topic Re: Customer support during COVID-19 situation in Announcements

Customer support during COVID-19 situation

Alan_K — Fri, 20 Mar 2020 14:56:55 GMT

To ensure the safety of our team members during the COVID-19 pandemic, our Moderator team is working at reduced levels. During this time, you may experience longer than normal wait times when contacting our Moderator team for help.

To have your questions answered as quickly as possible, access support 24/7 via our Help Articles, our chatbot SIMon, or start a conversation in our friendly Community.

IMPORTANT: So what does this mean if I have an issue right now?

For the time being, we ask that you consider the following pointers about customer support:

Please reach out to our Moderator team only if your matter is urgent so that we may prioritize critical cases first while support is run with fewer team members.

The best way to submit a ticket with support remains with submitting a ticket via our virtual assistant, SIMon, so that our Moderators receive all the pertinent information from the get-go. Only one ticket submission per issue is required.
If your matter is not urgent, please use other methods of support until further notice, or consider holding off on the support request until a later point in time

We appreciate your patience and understanding during this time, as we continue to work together through these difficult times. This page will be updated as the situation develops.

-Public Mobile Community Team

Re: Customer support during COVID-19 situation

gblackma — Fri, 20 Mar 2020 15:01:03 GMT

Good to know. Take care now. Thanks.

Re: Customer support during COVID-19 situation

Triguy — Fri, 20 Mar 2020 15:02:17 GMT

Thanks for keeping us informed.

Re: Customer support during COVID-19 situation

AE_Collector — Fri, 20 Mar 2020 16:57:09 GMT

Also:

- Please start with the community giving as much information about your plan and problem as possible. Check back often to see if more information has been requested and to implement suggestions given. Don’t forget to let the community know if suggestions have helped and/or solved your problem.

- Community members put more effort into fully understanding the problem first before instructing the person to contact a moderator when not enough info has been collected to determine that moderators will be necessary (that’s what they pay us for)!

AE_Collector

Re: Customer support during COVID-19 situation

hairbag1 — Fri, 20 Mar 2020 21:20:44 GMT

ALSO;

- Resist the urge to post personal info such as phone number, account number, name, address or voucher activation number. All and any of that info is solid gold to a villain trying to scam you and empty your bank account of it's $$.

The Moderator Team may ask for it but none of the Community Forum folks need it or would ask for it.

Don't post it voluntarily on any forum board.

Re: Customer support during COVID-19 situation

Lar — Fri, 20 Mar 2020 16:12:44 GMT

@Alan_K Seems I'm thanking you a lot recently but once again thank you for keeping us up to date in this ever changing situation. Stay safe everyone. Cheers

Re: Customer support during COVID-19 situation

XionBunny — Fri, 20 Mar 2020 16:45:17 GMT

Stay safe and thanks for the update.

Re: Customer support during COVID-19 situation

Staliger — Fri, 20 Mar 2020 17:50:00 GMT

@Alan_K Thank you so much for your care, PM! Stay safe and healthy everyone!

Re: Customer support during COVID-19 situation

darlicious — Fri, 20 Mar 2020 23:41:55 GMT

@Alan_K Thanks for the update....keeping pm s customers informed during this crisis helps to keep us calm and at ease as we try to wait out the daily changes to our lives. With so much time on our hands....thumb twiddling, head scratching the community is itching to help out other customers experiencing issues. Please ask your questions, answer our questions about your phone model, your plan and promo or your activation date. If we can solve your issue without directing you to the moderators we stay busy and the reduced moderator team can handle the urgent issues only they can rectify. We are here to help....help us alleviate our boredom. Otherwise see you in the lounge.....its still open since we can all safely social distance ourselves.

Re: Customer support during COVID-19 situation

Nanqui — Sat, 21 Mar 2020 15:49:28 GMT

thanks for the update !

Re: Customer support during COVID-19 situation

Mimi33 — Sat, 21 Mar 2020 16:28:33 GMT

I want to take a minute to thank Public Mobile for offering the free text, talk and bit of data for those of us making the journey home from the USA. We personally felt much more at ease knowing we were able to keep in touch with family and provide the progress of our trip. It made it possible for those to book hotels along their route. It was a very thoughtful and comforting gift. In support of PM, I have commented to many friends about this good will gesture.

