topic Re: autopay stopped working and service stopped in Get Support

autopay stopped working and service stopped

MeltingSnowman — Thu, 06 Jan 2022 07:02:34 GMT

I've seen variants of this problem elsewhere on the boards but no firm solutions:

-I have AutoPay on multiple accounts and it has been working well until today (when one of the accounts was due to autopay) and I haven't been able to call/text/surf.on the account that was to autopay.

-I went to self service for the relevant account and see Account Status "Plan expired" with the usual message saying "disregard if you are on AutoPay"

-I've tried topping up both through *611 and through self service but get "Sorry, we are unable to verify your credit card information," Tried this with other accounts (that are not suspended/expired), all with the same result.

-called the credit card company but they say no transactions have been denied (and others vendors have gone through today) so the problem must be on Public Mobile's side. That is, the card is good, not expired, and not over limit.

-AutoPay has worked for me so far. In fact one the accounts was autopaid just a couple of days ago.

Any suggestions?

Re: autopay stopped working and service stopped

JK8 — Fri, 05 Feb 2021 19:50:13 GMT

@MeltingSnowman

Autopay sometimes fail. To prevent you from losing service, the recommendation from the PM forum is to make a payment a few days before your renewal date to cover the cost of the plan. The renewal will take the money out of your Available Funds and you can leave your cc on file for the autopay reward.

Contact a Moderator (Public Mobile representative) for assistance to get your service working.

Get help with your account the easy way by starting a conversation with our virtual assistant, u. It’ll take you to relevant help articles, or if it’s something more urgent, it can help you submit a ticket to the Moderator Team. Click here to get started.
Alternatively, you can send a private message to the Moderators by clicking here. You’ll need to be logged in to your Community account for the link to work.

Re: autopay stopped working and service stopped

BearFBI — Fri, 05 Feb 2021 19:54:26 GMT

@MeltingSnowman Make sure your Credit Card didn't expire. Ive had this happen to me. I had no service for the whole day and never realized untill someone said they tried calling me. I opened up selfserve and remembered I forgot to update my card info. Try doing that.

Under selfserve overview click on payments, then at the bottom click on manage my card, then replace this card, re enter your CC info and try paying again

Re: autopay stopped working and service stopped

MeltingSnowman — Fri, 05 Feb 2021 19:56:08 GMT

VIrtual assistant is virtually useless ... just gives me the run-around.

Re: autopay stopped working and service stopped

MeltingSnowman — Fri, 05 Feb 2021 19:58:35 GMT

As mentioned my original post .... card is not expired/over limit/etc ... and credit card company said they did not receive any payment requests from Public Mobile today/yesterday. So the problem is with Public Mobile ... not the card.

Re: autopay stopped working and service stopped

BearFBI — Fri, 05 Feb 2021 20:00:07 GMT

@MeltingSnowman wrote:
VIrtual assistant is virtually useless ... just gives me the run-around.

@MeltingSnowman Dont bother with SIMON. Its absolute garbage. We can help you out here on the forum, and if we cant the moderators are tier 2 for help.

Re: autopay stopped working and service stopped

BearFBI — Fri, 05 Feb 2021 20:06:41 GMT

@MeltingSnowman Have you tried the lost/stolen trick ?

In self-serve, go to the plans/add-ons tab and click on "Lost/Stolen Phone" and suspend your service. Wait a few minutes and then reactivate your service.

If that dosent work then follow @JK8's instructions to submit a ticket to the moderators

Re: autopay stopped working and service stopped

kb_mv — Fri, 05 Feb 2021 20:11:41 GMT

@MeltingSnowman wrote:
VIrtual assistant is virtually useless ... just gives me the run-around.

@MeltingSnowman I think SIMon has a steep learning curve not for the faint of heart lol. All you need to is this:

1. Click Chat Bubble and type "Open Ticket"

2. Click "Contact PM Support"

3. Select "Account Specific Question"

4. Click "No, I Need A Human Now"

5. Select the link "Click Here To Submit A Ticket"

6. This opens a new window. Log in with Community Account NOT your self serve. Follow prompts.

Re: autopay stopped working and service stopped

Luddite — Fri, 05 Feb 2021 20:19:07 GMT

@MeltingSnowman Indeed bugs crawl about in PM's systems. Fingers crossed they continue to miss me.

Get Fongo, or TextNow, as backup for calling/texting; free when on wifi.

Re: autopay stopped working and service stopped

MeltingSnowman — Fri, 05 Feb 2021 20:35:09 GMT

@BearFBI I've tried the lost/stolen trick and it didn't work. From what I gather, my account was already suspended (notwithstanding the message telling me to disregard the suspension if I'm on AutoPay).

It is interesting to note, as I mentioned in my original post, that while I'm feeling the pain on one particular account (because the service is suspended), I get the same credit-card-not-accepted message if I try to make top up payments on non-suspended PM accounts (wife and kids) that use the same credit card. So it appears to be a credit-card-specific problem on PM's side (since the credit card company says they're not receiving payment requests from PM) as opposed to an PM-account-specific problem (because the credit card payments are not going through on any PM account).

I'll submit a ticket.

