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[ISSUE RESOLVED] Renewal and Payment Due Date in Self-Serve

Tiana_V
Public Mobile
Public Mobile

Hi Community, 

 

Great news! We wanted to let you know that our technical team has been successful in addressing a known issue in our Self-Serve portal. We also want to extend a big thank you to our customers who flagged this issue for us. 

 

Previously, on the Overview and Payment pages in Self-Serve the Payment Due Date was overstated by one day. It actually reflected the plan renewal date. We’ve since changed Self-serve to reflect the renewal date. All payments are due before the renewal date in order to ensure continuous service on your account. You’ll see this as “Payment Due Before” on the Overview page, for example. 

 

We're constantly working to improve our systems and fix any bugs. We’re excited to be able to cross this one off our to-do list. Let us know what you think below!

 

- The Public Mobile Community Team

109 REPLIES 109

popping
Retired Oracle / Oracle Retraité

Your account features will be reset at midnight ET of your renewal day.

Your account status will be changed to expired before midnight.  Don't panic if your phone is still working.

 

Between midnight and 2 am ET, your rewards will be added to your account.

After 2 am ET, PM will withdraw fund from autopay card to topup your available fund and renew your plan. 

 

Something is wrong if the available fund does not have enough to pay your plan fee.  Your renewal will fail and your phone stop working.

 

Around mid morning, your will receive 2 text messages.  

1.  congrats you of getting rewards

2.  thank you for your payment and renewal successfully

OR

     failed to renew.   I don't know the content as have not had a renewal failure yet.

 


@Nezgar wrote:

@pm-smayer97 wrote:

Technically it should be stated as ET, NOT EST, as the 2AM time holds in all seasons.


100% Agree!

 

Or maybe 12:00AM/Midnight "Mountain Time" (as in Alberta) 🤔😄


Well they have to pick one time zone and since this is an Eastern- time zone based company, ET makes sense. Don't take it personally...lol


@pm-smayer97 wrote:

Technically it should be stated as ET, NOT EST, as the 2AM time holds in all seasons.


100% Agree!

 

Or maybe 12:00AM/Midnight "Mountain Time" (as in Alberta) 🤔😄


@Nezgar wrote:

All this talk about plans renewing at 2AM EST...

 

When it's actually EDT right now for half the year....

 

EST would technically be 1 hour off. 😉 Darn daylight saving...


Technically it should be stated as ET, NOT EST NOR EDT, as the 2AM time holds in all seasons.

All this talk about plans renewing at 2AM EST...

 

When it's actually EDT right now for half the year....

 

EST would technically be 1 hour off. 😉 Darn daylight saving...

jedjammer
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

I have had no issues at all since Feb 2020


@danirozados91 wrote:

Hello, is it possible to do an early payment to restart my plan (4-5 days earlier than my autopayment day) ?

 

Thanks


If you want to renew the same plan early you need to contact a moderator using this link.

https://www.publicmobile.ca/en/bc/get-help/articles/contact-a-moderator

Are you on a limited plan or out of data? You could buy an add on and whatever is not consumed rolls over.

danirozados91
Great Neighbour / Super Voisin

Hello, is it possible to do an early payment to restart my plan (4-5 days earlier than my autopayment day) ?

 

Thanks

jor123
Town Hero / Héro de la Ville

Good to see a fix 🙂 

Pawprints1986
Deputy Mayor / Adjoint au Maire

@maximum_gato oh wow that doesn't sound good. Hopefully that was a weird one off fluke thing when it took a full day to renew ! That must have gotten  frustrating especially if you normally use you phone as a phone often (and not on WiFi just playing around lol). Like that would suck to own a business and have that happen on a work day 😕

@Pawprints1986  I've only had an account use autopay once when I forgot to top up I don't think theres any noticeable difference in plan renewal. The system can be delayed in your renewal idea seen it take payment at 5am pt  and reset the data about two hours after that. It can very rarely have a renewal fail. So despite having enough in the balance to cover the plan Ive had the renewal fail after converting the rewards and charging the $10 plan fee but not the data amount. The renewal failed my account suspended and it took about 36 hours to get it active again.

@banny  The idiosyncrasies of the usage history in your account. Texts sent and recieved are recorded at eastern time. Calls outgoing and incoming that are answered are recorded in local time. Calls that go to voicemail are recorded at eastern time. Data used (web) is pooled and recorded in 12 hr updates twice a day.

