Moving forward together

[Dave_M]

Hello Public Mobile community,

I want to thank all of you for your interest in Public Mobile’s fall promotion, which expired last night at midnight. The interest we have seen has been overwhelming and we are so happy to welcome all of you to our brand!

We realize many of you are still experiencing issues and I want to assure you that our team is continuing our focus on resolving customer issues faced during the promotional period.  This is our number one priority.

To accelerate resolving our backlog of issues we have our core support team working overtime, and we have asked for extra help throughout the organization. In addition we have our systems folks doing deep dives into the issues we’ve seen to find solutions ASAP.

I thank you for the patience you continue to show, and I look forward to continuing our conversation on the community as we move forward together.

Sincerely,

Dave.

[Diceman]

@Dave_M

Can we get a status update on how things are progressing on the back-end?

[WearySky]

@srlawren I was just going on @Doiron430's suggestion to go with PC because they didn't get in on the 4GB promo, and offering PC as a good value proposition.  But it's actually still more expensive than PM's non-promo pricing.

[srlawren]

@WearySky in fairness, I don't think @Doiron430 was suggesting PC Mobile as a better deal per se, but for people frustrated waiting for help from PM at the moment, perhaps?

[WearySky]

---

@Doiron430 wrote:

Instead, President's Choice Mobile www.pcmobile.ca is the way to go. Their Flex Plan is 44$ a month for Unlimited Nationwide Talk & Text, Plus Unlimited International Text Messaging, Unlimited International Picture and Video Messaging, Call Display, Voice Mail, Call Waiting, Call Forwarding and Conference Calling. and 1 GB of data (if you were to bring your own device. 50$ if you don't). You only pay for the data you use, and you can have notifications sent to you when you hit 90% of the data tier you choose.

---

Umm... If you look at the plans page right here on PM, you can see that if you sign up for a 90 day plan, you can get the same thing (unlimited nationwide calling, global text/picture messaging, 1GB of data/month) for $42/month.  And if you set up auto-pay, it'll be $40/month (ok, per 30 days technically).  And if you don't need nationwide talk and can live with province-wide only, it's $37/$35 per 30 days if you sign up for a 90 day plan.  So I guess it depends how much that customer service phone number is worth to you.  Once all the madness from this promo dies down, the customer service levels here will be back to normal (issues fixed MUCH more quickly).  Or double the data to 2GB/month for an extra $3/month on either plan.

[daredogg]

@dabbler just because you missed the promotional plan, doesn't mean you shouldn't still consider Public Mobile. You can still get 6GB of data spanned over 90 days for $120. Yeah, maybe it's not 12GB but it's still cheaper than what you'd pay with the big 3. If you are with PM already, when the next promotion comes up, you can easily switch.

May I make a suggestion? At least order a SIM for $5 and you can try out the service for 10 days, to see if it's to your liking (before thinking of porting your number over). I will say there are some glitches in the system here at times when activating or trying to port your phone number. I switched from Telus back in August, and thankfully my activation/porting was flawless. If you do have problems, PM is a little slow at responding, especially because of the influx of messages received during the promotion.

If you have any other questions, just ask the community... lots of people here would love to help!

[srlawren]

@dabbler well, it's unfortunate, but I mean there's only so much PM can do to put the word out!  Sorry they didn't happen to hit up the channels you use, but I mean--that happens, right?  You're not going to find out about every single deal you might be interested in from every vendor or service provider, right?

It does seem that many thousands of people must have flocked to this deal, so there was some word of mouth out there for sure.  If you're looking for deals on mobile plans, it's probably worth checking redflagdeals.ca on a semi-regular basis.  Or perhaps a site that covers Canadian mobile news?  (I like mobilesyrup.com and have it on my RSS reader app).  Both of those venues were all over this promo, for example.  

EDIT: you mentioned Facebook--also a good idea to follow PM on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/PublicMobile/), as the deal was posted multiple times through the promotional period there.  

[Doiron430]

www.pcmobile.ca great plans

[dabbler]

I didn't hear a single thing about this company, or it's promotional deal (or the competitors offering matching promotions) until last night :'(

kinda pissed how I saw no advertising for this at ALL. and I'm online constantly throughout my day, facebook like once an hour. I guess I will just keep waiting to switch from Rogers, for when an offer like this comes up again. 😕  (hopefully soon)

[Doiron430]

@ReK_ I guess we were too late for the promotion. However, it appears that PCmobile has a great deal right now, which I think I will do.

