topic Three must have options in Get Support

Three must have options

geopublic — Wed, 05 Jan 2022 10:19:08 GMT

I know that this will probably be falling on deaf ears but here goes anyways...Who knows maybe someone from the PM stumbles upon this post and.....Yeah right, back to reality!!.

Lock account option: To improve security and protect one's account from SIM hijacking or similar allow the customer to make this selection via selfserve. Once selected it means that the forgot password option or resetting my account by a moderator will not be possible.
Renew existing plan early: What's so complicated about implementing this option? Why does a moderator need to be involved.? It's not like they don't have enough to deal with around here.
US Roaming add-ons: Charge by the day and allow the user to pick their start and end date. 10 day limit makes no sense.
~~Calling add-ons~~: ~~Offer Canada-Only, US-Only and International-Only talk add-ons. That way one doesn't have to worry about what minutes are being subtracted from which add-on as is currently the case.~~ Edit: This is not needed anymore since PM has annouced that changes have been made to the system so that minutes will be subtracted from the correct bucket from now on. Nice!!

Re: Four must have options

Anonymous — Mon, 10 Jun 2019 15:53:44 GMT

Huh? What? Pardon? Were you saying something?

🙂

With ya on 2, 3, 4...not 1.

Re: Four must have options

geopublic — Mon, 10 Jun 2019 15:56:28 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Huh? What? Pardon? Were you saying something?
🙂

With ya on 2, 3, 4...not 1.

LOL, For me 1 is a must and is optional so you must opt-in if you wish.

Re: Four must have options

will13am — Mon, 10 Jun 2019 16:11:06 GMT

1 is not gonna happen. There has to be a master key. Otherwise we are going to see cases where customers lock their account and cannot unlock it leading to lost accounts.

2 was supposed to happen. At least that is what I thought.

3 is a big ask. In the roughly 3 years I have been here, there's been no movement on the roaming front. My favorite saying "Get the service for what it is, not what you wish it to be"

4 is available today.

Re: Four must have options

geopublic — Mon, 10 Jun 2019 16:15:12 GMT

@will13am wrote:
1 is not gonna happen. There has to be a master key. Otherwise we are going to see cases where customers lock their account and cannot unlock it leading to lost accounts.

2 was supposed to happen. At least that is what I thought.

3 is a big ask. In the roughly 3 years I have been here, there's been no movement on the roaming front. My favorite saying "Get the service for what it is, not what you wish it to be"

4 is available today.

@will13am Great! I thought it was:

Canada: Canada wide

Canada-US: Canada & US

Canada-US-International: Canada, US + the other 17 countries on the list.

Re: Four must have options

geopublic — Mon, 10 Jun 2019 16:25:32 GMT

@will13am wrote:
1 is not gonna happen. There has to be a master key. Otherwise we are going to see cases where customers lock their account and cannot unlock it leading to lost accounts.

Honestly I don't see a problem if it's strictly opt-in and fairly out of sight with a disclaimer it's a must for those that value their privacy.

2 was supposed to happen. At least that is what I thought.

3 is a big ask. In the roughly 3 years I have been here, there's been no movement on the roaming front. My favorite saying "Get the service for what it is, not what you wish it to be"

Understood but there is a large number of customers myself included that will not purchase the current US Roaming add-ons. It is what it is I guess.

4 is available today.

Not the way I'm proposing it to be implemented. As other customers have reported if I purchased as Canada-US add-on and then a Canada add-on and made a call in Canada then the Canada-US add-on minutes will get used. Why? If add-ons are exclusive it keeps everything simple and they will work as they should.

Re: Four must have options

Anonymous — Mon, 10 Jun 2019 16:26:13 GMT

@will13am wrote:

4 is available today.

Kinda. But not what geopublic was suggesting.

Re: Four must have options

stonechucker — Mon, 10 Jun 2019 16:30:10 GMT

@geopublic wrote:
I know that this will probably be falling on deaf ears but here goes anyways...Who knows maybe someone from the PM stumbles upon this post and.....Yeah right, back to reality!!.