Re: autopay stopped working and service stopped

dabr — Fri, 05 Feb 2021 21:15:45 GMT

@MeltingSnowman Have you tried removing the CC first and then adding it back yet? Or even replace it with a different CC. Then see if you can make a manual payment and reactivate your service.

Make sure you have cleared your cache/cookies and use a different browser with incognito/privacy mode enabled before attempting to add your CC. Also just a reminder that the info for name/address matches what's on your CC statement and no spacing for postal code.

Re: autopay stopped working and service stopped

MeltingSnowman — Sun, 07 Feb 2021 16:40:48 GMT

Just a followup on how this was resolved...

I contacted a moderator and the solution apparently was to "whitelist" my credit card. When I asked what, specifically, the problem was, the moderator responded "From our knowledge, this type of situation appears when updates on the bank side are performed and small details get changed related to the account on their part that leads to this mismatch."

This is all very curious because as I mentioned in my original post, I contacted the credit card company and they said PM had not made any payment requests that were declined. And, as far as I can see (by looking at my credit card account online), the bank has not unilaterally changed my information (e.g., my name, the way my address is expressed etc). Additionally, I have since made other online credit card purchases elsewhere with previously-stored information and everything continues to work fine.

Bottom line: whatever the moderator did, it's working for now. Let's see what happens on the next AutoPay date. By the way, I also asked the moderator the truth/necessity of avoiding AutoPay problems by making "manual" payments before AutoPay dates --- but they didn't comment on that.

Re: autopay stopped working and service stopped

hairbag1 — Sun, 07 Feb 2021 16:59:22 GMT

@MeltingSnowman...

on the evening of your renewal, your rewards are converted to $$ in Available Funds. If there's not enough $$ in Available Funds for your renewal...the process then asks your on-file credit card or debit card for the remainder. For various reasons, the renewal process has been known to glitch out on rare occasions.

By manually adding $$ to Available Funds, that seems to minimize occurrence of the "autopay glitch" that could potentially occur.

Most times, the problem is caused by incorrect credit card info....but not always.

I haven't had any problem with payment since I've adopted this method.

Re: autopay stopped working and service stopped

Dunkman — Sun, 07 Feb 2021 17:01:26 GMT

@MeltingSnowman

Thanks for update. The payment system is finicky at times.

You could try to manually load $1 into your available balance. If that works, then your credit card should be set up properly for next payment date. As mentioned before, you could also manually load up the full amount a day or so before your due date. Kinda of a hassle and defeats the purpose of having autopay.

Re: autopay stopped working and service stopped

tpwade — Sun, 07 Feb 2021 18:05:09 GMT

This problem just hit me now. MC not expired, no reason for the payment to be declined. I'd say something funky would seem to be happening on the Public mobile end. The odd thing is, my payment is normally processed on the 8th, but I got the payment could not be processed notice today on the 7th. . . I switched it to another MC, and made a payment just to make sure things didn't go sideways. This really shouldn't have been necessary. PM need to fix this so it doesn't keep messing up their users. I shouldn't have had to spend an hour trying to figure this out.

Re: autopay stopped working and service stopped

Anonymous — Sun, 07 Feb 2021 18:08:50 GMT

@tpwade : There's no "normally processed" day. It's a floating 30 days...not a month.

But yes autopay should be much more solid than it is.

Re: autopay stopped working and service stopped

nerasmus — Fri, 12 Mar 2021 16:34:57 GMT

This is unacceptable!! Seems to be a common problem; too common. What is the use of autopay, and even the reactivate option? This is the second time that this happened to me and the last time - I am dropping Public mobile. Public mobile's OWN system fails, then they disable your account as well as block you form of payment, meaning you cannot activate without spending hours on the web with a moderator? Does that make any sense in this day and age? No! Bye-bye public mobile.

I was told Public Mobile uses an old pre-paid system that they tried to configure in order to handle autopay. Well that is not working very well. I don't think people should be subject to ad-hoc service cuts and hours of frustrating work for a fault that lies with the service provider.

Re: autopay stopped working and service stopped

JK8 — Fri, 12 Mar 2021 16:36:50 GMT

@nerasmus

Re: autopay stopped working and service stopped

nerasmus — Fri, 12 Mar 2021 16:40:47 GMT

Having to make a payment before the autopay date is the same as not having autopay. If you cannot promise an working autopay service, don't make that promise and take down the service.

Re: autopay stopped working and service stopped

Camera4617 — Fri, 12 Mar 2021 16:43:59 GMT

@JK8 wrote:
@nerasmus

Autopay sometimes fail. To prevent you from losing service, the recommendation from the PM forum is to make a payment a few days before your renewal date to cover the cost of the plan. The renewal will take the money out of your Available Funds and you can leave your cc on file for the autopay reward.

Yeah and that's what I do for my 2 lines. But what if I managed more like 5-6 lines? To login and pay for each once in 30 days is quite time consuming. PM should resolve this issue for multiple reasons and one is that they will make more money if system doesn't fail. Also, customers need reliable service, not the one that is out of blue failing to renew. So, while I'm kind of OK with paying manually, I'm not happy about it and it will me matter of time when you ask yourself 'is this worth my time'?