Mobile prepay top ups with Vodafone
Hotlink, from Vodafone, is a mobile top up service for prepay customers. It's not a brand new service; up until the weekend, I had no idea it existed, and was given a demonstration of how to set it up by Vodafone fanboy (and employee) johnr. What impressed me was how straight forward setup was, and how quickly credit could not only be added to your mobile, but to any Vodafone mobile of your choosing. If you have leeches teenagers who you regularly top up, Hotlink is the perfect product for you.
The first step involves picking Hotlink from the Vodafone SIM menu on your phone (unfortunately I can't screenshot this as I've already set it up). It presents you with a list of supported banks. Once this is done, you then need to login to your internet banking.
I bank with ASB, so under Mobile Banking I enter my mobile phone number under Mobile Top-up and then pick the bank account to debit:
The menu on my Nokia E71 changed about 30 seconds later - I now have the option to top up my mobile, and enter a specific amount, or top up someone else's. The fact it is part of a menu, and I don't need to remember codes or a number to send a SMS to makes even more handy.
It's free to sign up - you can then become a walking, talking, Vodafone top up machine.
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Comment by rscole86, on 25-May-2011 07:59
I love their website
If your bank isn't listed, it should be soon
It has been years, atleast 5 IIRC and they still only have 4 banks. Hell, it could have even been around since sim2s were released, and still there are only 4 banks offering the service.
Comment by MurrayM, on 25-May-2011 10:39
Humph, I was told my SIM card won't work with HotLink. They want me to *buy* a new one before they'll let me use that service!
Comment by chiefie, on 25-May-2011 12:21
@MurrayM, same here :-( I think Vodafone needs to check their customers' SIM cards and send out the new one free of charge!!!
Comment by johnr, on 25-May-2011 19:03
@kiwitrc No plans at this stage
@rscole86 it's up to the Banks if they want to support Vodafone Hotlink, We would like all Banks to offer the service. If a Bank says Yes then it would take very little time to have Hotlink up and going with that Bank.
@MurrayM @chiefie The SIM has to have the SIM toolkit built in, If your SIM cards are under 7 years old might pay to PM me your mobile number so I can do some checks on the Vodafone side.
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Comment by kiwitrc, on 25-May-2011 03:39
Any idea if Vodafone can or will offer an automatic top-up, so eg phone gets down to $2 then it bangs in another $20?