So it finally happened to you; you’re at your friend house uptown in the wilderness of Upper St. Andrew or out in the boonies in rural Jamaica…..and you ran out of credit.
What do you do?
Fortunately, you have a FLOW Jamaica smartphone with a Data plan that you activated just to get the 99 cent plan as explained in FLOW Jamaica’s 30-Day Prepaid Mobile Internet gives you 99 cents Plan. Or, you were one of those adventurous types that had decided to try of the Digicel LTE as described in How to Activate a Digicel LTE Smart Plan on your Smartphone and discovered that it works in the wilderness.
You just need credit to call mummy and daddy….or you friend that only totes a banger (read me!) to have them send you some credit. Alas, dilemma as in order to get credit you have to have credit to make a call and none of these people read Please Call Me Texts!
Fortunately, the Data Service works and even better, you happen to have access to the Internet at your friend’s home or you were smart enough to bring along your Laptop as well as your MiFi from LIME or FLOW as laid out in How FLOW Jamaica MiFi helps you use Prepaid Mobile Internet Plan wisely.
Even better, you also happen to have your CIBC Prepaid or Scotia Prepaid Debit card on you as described in How to use Scotia VISA Debit Card Online. If this scenario fits you, then you can top up your smartphone online.
How to top up your Phone Online in Jamaica – Digicel makes it Easy, FLOW barely trying
There are several locations online that allow you to top up using a CIBC Prepaid or Scotia Prepaid Debit card.
First both Digicel and LIME have their own Top up Websites, all of which require a one-time registration:
Digicel Online Top Up
http://www.digicel4gbroadband.com/en/services/online-top-up
FLOW Jamaica Online Top Up
https://www.etopuponline.com/flow/
Good to note here that Digicel’s Top Up App is available on both the Google Play Store as well as the Apple iTunes Store; FLOW Jamaica has nothing like this as yet, as their App Store leaves much to be desired as can be read in FLOW Jamaica App Store needs Game and Business App Developers.
Third-party Top-Up options – Prepaid Debit Cards and Paypal Accepted
Then there are third-party options, the first being Ding.com, formerly known as ezetop.com.
Ding (formerly ezetop.com)
They’re improved with the ability to auto-detect your mobile number and give you a wide selection of credit options to choose from. Then there is Mobile Recharge as follows for both FLOW Jamaica and Digicel:
LIME Mobile Recharge
http://lime.mobilerecharge.com/buy/mobile_recharge?country=Jamaica
Digicel Mobile Recharge
http://digicel.mobilerecharge.com/buy/mobile_recharge?country=Jamaica
Pros and Cons of Online Top-Up – US$5 minimum but Paypal is accepted
Good to note that all these top-up options work in all of the countries in the Caribbean that Digicel and FLOW Jamaica operate in. So online top-up isn’t a Jamaican thing, it’s a Caribbean thing.
Also, these services accept Visa, MasterCard, Diners, Discover or PayPal transactions. So if your gaming apps or websites you designed are bringing in the dough, then your Paypal account stocked with cash is acceptable.
The only caveat with all these websites, aside from possible security issues, is that you can only top-up with a minimum of US$5 (JA$558.06). So make sure your CIBC Prepaid or Scotia Prepaid Debit card is stocked with cash.
Just remember to top-up with credit the next time you decided to stay the night at your St. Andrew friend home or when you’re out in the rural hinterland of Jamaica or your neck of the Caribbean.