Pawprints1986
Deputy Mayor / Adjoint au Maire

@hairbag1 I actually did this my last (or, first, technically) renewal, but only because i had seen its not all too uncommon for payment not going through properly to cause disruption, but I didn't think the funds being available actually helped make it more seamless too

 

Like, if people let it go through with autopay instead of adding funds ahead of time, does that process take a bit longer to switch over to the new plan cycle? 

 

I know what I'm trying to ask, I hope you do too 😂

banny
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

I didn't realize that it was Eastern time. I made the call at 1024 pm local time -Pacific (124 eastern). But I did check right before I made the call and the plan had not turned over - it said I still had plenty of remaining minutes. Also my call history says that I made the call at 1024, so i assume it was 1024..while texts oddly are listed at eastern time I see now. So another glitch they need to fix in my opinion. Completely illogical.

 

Thanks for the info.

@banny 


@banny wrote:

I'm still confused. Yesterday I knew my account would be charged on the 23rd. My account showed that I had minutes left to use before it turned over (I have the 100 minute plan). So I phoned someone last night for 60 minutes. I check my account today and the plan had turned over and I only have 40 minutes left - the 60 minutes was taken off the next month it seems!


When did you make your call?  The plan does expire at 11:59 PM EST.  

 

A screenshot of your payment history page might show when your plan exactly renewed.  


@banny wrote:

I'm still confused. Yesterday I knew my account would be charged on the 23rd. My account showed that I had minutes left to use before it turned over (I have the 100 minute plan). So I phoned someone last night for 60 minutes. I check my account today and the plan had turned over and I only have 40 minutes left - the 60 minutes was taken off the next month it seems!


I believe the renewal time is at 2 am Eastern Time so that may account for your time being lost.

banny
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

I'm still confused. Yesterday I knew my account would be charged on the 23rd. My account showed that I had minutes left to use before it turned over (I have the 100 minute plan). So I phoned someone last night for 60 minutes. I check my account today and the plan had turned over and I only have 40 minutes left - the 60 minutes was taken off the next month it seems!

BearFBI
Deputy Mayor / Adjoint au Maire

@hairbag1 wrote:

 

It's literally, "not worth losing sleep over" huh !! Long as the phone works when you want it to.

 


It really isint worth loosing sleep over but im just curios. 


@BearFBI wrote:

@RossN wrote:

@Pawprints1986 hi yes your service is seemless


I actually never knew that. I though the service would be cut for a few seconds while it was renewing the cycle. I always wondered what happened if you made a call during that time. Would the call be dropped during that few seconds. It really dosent bother me as i sleep through it. And i don't make calls all night. I gotta try that on my next renewal. 


It's literally, "not worth losing sleep over" huh !! Long as the phone works when you want it to.

 

😷

BearFBI
Deputy Mayor / Adjoint au Maire

@RossN wrote:

@Pawprints1986 hi yes your service is seemless


I actually never knew that. I though the service would be cut for a few seconds while it was renewing the cycle. I always wondered what happened if you made a call during that time. Would the call be dropped during that few seconds. It really dosent bother me as i sleep through it. And i don't make calls all night. I gotta try that on my next renewal. 


@Pawprints1986 wrote:

So, for those of us who have to keep weird hours and aren't sleep at 2am or sometimes 6am still have seamless service as long as we've paid already? 


To ensure your scheduled plan renewal goes smooth, you can load $$ into Available Funds a few days before the next renewal. You can load $$ with your valid credit card or payment vouchers. (if you have a valid credit card, you can add it on your account and enable Autopay ...that way you'll still get the Autopay reward even if you use vouchers to pay for your plan renewal.)

@Pawprints1986 hi yes your service is seemless

Pawprints1986
Deputy Mayor / Adjoint au Maire

So, for those of us who have to keep weird hours and aren't sleep at 2am or sometimes 6am still have seamless service as long as we've paid already? 

@Tiana_V @Vivian_Y 

 

Thanks for finally getting this cleaned up!

 

P.S. One small change would be more accurate: on the Payment tab, where it says "Next Payment Taken: it should say "Next Auto-Payment Taken: "

 

It is minor but it would be more accurate.