Lock account option: To improve security and protect one's account from SIM hijacking or similar allow the customer to make this selection via selfserve. Once selected it means that the forgot password option or resetting my account by a moderator will not be possible.
Renew existing plan early: What's so complicated about implementing this option? Why does a moderator need to be involved.? It's not like they don't have enough to deal with around here.
US Roaming add-ons: Charge by the day and allow the user to pick their start and end date. 10 day limit makes no sense.
Calling add-ons: Offer Canada-Only, US-Only and International-Only talk add-ons. That way one doesn't have to worry about what minutes are being subtracted from which add-on as is currently the case.

@geopublic, to be SIMjacked, you've really got to have a poor password keeping secret problem, and/or letting too many people have access to your information you use to set up and maintain your account. I use a password manager for strong unique passwords, and they are shared with no one. If someone has access to your phone number and knows your personal information, porting a number out of one service to another provider can happen to anyone, but changing the SIM within the same provider is much more difficult. Any unauthorized transfer of a phone number can be reversed when it happens, and at that time all account passwords should be forced changed, especially if you use the same password for multiple accounts. Using a password manager is a best practice - you don't even need to know the password yourself if you allow the system to auto-generate it for you.

Renew plan early. No, I don't like this idea. There are already options to get around this issue. 1, for data, buy add-ons. 2, for expired minutes on a limited calling plan, buy LD minutes. For expired SMS on the $10 plan, immediate change to the $15 plan, the extra $5 is a no brainer.

US Roaming - pick a date. Not required, as the majority of folks will not need to activate the roaming until they're travelling to the US, or already there. *Subscribers* need to make their devices ready (ie roaming allowed, search for a network, allow data roaming) ahead of time. The beauty about PM is the domestic roaming is not allowed, as you can't be charged for it, so roaming can actually be left on all the time unless you're in closer locations to the US border.

As for the LD options, until recently, the two packages for LD were fine for almost everyone, except for those who desire to call locations other than the 18 countries allowed by the $15 package. Ensuring the new $5 Canada wide option actually is used first is the primary concern in my view, then use the other addons as required by usage type, and doing the same evaluation of Canada 1st, US second, and international always in the $15.

I'm on a province-wide plan, I rarely use minutes, as I've had the $8 addon since November 2016, and I still have 177 minutes available of Canada and US calling.

If you require any of these options, maybe you should look elsewhere. Public Mobile isn't for everyone. I use Public Mobile as the service that it is - no more, no less. It suits my need. Until such time it doesn't, no changes required, it has options for me.

Re: Four must have options

geopublic — Mon, 10 Jun 2019 16:32:42 GMT

@stonechucker wrote:
@geopublic wrote:
I know that this will probably be falling on deaf ears but here goes anyways...Who knows maybe someone from the PM stumbles upon this post and.....Yeah right, back to reality!!.

Lock account option: To improve security and protect one's account from SIM hijacking or similar allow the customer to make this selection via selfserve. Once selected it means that the forgot password option or resetting my account by a moderator will not be possible.
Renew existing plan early: What's so complicated about implementing this option? Why does a moderator need to be involved.? It's not like they don't have enough to deal with around here.
US Roaming add-ons: Charge by the day and allow the user to pick their start and end date. 10 day limit makes no sense.
Calling add-ons: Offer Canada-Only, US-Only and International-Only talk add-ons. That way one doesn't have to worry about what minutes are being subtracted from which add-on as is currently the case.

@geopublic, to be SIMjacked, you've really got to have a poor password keeping secret problem, and/or letting too many people have access to your information you use to set up and maintain your account. I use a password manager for strong unique passwords, and they are shared with no one. If someone has access to your phone number and knows your personal information, porting a number out of one service to another provider can happen to anyone, but changing the SIM within the same provider is much more difficult. Any unauthorized transfer of a phone number can be reversed when it happens, and at that time all account passwords should be forced changed, especially if you use the same password for multiple accounts. Using a password manager is a best practice - you don't even need to know the password yourself if you allow the system to auto-generate it for you.

Renew plan early. No, I don't like this idea. There are already options to get around this issue. 1, for data, buy add-ons. 2, for expired minutes on a limited calling plan, buy LD minutes. For expired SMS on the $10 plan, immediate change to the $15 plan, the extra $5 is a no brainer.

US Roaming - pick a date. Not required, as the majority of folks will not need to activate the roaming until they're travelling to the US, or already there. *Subscribers* need to make their devices ready (ie roaming allowed, search for a network, allow data roaming) ahead of time. The beauty about PM is the domestic roaming is not allowed, as you can't be charged for it, so roaming can actually be left on all the time unless you're in closer locations to the US border.