Seeing all the problems with PM right now and individuals not getting replies to their emails (I have a co-worker who has been waiting a week), despite the fact that I ordered a PM SIM card, I don't think I will activate it..

Instead, President's Choice Mobile www.pcmobile.ca is the way to go. Their Flex Plan is 44$ a month for Unlimited Nationwide Talk & Text, Plus Unlimited International Text Messaging, Unlimited International Picture and Video Messaging, Call Display, Voice Mail, Call Waiting, Call Forwarding and Conference Calling. and 1 GB of data (if you were to bring your own device. 50$ if you don't). You only pay for the data you use, and you can have notifications sent to you when you hit 90% of the data tier you choose.

The best part, after reading many of the comments on this page, is that you can actually pick up the phone and call customer service!

I will be stopping into a Superstore this week to go with PCMobile. They just seem better organized. They also operate on Bell's network, so I'm certainly not worried about network coverage.

Good luck to everyone at PM, it seems to be a good enough company with a bright enough future so long as they can work out some of the kinks.

[CaNuCk07]

@ReK_  There was plenty of opportunity to get a SIM card in time, unfortuantel you didnt make it.  By stopping SIM shipping when you would no longer receive it they were proactive in stopping complaints.

[WearySky]

@ReK_ they made it pretty clear that unless you ordered a sim online on or before Nov 16th, or picked one up in person on the 18th or 19th, you were out of luck.  That's why they specifically removed the promo from their main website on the 17th, because nobody would be able to order sim cards to take advantage of the promo.  I can't see them giving the promo to people who just ignored those announcements and ordered a SIM on Monday expecting to still be able to sign up for the promo.

[ReK_]

@CaNuCk07 because I heard about it on the weekend before the deal ended but there was no opportunity to get a SIM card at all. They weren't being sold online and the physical location was already sold out.

[Whitehat2]

Thanks WearySky, your reply is very comforting.  Hope the backlog can be cleared sooner than expected so that everyone can actually move forward.

[WearySky]

---

@Whitehat2 wrote:

I tried the PM sim card 2 days ago again and found the phone can make calls and SMS but it showed a number a bit different from the SO number and it cannot receive calls or SMS.  The SO sim card still works as usual.  I believe the porting phone number isn't successful.  I cannot login to selfserve with the newly created account and can do nothing to redo the porting.

I PM to Mary_M 6 days ago but still not read.  I also tried to use the email form to submit the case but the form doesn't work at all.  Not sure what else I can do to move forward.

---

The fact that the number attached to your PM sim card is slightly different from your SO number would imply to me that you typed your SO number incorrectly when activating/setting up your port.

Be patient, as there is still a significant backlog of support requests that they're working through.  They'll get to you when your request makes it to the top of the queue (though they are primarily focusing on people with no service at all first).  And PMs don't get marked as read when mods read them, as they have a separate system set up to share PMs among all the mods.

[Whitehat2]

Activated a sim card and ported a number to PM from SO on Nov 17.  An error of "Sorry, your account activation request has failed." was shown at the end.  Inserted the PM sim card into a phone and it didn't work.  The speakout sim card still worked.

I tried the PM sim card 2 days ago again and found the phone can make calls and SMS but it showed a number a bit different from the SO number and it cannot receive calls or SMS.  The SO sim card still works as usual.  I believe the porting phone number isn't successful.  I cannot login to selfserve with the newly created account and can do nothing to redo the porting.

I PM to Mary_M 6 days ago but still not read.  I also tried to use the email form to submit the case but the form doesn't work at all.  Not sure what else I can do to move forward.

[Rockdaddy22]

That's great news 🙂

[wshrews]

---

@brockc wrote:

@wshrews I'm not exactly sure who you're with or could say for sure how the billing works but if you’re on a post-paid plan I wouldn’t be too concerned with getting another bill. Post-paid plans are billed for your plan a month ahead and overages a month behind. If you go into a new billing cycle then port your number over you should get pro-rated credit for any days remaining on your cycle after you cancelled. For example if you had no overage for your previous month and you pay $90 for your monthly service fees and you’ll get a bill for $90 but if you cancel half way through then they will adjust your amount owing to only $45. Careful thought, because that also means they’ll prorate your services so if you have 4 gigs of data a month and use 3 gigs in the half the month you did have your service with them then technically you’ll be over by 1 gig and be responsible for any overage.