Anonymous
Not applicable

 @pm-smayer97 

You weren't the only one writing screeds to the powers that be. I wrote something back when popping noticed the date change late in the fall.

But you have apparently been more prolific over a longer period of time 🙂

A bit of history about how we got here:

 

1.  back before Oct 2018, PM used to have at least 4 different labels for the dates, with 2 dates present: Renewal date, Expiry Date (which is the same as the Renewal Date), Payment Due date, and AutoPay Date. The problem was that it was completely inconsistent and inaccurate. The exact same date would have 2 different contradicting labels depending on where you were looking inside Self-Serve. It was also incorrect in the context of an active account vs an expired account.

 

I raised this issue and documented this extensively. With some guidance, the date, the respective labels, and any language associated with each one was eventually cleaned up around Nov 2018 (under the guise of Alan_K) and all was well (at least good enough that it was consistent).

 

2.  Around Nov 2019, someone fooled around with the dates in Self-Serve such that the Payment Due date was replaced with the Renewal Date BUT the wording on all the pages was not changed. This created contradictions such that users not on AutoPay would think they had an extra day to make their payment but could lose service 24 hours earlier (a little less than 24 hours, since payment processing times are at 2 AM for application of rewards and autopay and 6 AM for renewing plans). It also meant that anyone on AutoPay trying to suspend their plan before AutoPay would trigger and their plan renew would miss the deadline by a day.

 

It took me a couple of months to realize this change and its impact (I thought I was reading and remembering things wrong at first). So, again I painstakingly documented the problems all over again. It took submitting this to 9 (yes NINE) Mods because none of them understood the problem (UGH!). After much effort, I finally was able to get this escalated to management to get this addressed.

 

So now we have the result of that. Now at least all is cleaned up and consistent and makes sense. Self-Serve never made mention of the 2 AM (ET) cycle, so though not precise, the wording in Self-serve is accurate enough. This label is meant to represent the date for any manual payments. 

 

Of course, those in the know understand that payment is triggered at 2 AM. Now that date is simply labelled "Payment due before: <date>." but of course AutoPay is triggered at 2 AM on that date, 2 hours later than implied.

 

Of course, the most precise language, as it stands now, would be to say "Payment due before 2 AM on <date>." So what is there now is not as precise. Oh well. Not my exact choice but close enough. The worst case is someone will make a manual payment 2 hours earlier than the absolutely need to. It is much better than being late by almost a day under both scenarios presented above.

 

BTW, Alan_K no longer manages Self-Serve. That now falls to Tiana_V.

 

Anonymous
Not applicable

@gblackma wrote:

@Anonymous  I just was in the self service account it now says due before the 611 date. Ie if the 611 date is due at 2 am May 25th. The self service account now says due before May 25th. Should say due at 2am May 25th like 611 does. 


Yeah it does seem they just changed it. You and I both saw what we saw.

So all good. I agree not to bother giving the time on the site. 611 is fine.

Some little foibles here and there. 611 no autopay is wrong.


@gblackma wrote:

@Anonymous  I just was in the self service account it now says due before the 611 date. Ie if the 611 date is due at 2 am May 25th. The self service account now says due before May 25th. Should say due at 2am May 25th like 611 does. 


Great way to confuse people by adding an exact time.  We used to have a payment due date which was the day before and the payment date which is the day following and customers complained to no end about mixing up the two dates.  Since most easterners would be asleep by 2:00am, the current wording is adequate.  I would also add that anyone waiting literally to the last hour to pay a bill is playing with fire.  Personally I prefer the old way but the current is fine as is.  

 

 

@Anonymous  I just was in the self service account it now says due before the 611 date. Ie if the 611 date is due at 2 am May 25th. The self service account now says due before May 25th. Should say due at 2am May 25th like 611 does. 

Anonymous
Not applicable

@gblackma wrote:

@Tiana_V , @Vivian_Y , @Anonymous , @BearFBI 611 has the correct payment due date and time. Try it and please fix the self service portal. It should say like 611 doe Payment will be taken out at 2 am eastern standard time the day before it actually says now. Thanks. Stay safe. 


Yes on autopay gives the right information. Not on autopay gives "due on" the new term date. This is also incorrect. It could say "due by" and I'd be fine with that as that would imply sometime before that date. Or otherwise fix it.

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