Re: Customer support during COVID-19 situation

Mimi33 — Sun, 22 Mar 2020 01:07:51 GMT

Hello AE_Collector

FYI: We drove a straight 18 hours to Canada from Florida yesterday. Oringinally I had purchased only the $8.00 US text add-on, however I could not understand how texting would work without the data add-on so I then purchased the bundle for $20.00 with text, talk and a bit of data. I received a first text from PM advising I had used 50% of data, followed later that day with a text advising I had used 95% of my data. Right after the second text from PM I was unable able to text. (I would have had plenty if data for the 18 hours however google traffic maps ate it up rather quickly.) I am not sure why PM offers just a texting add-on if data is also required. Should this, or do you know if this situation has been explained when purchasing US add-ons? I could not find anything in the community that spelled it out.

Re: Customer support during COVID-19 situation

AE_Collector — Sun, 22 Mar 2020 01:41:56 GMT

@Mimi33

Wow, is that trip do-able in 18 hours? I guess it is... We did LA to Vancouver in 24 hours years ago, maybe you weren't too far south in Florida?

Basically texting is accomplished on the voice network so data is not required. But if you have an Apple device things get complicated real quick. It depends on your device settings and the device of the person who you are messaging whether it will be done over the voice or data networks.

AE_Collector

Re: Customer support during COVID-19 situation

darlicious — Sun, 22 Mar 2020 01:34:14 GMT

@Mimi33 It sounds like you were using Imessage rather than traditional SMS or MMS service that would require only texting add ons. Incoming texts do not require a roaming add on only outgoing texts. But thankfully you're back home and ready to self isolate and you don't have to pay for the roaming add ons. Welcome back to Canada!

Re: Customer support during COVID-19 situation

Mimi33 — Sun, 22 Mar 2020 01:42:51 GMT

Thanks Darlicious

Because E1 in our family have "I" products messages defaults to Imessaging however both SMS and MMS are activated in my settings. At times messages went through using SMS (the bubble turns green from the usual blue colour for iMessaging) during the time period I had data left. Messaging did not work at all after the notification from PM that data was all used up. I tried using ppl's email address instead of iPhone numbers and that didn't work.

Re: Customer support during COVID-19 situation

Mimi33 — Sun, 22 Mar 2020 01:56:25 GMT

LOL...we took turns driving from Tampa to London and started at 11:30 pm so no traffic. Not one car at the Sarnia border helped matters also. I get confused with the types of texting. At times my iphone sent SMS texts (blue bubble turned green) however this didn't happen after text from PM advising I had no data, so I don't understand. I guess if PM offers US texting only it must work then. In the future I could try purchasing texting and not data, and see how it works. That is if we can, or I want to leave of our country again. Thanks

Re: Customer support during COVID-19 situation

darlicious — Sun, 22 Mar 2020 02:42:24 GMT

@Mimi33 That sounds about right driving wise....i did a couple road trips to new Orleans from Toronto back in the day and did it in about 20 hours not counting all the missteps, misadventures and missing piston along the way! Turning off Imessage would have probably helped but I'm sure a couple of our resident Apple users can help with their experiences using roaming like @CalgaryBen and @iPhoneUser . I have a 24 hour stopover in London in September if we can travel again by then...ill have to hit you up in the lounge for some advice on what to do and where to stay for our short stay on the way to nova Scotia. Gotta love Swoop!

Re: Customer support during COVID-19 situation

Mimi33 — Sun, 22 Mar 2020 03:39:52 GMT

Yup...just hope Swoop doesn't go under with this mess. Air Canada stocks are a steal if you have any investments left. We flew home to London at Christmas for $79 US per person (a thousand dollars today with our dollar).

I actually tried that but got a message that I had to have IMessaging on. I do love IMessaging as providers like Bell could not charge for usage (in the day and still with cheaper plans, when texts are limited to a number of texts per month). I really am not complaining as PM is going to give me a credit for the $20 bundle plus (I hope) for the $8 I originally paid for texting only until I talked myself into needing data. 39 new cases of the virus in Pasco county, where our US home is, since we left yesterday. Stay healthy and for sure I can help with your London layover.

Re: Customer support during COVID-19 situation

Bj2001 — Sun, 22 Mar 2020 05:42:50 GMT

Sorry but PM service was crap before this covid19 problem

So will it take 10 days now to get my USA addon working?

Re: Customer support during COVID-19 situation

Bj2001 — Sun, 22 Mar 2020 05:50:32 GMT

I'd love to Thankyou PM for this offer BUT like every other time my USA addons don't work so even though I want to keep in touch with my family in Canada PM can't/won't sort out it out expeditiously.