from the clipboard on the login page?

LivingSkinny

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#1125217 9-Sep-2014 17:59

zaptor:
LivingSkinny:
The issue with top-ups being completed monthly rather than 30 days has been fixed, so all future auto top-ups will be scheduled OK. We are reviewing any account that has topped up a day late or the next top-up is due a date late.

My auto top-up for the current 30 day period was erased - again.

If you PM me your number I can get someone to check what happened and what is currently set

AKLWestie

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#1125231 9-Sep-2014 18:20

ckai:
AKLWestie: My wife and I are on Skinny, and they have been good for months.

Both of us use auto top up to top up each of our accounts by $16 every 30 days. We set the top up a day before the combo renew to make sure our combos will be roll over successfully. It worked for some time.

Just about an hour ago, my wife got a message saying her $16 combo failed to renew because of insufficient credit. I logged on to the portal, noticed the last auto top up was done on the evening of 6th August, so the next top up should be the evening of 5th September. However, the auto top up say the next top up would be the evening of 6th September (i.e. tonight!!! after the combo expired).

Because of the failure of renewal, she lost about 200 roll over minutes (those old ones that never expire)!

THANK YOU SKINNY FOR YOUR FAILURE TO TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 30 DAYS AND ONE MONTH. Please note the following months have 31 days:

...

Skinny, you have been great, but please fix your auto top up. Again, 30 days is not the same as one month.

Did you contact Skinny to tell them what happened? I had a similar issue a while back, and called them in a panic. They added everything back onto my account so I didn't lose anything. No issues at all.

Hope they sorted that for you.

After it happened I changed the top up to occur 2 days before it was needed. Eliminated, the monthly/30 day issue and it gave me enough time to sort any issues if they happened. Yeah it was a bug but you just don't know when companies are going to fix these sort of things.

Got a PM from LivingSkinny / Paul, he said they have identified and fix the issue. I will keep an eye for this auto top up thing for the next few months and hope all is good. =-)

zaptor

741 posts

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#1125237 9-Sep-2014 18:30

LivingSkinny:
zaptor:
LivingSkinny:
The issue with top-ups being completed monthly rather than 30 days has been fixed, so all future auto top-ups will be scheduled OK. We are reviewing any account that has topped up a day late or the next top-up is due a date late.

My auto top-up for the current 30 day period was erased - again.

If you PM me your number I can get someone to check what happened and what is currently set

I'll wait it out until the next scheduled recharge. My accumulated roll over minutes are still there, so not that fussed about it.

Thanks anyway.