topic Re: Data add-on just bought, just disappeared?! - SOLVED in Get Support

Data add-on just bought, just disappeared?!

Dis_Gruntled — Thu, 06 Jan 2022 06:50:59 GMT

I ran out of data today, two days before my plan renews in the 21st.

I topped up my balance by $15 and bought a 1 GB data add-on for $15 (highway robbery).

Data access returned, all works fine, phone works fine as a hotspot again.

On the advice of my friendly neighborhood Public Mobile independent retailer, I upgraded my $50/8GB plan to the new $50/10GB plan, set to change over automatically when my plan renews in the 21st.

In the space of a few minutes, my very expensive additional 1 GB of add-on data has disappeared.

Please reinstate this paid service as soon as possible.

Ideally, please respond by text message, as accessing this community board is paainful and slow.

Many thanks always!

Re: Data add-on just bought, just disappeared?!

Anonymous — Mon, 19 Apr 2021 23:07:08 GMT

@Dis_Gruntled : I think you need to rein in your phones data usage. It would seem it blew through that gig in a hurry. I don't think this is on Public Mobile.

Re: Data add-on just bought, just disappeared?!

gpixel — Mon, 19 Apr 2021 23:10:24 GMT

@Dis_Gruntled hotspotting 1gb is not a good idea...

Re: Data add-on just bought, just disappeared?!

Camera4617 — Mon, 19 Apr 2021 23:12:45 GMT

You use your phone as a hotspot? To a laptop or?

Re: Data add-on just bought, just disappeared?!

Dis_Gruntled — Mon, 19 Apr 2021 23:12:48 GMT

No, I did not use 8 GB over 4 weeks and then go crazy and manage to use a whole gig in a few minutes.

I need a customer service ticket from a Public Mobile representative.

Re: Data add-on just bought, just disappeared?!

dabr — Mon, 19 Apr 2021 23:24:41 GMT

@Dis_Gruntled wrote:
No, I did not use 8 GB over 4 weeks and then go crazy and manage to use a whole gig in a few minutes.

I need a customer service ticket from a Public Mobile representative.

@Dis_Gruntled You can contact moderators to take a look at your account if you feel that there's an error in how your data got depleted.

Click this chatbot link and follow prompts to submit a ticket: https://widget.telus.tiia.ai/publicmobile/publicmobile.html

If unable to submit a ticket, you can try private messaging Moderator_Team here: https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/notes/composepage/note-to-user-id/22437

Edit: However, if you are hotspotting then I'm inclined to agree that maybe be the reason why extra gig got depleted quickly. I guess it doesn't hurt to have moderators take a look and confirm what happened.

Re: Data add-on just bought, just disappeared?!

Camera4617 — Mon, 19 Apr 2021 23:21:53 GMT

@Dis_Gruntled wrote:
No, I did not use 8 GB over 4 weeks and then go crazy and manage to use a whole gig in a few minutes.

I need a customer service ticket from a Public Mobile representative.

You'll need to submit ticket by yourself as previous post described. I would check usage to see if there is a log of your usage for that time frame. Based on that you'll know if you really used data (that is my assumption) or something went wrong with add-on.

Re: Data add-on just bought, just disappeared?!

Dis_Gruntled — Mon, 19 Apr 2021 23:41:06 GMT

Thanks @dabr and @Camera4617 for genuinely useful replies.

The chat bot is useless, so I hope that one of the links you’ve suggested works well.

For the interest of the readers of this thread: I only confirmed that my (private, undisplayed) hot spot was working. I did not start using mega bandwidth while simply trying to get my plan updated on selfservice.publicmobile.ca

Re: Data add-on just bought, just disappeared?!

dabr — Mon, 19 Apr 2021 23:49:27 GMT

@Dis_Gruntled wrote:
Thanks @dabr and @Camera4617 for genuinely useful replies.

The chat bot is useless, so I hope that one of the links you’ve suggested works well.

For the interest of the readers of this thread: I only confirmed that my (private, undisplayed) hot spot was working. I did not start using mega bandwidth while simply trying to get my plan updated on selfservice.publicmobile.ca

@Dis_Gruntled Yeah, not too many people enjoy trying to use the chatbot. Personally, I tend to just use the private messaging system and most of the time I'm impressed how quickly (well under an hour) that I've received a response back to verify the account. Hopefully, they can get to the bottom of what happened for you. Good luck!

Re: Data add-on just bought, just disappeared?!

Anonymous — Mon, 19 Apr 2021 23:56:51 GMT

@Dis_Gruntled : So you used a different device to change your plan after you bought the data? I know W10 has a wifi setting that limits data usage when you tell it that the wifi connection is mobile. Maybe that device used "mega bandwidth" when it saw it could.