---

Thanks, but it was a prepaid plan. Fortunately it's ported now - just waiting on referrals to be fixed.

[Rockdaddy22]

Finally someone who understands how their phone bill works 🙂

[brockc]

@wshrews I'm not exactly sure who you're with or could say for sure how the billing works but if you’re on a post-paid plan I wouldn’t be too concerned with getting another bill. Post-paid plans are billed for your plan a month ahead and overages a month behind. If you go into a new billing cycle then port your number over you should get pro-rated credit for any days remaining on your cycle after you cancelled. For example if you had no overage for your previous month and you pay $90 for your monthly service fees and you’ll get a bill for $90 but if you cancel half way through then they will adjust your amount owing to only $45. Careful thought, because that also means they’ll prorate your services so if you have 4 gigs of data a month and use 3 gigs in the half the month you did have your service with them then technically you’ll be over by 1 gig and be responsible for any overage.

[clemensp]

For those who are tracking this thread, I'd like to say that the fix here worked for me:

http://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Discussions/HERE-IS-THE-FIX-EVERYONE-IS-WAITING-FOR/m-...

It may work for some of you as well.  🙂

[srlawren]

---

@MoreYummy wrote:

@Dave_M You need to have a better system to handle situation like this.  Otherwise many are upset in the situation.  

Welcome those who made it. 

---

@MoreYummy I totally agree!  Perhaps you would like to bravo this idea in the public lab?

[srlawren]

@Rockdaddy22 see http://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Self-Serve/Selected-network-unavailable/m-p/94225, it's the first post from @MG2. 

[Crowd]

Keep up the great work, you guys... I'm sure you're all doing your best.

Patiently waiting for my number to be ported from Koodo prepaid :~) 

So excited!

[CaNuCk07]

@ReK_  I'm unsure why PM would honour the deal if you ordered the SIM after the promo was over?

[craigroxborough]

Thanks Dave and PM. I converted to the new plan with a little help from a MOD and I expect my wife's issue will be resolved soon enough.

Am still loving PM and will be here for the long-haul! Way to be different and provide consumers with a real alternative!!

[will13am]

---

@WearySky wrote:

Yeah @Rockdaddy22, quit hanging around the forums trying to help people all the time.  Yeesh, get a life or something.

---

@WearySky, there are rewards to be had hanging around this forum and offering help.  It can be a bit of an occupation albeit with low wages.

[will13am]

---

@ShawnC13 wrote:

@imcphers  I can see that happening again once the issues are resolved as from my experience (liile as it maybe) the mods do get things done when they get to it.  Just such a huge back log for some that is the issue.  Again I would really love to find out how much is system error vs user error

---

User vs system error stats are likely going to be a tough to determine accurately.  If it were, then many of the system errors that cropped up during this promo period would have long been identified and dealt with.  Some system bugs are not necessarily repeatible.  Some bugs give the appearance that it is user error. 

I encountered an issue with using the same credit card on more than two accounts.  Attempting to use the same card on a third account returned an error.  I thought maybe I typed something wrong and did not proofread accurately.  Redoing the payment screen severals time, with a different browser and on different computers solved nothing.  In the end, I had to use a different credit card.  I asked my credit card company what was blocking my payment and they said their system received address information that did not match what was on record.  So, is that user error or system error?

Anyway, I have passed this information to the moderator team.  Let see if this bug gets resolve or will the issue be closed out to user error.

[ReK_]

I'm in the same situation as @Doiron430, I really hope PM will honour the deal despite the fact that I wasn't able to order a SIM until just yesterday.

[daredogg]

@Doiron430 you have probably missed out on the promotion! (unfortunately)

Because your SIM card was ordered outside the window of Oct 25th to Nov 16th, PM doesn't necessarily have to honour the promo plan. I would definitely ask once you get the SIM and get activated, but don't be surprised if they don't. You can still get the $120 pricing, but it'll instead come with 6GB (instead of 12). That's still a pretty great price!

[homer]

Resolving all issues and then enjoy the Christmas holiday!! Hohoho~