As for the LD options, until recently, the two packages for LD were fine for almost everyone, except for those who desire to call locations other than the 18 countries allowed by the $15 package. Ensuring the new $5 Canada wide option actually is used first is the primary concern in my view, then use the other addons as required by usage type, and doing the same evaluation of Canada 1st, US second, and international always in the $15.

I'm on a province-wide plan, I rarely use minutes, as I've had the $8 addon since November 2016, and I still have 177 minutes available of Canada and US calling.

If you require any of these options, maybe you should look elsewhere. Public Mobile isn't for everyone. I use Public Mobile as the service that it is - no more, no less. It suits my need. Until such time it doesn't, no changes required, it has options for me.

@stonechucker So i guess in your world there is no room from improvement.

Re: Four must have options

stonechucker — Mon, 10 Jun 2019 16:37:21 GMT

There's always room for improvement, these just are not *must have* in my opinion.

Costs associated with making these happen are costs better spent on resolving issues that currently continue to plague Public Mobile.

Re: Four must have options

geopublic — Mon, 10 Jun 2019 16:48:05 GMT

@stonechucker Understood. Thanks for your input.

Re: Four must have options

popping — Mon, 10 Jun 2019 16:48:23 GMT

These options are nice to have. We need a cheaper 3G only data add-on. We will not need to self-serve plan renewal early feature.

Re: Four must have options

will13am — Mon, 10 Jun 2019 16:55:00 GMT

I have a province wide calling plan. I used to carry the international calling add-on primarily for calls to the EU. Recently I purchased the Canada wide calling add-on. Just for fun, I made some out of province calls and the system took minutes from the right bin. Perhaps some accounts have issues, from my perspective, the Canada wide minutes work as advertised.

Re: Four must have options

geopublic — Mon, 10 Jun 2019 16:58:21 GMT

@will13am wrote:
I have a province wide calling plan. I used to carry the international calling add-on primarily for calls to the EU. Recently I purchased the Canada wide calling add-on. Just for fun, I made some out of province calls and the system took minutes from the right bin. Perhaps some accounts have issues, from my perspective, the Canada wide minutes work as advertised.

@will13am Glad to hear that it's working for you but how would you feel if it was taking it out of the International minutes bucket? Ideally it should work the same for all IMHO and according to some reports it's not.

Re: Four must have options

Anonymous — Mon, 10 Jun 2019 17:39:02 GMT

@geopublic wrote:
@will13am wrote:
I have a province wide calling plan. I used to carry the international calling add-on primarily for calls to the EU. Recently I purchased the Canada wide calling add-on. Just for fun, I made some out of province calls and the system took minutes from the right bin. Perhaps some accounts have issues, from my perspective, the Canada wide minutes work as advertised.
@will13am Glad to hear that it's working for you but how would you feel if it was taking it out of the International minutes bucket? Ideally it should work the same for all IMHO and according to some reports it's not.

Yup. I'm one. $10 plan. Had the 200 originally. Bought the 500 as soon as it was known. Used all my minutes which flipped over to...the 200. Conversations already in process.

Which is why I agree with having the separate add-ons as suggested. OR...make it so the different add-ons make sense as to which bucket to take from. The logic problem is that they ALL have Canada calling in them.

Re: Four must have options

oneworld — Mon, 10 Jun 2019 17:53:46 GMT

With regard to option #1: I think #1 (or a similar solution to the problem) is a MUST HAVE. I don't think the carriers in general are addressing social engineering well enough, especially when csr's are stressed and overwhelmed by volume. But its a bean counter business case thing meaning comparing.... (X) Until current or potential subscriber business loss from NOT implementing #1 becomes great or greater, nothing will be done. (Y) That loss in X will be compared to the probable business loss from complaints around "what do you mean you can't unlock my account i don't remember ever clicking on any option to that effect". I think when X far outweighs the potential problems of Y, the #1 option will then be taken very seriously. Personally and anecdotally from looking in general at forums and items in the news, i think X > Y already or at least moving towards it. We can't really know, just my two cents. (Oh also there are ways to fix clicking on a box in error as in Y above, e.g. multiple serious warnings or making it hard to find that box in the first place etc. etc).

