Cancel postpaid/prepaid plan with Vodafone
Not too long ago, most telcos would lock you in to a SIM plan with a contract to keep you as a customer. That’s because of how competitive the telco environment is – so they would offer you a great deal to attract you to a plan, and then lock you in for months or even years. Breaking out of such contracts would then require termination fees, which deter you from even thinking about moving to another telco.
But such a scheme always felt unfair, regardless of how attractive the deal was. Why? Because there will always be a better deal out there eventually – it’s only a matter of time.
Telcos are very much aware of this, and that’s why they offered those lock-in deals back then. Thankfully though, that practice is now quite rare in the mobile environment, with all three major telcos in Australia – Teltra, Optus, and Vodafone – now offering no lock-in, SIM only plans for both prepaid and postpaid lineups.
But this doesn’t mean you won’t have any issues with your telco. Anything can cause a customer to consider canceling their postpaid or prepaid plan and moving to another telco. For one, another telco might offer a better deal, which could make you want to switch to them. Or perhaps your current telco has failed to resolve a frustrating issue that causes you to want to jump ship.
Whatever your reason for wanting to cancel your SIM plan, you should know all about how it works, and any fees associated with it. Thankfully for Vodafone customers, canceling a prepaid/postpaid plan is quite straightforward.
Here’s how to cancel your Vodafone prepaid or postpaid plan:
- To cancel your Vodafone SIM plan, place a call to 1555 from your Vodafone handset.
- If you’d like to use another phone, dial 1300 650 410.
- And if you’re not in Australia at the moment, you can dial +61 426 320 000.
The support representative will likely offer you a deal to keep you as a customer. If you decide to cancel anyway, then the Vodafone representative will walk you through the process.
Porting your Vodafone number to another carrier
Cancelling your Vodafone plan doesn’t mean you automatically get to keep your phone number. Instead, you would have to port your phone number to your new telco if you still want it.
To port your current Vodafone number to your new telco, that new telco would have to initiate the process, which requires you to give them your Vodafone account number.
Meanwhile, here are a few important things to note when transferring your number:
- Vodafone will charge you $8 to port your number over to your new telco, even though the new telco has to handle the porting process.
- In order to cancel your Vodafone SIM plan and port your number to another telco, you have to be the account holder.
Although the cancellation and porting process is quite straightforward with Vodafone, you might incur some fees in certain cases. We’ll talk about that below.
Vodafone Cancellation fees
Canceling your Vodafone prepaid or postpaid plan is free if you have a postpaid month-to-month SIM only plan, or a prepaid plan.
However, if you purchased a Vodafone Infinite, Red Plus or Red Plan with a Mobile Payment Plan for a device, then you will have to pay off the remainder of that Mobile Payment Plan, along with any Accessories Payment Plan or other outstanding charges you may have on your account.
Also, if you’re on any Vodafone 12 or 24-month contract plan and you want to cancel before it expires, you will have to pay am ‘Early Exit Fee’, which will be reflected on your final bill. The Early Exit Fee is 50 percent of your monthly installments, multiplied by the remaining months in your contract. For Vodafones 24-month Tablet Plans, however, the Early Exit Fee is 65 percent of your monthly installments, multiplied by the remaining months.
Also, Vodafone doesn’t require you to return the device – instead, you will be required to buy it outright by paying the remainder.
Final words
You should always be thinking about canceling your Vodafone phone plan. Lodge in your brain the date that your agreement will end on the day you sign up to your plan.
There has been a real mind shift in the way phone companies deal with the hardware associate with the contract plans they offer their customers. In the old days, the phone was the sizzle to get you to buy the sausage of their phone plan. Phone companies like Vodafone would add together the cost of the device with the cost of the plan (they were often about the same value) then they would hide the cost of their plan in the total and present it to you as a single number.
These days, the phone and the plan are sold much more transparently. That means that, even if you sign up to a device contract with Vodafone, you can cancel the SIM plan at any time you want – so long as you pay them out for the phone hardware you were given. This is a critical point. Contract phone plans (even month-to-month contracts) often offer better inclusions at the same price point than their prepaid equivalents. Knowing exactly what you’ve committed to will help you work through the process.
The best thing to do is to call Vodafone and talk through the concept of canceling your plan. Things move fast in the telco world and they will almost certainly provide you much more data than you currently get – and may even reduce the monthly fee you pay if you threaten to leave your Vodafone plan.
Our advice is to use the listings on this site to have a specific plan you intend to leave to from another phone company (e.g. Optus). You’ll sound all the more convincing when you’re negotiating.