[DIGITALEight]

Can someone please explain the difference between them?
I went over the FAQ on their website twice and didn't get all my answers.

I went to a Wind Store today to inquire about the Pay Before and Pay After systems. The Sales Rep said if I go with Pay Before (Prepaid), I need to first buy a Card from Shoppers Drug Mart or something AND pay $7.50 for the basic plan.
For example, my monthly bill would be:
$20 for the card
$7.50 for the basic plan
+ taxes.

WHY? On their website it says the plans are SAME for Pay Before and Pay After customers, the only difference is the TIME when I play the bill. If I am paying $7.50 before each month, shouldn't I get 150 minutes and 50 texts? What is the $20 card from Shoppers Drug Mart for?

Can someone explain how exactly Pay Before works. Wind's FAQ isn't really too helpful.

 

[profets]

For pay before, you need to top up your account before the 1st of the month to keep it active. If you are on the $15 chat plan, then you'd need to put $15 to top it up for the upcoming month.

Say you were to sign up tomorrow, the 15th, You would top up for the remaining of November, which would be about half a month, so it would require something like $7.50 (assuming you are on a $15/month plan).

You can really top up by any amount.. Say $50, it'll be a credit on your account and each month $15 from there will be used to top up.

I guess the card from SDM is a top up card. you can also use a credit card online or by calling in.

 

[DIGITALEight]

That's how I understood too, but the rep kept saying that I will be playing $15 for the Chat Plan AND Top Up amounts.
So I can just go to their website each month, and add $15, just like I would be paying the Bill for Pay After. The only difference is that they charge me beforehand?

I'll talk to another rep in the coming days.

 

[TorontoColin]

I'm on Wind pay before so I can answer this for you. You have an account with Wind. At any time you can add funds to your account. Each month Wind deducts the cost of your plan from your account balance, and you need to make sure you have enough or your service will be cut off. I believe certain pay-per-use features like roaming are charged at the time of use.

With post-paid you are given a bill at the end of each month which you must pay, which will include any pay-per-use costs. There is no difference in cost to you.

When you sign up for your pre-paid service you will be immediately charged a pro-rated amount for the remainder of your month. From then on it is up to you to keep enough balance in your account to keep your service active. The top-up cards from Shoppers Drug Mart and others are one way of adding to your account balance; I usually add directly via credit card from their website.

 

[recneps77]

On the other side of things, "Pay After" is no longer truly pay after
(we can probably thank abusers for that - people who signed up, then never paid at all because they were unhappy/just plain didnt want to)

Now "pay after" is more in-line with what everyone else does for a billing scheme.
You're billed a pre-paid amount in the form of your monthly plan/addons (for the following month's service).
Then anything pay-per-use on top of that is billed post-paid (from the previous month's service).

Basically, the two are nearly identical now, just one needs a credit check and gives you a monthly statement and the other requires no credit check and you pay for everything as it happens.

Those of us who were existing pay-after customers essentially got a free month in sept/oct because of the switchover process, so it's fine by me
(we all got a credit equal to that month's service so that when we next paid it would be prepaying for the next month under the new payment system)


If you're on the fence between the two methods, and have a decent credit rating, I would get 'pay after' simply for the itemized bill.