Why is my Pay As You Go (PAYG) credit running out so quickly?

Remember, you can view your usage in your My ALDI Mobile online account.

If you see charges from your PAYG credit when you have Mobile Plan, Data Plan, Family Plan or Super Pack on your service, check to see that it hasn't expired or that you haven't used all of the included value.

Data Charges

If you're using a Smart Phone here are some reasons why you might be consuming data and or burning through your PAYG credit quicker than you thought:

  • Is your device being used as a hot spot by another device?
  • Check which apps are using data from your handset
  • Some apps regularly update their content like news and weather and this uses your data. Some podcast apps do the same. See if you can change the frequency or disable the updates (background app refresh), turn off the data to them, program to update via Wi-Fi only or deleted them if you don't use them often.
  • Keeping your apps up to date with the latest version is a good idea but allowing them to update on mobile data isn't. Disable auto update via your handset settings and update them when you're on Wi-Fi.
  • Apps like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter have the ability to auto-play videos, even when just scrolling past. Head to the app settings and turn off auto-play or if it allows, set it to play when on Wi-Fi only.
  • If you use Dropbox, Google Photos or iCloud photos, these apps might be automatically backing up the photos as you go. Check your settings in the app and disable auto backup or set it to back up on Wi-Fi only.
  • YouTube, Netflix and other video players are data hungry as you know. Switching to standard definition will save your data as will watching when on Wi-Fi.
  • Just web browsing strains your data - any website you visit that has lots of rich content or scripts that run in the background will consume more data.
  • Facetime uses around 3MB per minute so an hour chat will cost you 180MB.
  • Music streaming uses around 150MB/hour.
  • Using google maps for navigation can bee data hungry. See if you can download maps for offline use. Location services also uses data so consider turning this off.
  • If you use an iPhone, turn off Wi-Fi assist as this feature automatically switches your device to mobile data when Wi-Fi is poor.

Call, SMS and MMS charges

Check your usage in your My ALDI Mobile account but bear in that it can be delayed by up to 24 - 48 hours. We can only investigate use that's recorded on your account.