topic Re: Adds in Get Support

Adds

Norasj — Wed, 05 Jan 2022 14:38:01 GMT

I'm new to public mobile and have noticed I have adds popping up on my cell phone now, I never have before. I had done a factory reset prior to inserting the SIM card. Is this normal?

Re: Adds

gblackma — Sun, 23 Feb 2020 19:44:34 GMT

@Norasj by adds, do you mean the message from Koodo? Telus owns both PM and Koodo . And they sometimes send out upsell messages. If you are referring to spam messages. Block them, we all get them.

@Norasj wrote:
I'm new to public mobile and have noticed I have adds popping up on my cell phone now, I never have before. I had done a factory reset prior to inserting the SIM card. Is this normal?

Re: Adds

Lowufo — Sun, 23 Feb 2020 19:46:37 GMT

Have never seen an ad on my phone so not sure were you are seeing them?

Re: Adds

Dunkman — Sun, 23 Feb 2020 19:47:37 GMT

@Norasj

More details would be helpful.

Do you mean spam phone calls? spam texts? emails? Text messages from PM?

Did you register a new phone number? or port over a number from another carrier?

Re: Adds

gjong26 — Sun, 23 Feb 2020 19:49:08 GMT

The ads can come from the apps you have downloaded on your phone as well. You can disable notifications by going through your app settings. Some apps use push text messages but these can be turned off

Re: Adds

ChuckYeah — Sun, 23 Feb 2020 19:53:33 GMT

If you have accepted notifications from websites they will produce ads too. Clearing your browser may help that.

Re: Adds

iPhoneUser — Sun, 23 Feb 2020 20:06:08 GMT

@Lowufo wrote:
Have never seen an ad on my phone so not sure were you are seeing them?

Me too no ads.

Only texts for payment soon due.

Can you send some screen prints of them?

Did you port your number or take a new one?

Re: Adds

ddeep91 — Sun, 23 Feb 2020 20:06:56 GMT

There could be multiple reasons for the ads to appear on the phone.

If you have tried to install an application outside of "playstore/appstore" that app itself can bring ads to the phone.

to fix this: go through your recent installed applications and see if you can locate the app

If you visit the website and a popup appeared saying Content to be "Allow or block", and you clicked allow that will push ads to your phone.

To fix this: try to clear your browsing history/catch on the browser.

Cheers

Re: Adds

Luddite — Sun, 23 Feb 2020 20:13:51 GMT

@Norasj If you selected a good looking new number rather than porting your old number, I had the same issue. Died down after couple of months, when combined with adding every such call to my block list.

Re: Adds

lorca01 — Sun, 23 Feb 2020 21:42:14 GMT

I also got several ads by text when I got a new number with Public. They were from stores the previous holder of the phone number was getting special offers from. Some told me what to do if I didn't want them anymore, like text 1 if you want to cancel text offers, and one I just had to text STOP and they thanked me and said I was removed from their text offers.

Re: Adds

Anonymous — Sun, 23 Feb 2020 21:49:55 GMT

lol

And yet everybody goes bananas when a spam arrives in their private message inbox that is an innocuous invite. Not some blatant ad screaming at you - buy our product!!

First world problems.

Re: Adds

Korth — Sun, 23 Feb 2020 22:53:59 GMT

@Norasj

Public Mobile does send SMS/MMS notifications from a group of different numbers. Here's a list of the ones I've observed:

https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Discussions/quot-Public-Mobile-here-quot-numbers/td-p/426754

If you're new to PM with a new number then you might have inherited one the spammers still have targeted (they successfully scammed a victim at that number, or whatever reason). If you're not especially attached to your PM number then login Self-Serve and request a number change - it's free (once per month) but might take a day or two to complete.

The phone might have malware, spyware, junkware, adware. Not just malicious stuff but simply unwanted payloads installed by the phone vendor (which will likely persist after hard resets) or by other apps/services/components you've routinely installed.

Clean everything up and evaluate all the things you use or don't use (along with alternatives) with a critical eye. Trust nothing.

Probably not necessary, but changing all your PINs and passwords for cloud sign-ins, emails, voicemails, accounts wouldn't hurt.