Re: Four must have options

geopublic — Tue, 18 Jun 2019 15:05:41 GMT

@geopublic wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
Huh? What? Pardon? Were you saying something?
🙂

With ya on 2, 3, 4...not 1.
LOL, For me 1 is a must and is optional so you must opt-in if you wish.

Here is another horror story and why having the ability to lock your account is a must.

Re: Four must have options

srlawren — Tue, 18 Jun 2019 19:58:17 GMT

@geopublic wrote:
@geopublic wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
Huh? What? Pardon? Were you saying something?
🙂

With ya on 2, 3, 4...not 1.
LOL, For me 1 is a must and is optional so you must opt-in if you wish.
Here is another horror story and why having the ability to lock your account is a must.

@geopublic I get the horror stories, but the irony here is you could end up locking yourself out permanently. I don't think this is practical ask.

This is a sincere question: do any Canadian mobile providers offer the ability to lock your account in the way that you're asking for? Would be curious to know,

EDIT: one more thought here. You are of course welcome to think of things you'd like changed and suggest them here, but if I've learned one thing in my 3.5 years in the community, it's that PM is horribly, horrendously, stupendously SLOW at making changes like this, if they will consider them at all. This is very much a WYSIWYG provider. So if these truely are MUST HAVES for you, then my best advice would be to look for another provider that offers them and move your business there. I do not mean this in a snarky way at all--more a pragmatic view that you may be a waiting a very long time to see anything like these things here.

Re: Four must have options

geopublic — Tue, 18 Jun 2019 20:12:43 GMT

@srlawren wrote:
@geopublic wrote:
@geopublic wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
Huh? What? Pardon? Were you saying something?
🙂

With ya on 2, 3, 4...not 1.
LOL, For me 1 is a must and is optional so you must opt-in if you wish.
Here is another horror story and why having the ability to lock your account is a must.

@geopublic I get the horror stories, but the irony here is you could end up locking yourself out permanently. I don't think this is practical ask.

This is a sincere question: do any Canadian mobile providers offer the ability to lock your account in the way that you're asking for? Would be curious to know,

EDIT: one more thought here. You are of course welcome to think of things you'd like changed and suggest them here, but if I've learned one thing in my 3.5 years in the community, it's that PM is horribly, horrendously, stupendously SLOW at making changes like this, if they will consider them at all. This is very much a WYSIWYG provider. So if these truely are MUST HAVES for you, then my best advice would be to look for another provider that offers them and move your business there. I do not mean this in a snarky way at all--more a pragmatic view that you may be a waiting a very long time to see anything like these things here.

@srlawren If I opt in then I accept the risk of locking myself out. As for other providers I don't know but I do know that banks do allow that function. I think it's important because in today's world of you ask I thief to chose between yout wallet or your phone, 9 out 10 will take the phone.

As for the pace of change at PM your point is well taken.

Re: Four must have options

oneworld — Tue, 18 Jun 2019 20:49:05 GMT

@srlawren wrote:
@geopublic wrote:
@geopublic wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
Huh? What? Pardon? Were you saying something?
🙂

With ya on 2, 3, 4...not 1.
LOL, For me 1 is a must and is optional so you must opt-in if you wish.
Here is another horror story and why having the ability to lock your account is a must.

@geopublic I get the horror stories, but the irony here is you could end up locking yourself out permanently. I don't think this is practical ask.

This is a sincere question: do any Canadian mobile providers offer the ability to lock your account in the way that you're asking for? Would be curious to know,

EDIT: one more thought here. You are of course welcome to think of things you'd like changed and suggest them here, but if I've learned one thing in my 3.5 years in the community, it's that PM is horribly, horrendously, stupendously SLOW at making changes like this, if they will consider them at all. This is very much a WYSIWYG provider. So if these truely are MUST HAVES for you, then my best advice would be to look for another provider that offers them and move your business there. I do not mean this in a snarky way at all--more a pragmatic view that you may be a waiting a very long time to see anything like these things here.

Part of the issue around getting locked out is that at least its more difficult to have someone nefariously access your phone and pillage your bank accounts. This may or may not be a big issue here in Canada but there appears to be some kind of increase in the U.S. recently some of which were inside jobs which admittedly makes securing your accounts in general next to impossible.

In any case i just learned that proton email allows you to click a box that disallows reseting that account. This might be an option for some to use instead of their cell phone number in 2FA. To not have any kind of 2FA at all makes some accounts quite vulnerable i would guess.