Re: Data add-on just bought, just disappeared?!

Dis_Gruntled — Tue, 20 Apr 2021 01:48:53 GMT

Thanks all for your suggestions.

@z10user4 , my hot-spot-using laptop is locked down tight with incoming and outgoing firewalls, and cannot just up and suck down a gig of data of its own accord.

A few hours later, and still no reply to the PM I sent @CS_Agent .

I did try the useless chat bot, which really should be taken out behind the barn and put out of its misery.

For your amusement, here is the feedback that I provided the even-more-incompetent survey that popped up after that time-vampire exercise in futility:

Need to submit urgent request for service ticket, not futz with a useless pop-up that doesn't even scroll, so what I'm typing now is hidden behind the on-screen keyboard of my phone.

Re: Data add-on just bought, just disappeared?!

srlawren — Tue, 20 Apr 2021 16:06:05 GMT

@Dis_Gruntled I'm not sure that firewalls are providing you the protection you think they are--they're not really designed to limit data consumption but rather to block certain riskier activities.

I'd recommend you also mark your phone's hotspot as a metered connection on your laptop. This will prevent certain things like background downloading of Windows Updates, will cause Outlook (if you use it) to make you confirm before it connects to check for mail, and so on. It also enables setting data limits on the connection.

Re: Data add-on just bought, just disappeared?!

Dis_Gruntled — Tue, 20 Apr 2021 16:19:56 GMT

Thanks @srlawren and all for your interest and suggestions.

I have replied to @CS_Agent as follows, which should help everyone understand what happened:

Authenticated just now, thank you.

Further information to the thread I referred you to:

I added $15 to my account and received an SMS confirming payment last night Monday at 17:04 h.

I bought a 1 GB data add-on, and then went online and set my plan to update from my existing $50 8.5 GB plan to the new $50 10 GB (or is that 10.5 GB?) plan, automatically tomorrow as my plan renews.

At 17:35 h I was alarmed to receive an SMS that I had used 95% of the data in my service. That’s a whole gig gone in 30 minutes, while my usage has been about 8.5 GB per 30 days, trending for a year or more.

I had only updated my plan as mentioned, and done some *very* light web browsing consistent with my typical usage noted above.

It makes no sense to me, I need the 1 GB I paid for reinstated.

Re: Data add-on just bought, just disappeared?!

Dis_Gruntled — Tue, 20 Apr 2021 16:25:31 GMT

hi @srlawren .

Good advice, and good for everyone here to bear in mind.

I use the outbound firewall Little Snitch ( https://obdev.at ) for Mac, which completely blocks all system and app communications with the internet except for those whitelisted.

During the 30–40 minutes in question, I only used about 30 MB of data.

Re: Data add-on just bought, just disappeared?!

srlawren — Tue, 20 Apr 2021 20:17:14 GMT

@Dis_Gruntled wrote:

During the 30–40 minutes in question, I only used about 30 MB of data.

@Dis_Gruntled fair enough. It's also possible there was something running on your phone you didn't realize. While it may not be a typical experience for you to use up a gig in such a short amount of time, it's far from impossible.

Re: Data add-on just bought, just disappeared?! - SOLVED

Dis_Gruntled — Thu, 22 Apr 2021 02:05:24 GMT

The scientists at @CS_Agent figured it out, so alles gut.

Solvlem probed.

Re: Data add-on just bought, just disappeared?! - SOLVED

darlicious — Thu, 22 Apr 2021 02:26:58 GMT

@Dis_Gruntled

Please do share the moderators big discovery.....?

Re: Data add-on just bought, just disappeared?! - SOLVED

Dis_Gruntled — Thu, 22 Apr 2021 11:04:51 GMT

@darlicious

In truth, I think that they may have taken me at my word and found it entirely inconsistent that —especially for one who keeps their device as tightly-locked-down as I do— I would buy a 1 GB add-on to make it through a few more days until my renewal, then evaporate it in 30 minutes.

@darlicioussaid:

@Dis_Gruntled

Please do share the moderators big discovery.....?

Re: Data add-on just bought, just disappeared?! - SOLVED

gpixel — Thu, 22 Apr 2021 13:45:38 GMT

@Dis_Gruntled

I haven't experienced that scenario yet, but those things do tend to happen here... it's a good thing you monitor your data usage

Re: Data add-on just bought, just disappeared?! - SOLVED

Anonymous — Thu, 22 Apr 2021 13:58:54 GMT

So your @Dis_Gruntled -ment became the victim of goodwill. No answer to the mystery. Just...here you go...carry on.

How nice of them. See ..it's not so bad here. 🙂 Maybe your username could be De_Lighted now. 🙂