Upcoming Changes to our Old Rewards Program

[J_PM]

Hey Community,

We have an important announcement to share with our subscribers who are currently enrolled in our old Rewards program.

We’re making changes to our rewards program and are sharing how these changes impact some of our subscribers. Starting in May, we’ll be retiring our old Rewards program and moving all subscribers to our Public Points™ program. 

We launched the Public Points™ program in January 2022 to provide our subscribers with more ways to earn and spend rewards, with greater flexibility. As part of our commitment to continuously evolve our products and services, it's time to retire our old Rewards program and shift our focus on enhancing our Points program.

To show our appreciation for your continued loyalty, subscribers on our old Rewards program will receive a special thank you. We'll send you a text message when it has been added to your account by March 31st. 

We’re excited to continue providing you, our valued subscribers, more opportunities to earn and spend rewards with Public Points™ moving forward.

To learn more about your move to Public Points, check out our FAQ here.

The Public Mobile Team

[public_999]

In hindsight maybe I should be thanking Public Mobile?  One of the 2 lines I have with Public is simply to retain an old landline number that is virtually unused. The occasional call received on it is forwarded to my main line which is not with Public.  It currently costs me $67.80 per year to  maintain that old number under the existing reward program but once the new point system comes into effect my annual cost will increase to $158.48.  Not being comfortable with this increased cost just to maintain an old number I decided to look around for other options and have figured I can accomplish the same objective by porting the number to a competitor and the total cost per year will be only $28.25 so for me this is a win lol!  Thanks Public Mobile, I would never have even thought about exploring other options if it weren't for your greed!!

[TrevorS]

Just wanted to add my voice to the long list of people lamenting the loss of the old rewards program.  I was on the base $15 plan and through auto pay, loyalty, and referrals, I was able to get my bill down to $4. With the new rewards plan, my bill will likely be $9, at least until my referrals leave PM. I know $15 is negligible compared to most plans (from PM and other providers), though my referrals and (past) positive word of mouth, I hope counts for something.  I urge PM to stay true to its loyal customers and allow long term customers to stay grandfathered into the original rewards plan.

[smp1]

You're trying to spin what is really just an outrageous price hike. I've started my search for a new provider today.

[Anonymous63]

"As part of our commitment to continuously evolve our products and services, it's time to retire our old Rewards program and shift our focus on enhancing our Points program." - If I understand correctly, your commitment is to continuously evolve your products and services for something nobody asked for, and of less value to your clients?

"To show our appreciation for your continued loyalty" - To show that, you will remove our loyalty and auto-pay discount for effectively something way worst? We don't want useless expiring data bonus, that it not how you show your appreciation for our continued loyalty.

"We’re excited to continue providing you, our valued subscribers, more opportunities to earn and spend rewards with Public Points™ moving forward." - We don't want that. We didn't ask for that. Don't sugercoat this downgrade by saying we're your valued subscribers. Why would we be excited to go in our account every other month to apply a point discount, when we didn't have to do that firsthand and it was applied automaticaly?

The only thing Public Mobile (Telus) is excited for is making more money, you don't care about your subscribers.

[ON4EKE_]

So many long time customers are so furious with the change, they create new profiles to vent their dissatisfaction.

Prior to them announcing the change, besides encountering issues with the service, there was no reason to have a community forum account. Many of my referrals don't participate in the forums at all.. their payments and rewards were automatically applied and had no reason to contact the company.

[ON4EKE_]

Useless for low tier plans that don't use data, how much can a voice/text plan really cost the company?

[Wolfcore]

Yes, they are helping people on this forum by sharing this information. Lots of people have asked for it.

[public_999]

Actually just got a new notification and the number of users that responded is less than yesterday so definately something wrong with the count in my opinion

[Patrick_PM]

Sorry to hear you mistakenly switched over to the new points reward system. 

They make it sound like it is better but if you do your own analysis, it becomes evident it is actually inferior.

[public_999]

I think the counter is turned off because I have not received an updated notication since yesterday

[Ryence01]

I have filed my CCTS complaint and would encourage anyone else concerned to do the same.  For anyone considering it took less than 10 minutes and my complaint has already been accepted by the CCTS.  I filed it as a billing complaint as this decision by PM will significantly increase our monthly charges.   PM now has 20 days under the CCTS process to respond to my complaint and I will use that time to research my options for new providers if PM does not reverse their decision. 

CCTS Complaint Submission Form

[Global816]

By mistakenly i opted out of old reward system to new one last year in November. I am with PM for over 10 years. Before i used to make $8 every month now $2 every month. PM is now behaving like rest of service providers. To weigh in more in profits this is well understood move by PM

[PogoM]

Not very happy about this. You do not say what the "special thank you" might be, but other sites indicate that it will be a data top up. I already have more data than I ever come close to using. A gift of more will not be a gift it will be a burden.

[Wolfcore]

Only 244? If true, that's amazing. Do you understand how large that number is? Do you know what it takes to actually convince the average person to make an account just to post on a forum? What's more important are the amount of views. Most people will just read posts, and if the people making those posts are saying what they want to say, then they won't chime in. They let those people fight the battle for them.

In comparison, the thread from the 2018 fiasco has less posts overall, and we can assume a similar amount of individual people posting (despite being open for far longer), and that resulted in 1600 CCTS complaints? This tells you that most people won't even bother wasting their time posting here, but rather, will take their fight directly to the proper governing bodies. The end result of the 2018 situation? PM ended up reversing their decision. 

Anyway, we're clearly on track to this being far worse than 2018 (technically may already be), so we'll see how it plays out. 

[Patrick_PM]

Offering data bonus is pointless if the client is already on an unlimited data plan. Public Mobile will first use data in your plan before using the data add-ons. So if you are on a unlimited data plan, this means the data bonus will never be used prior to it's expiry. This is to give the perception Public Mobile is softening the blow of migrating us to an inferior reward system but they really aren't providing much to us at all.

[MWalsh14]

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@AveragePerson wrote:

So just to confirm, we lose the $2 autopay and $5 loyalty bonuses?

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My question exactly. For me that would mean a 36% price increase. Why does PM have to put out a BS announcement about switching us to the wonderful Points program that we already turned down because it's useless, and then pussyfoot around what it really means without saying so clearly?

"We're not getting enough money from you cheapskates, so we're cancelling your existing benefits including the existing prepay and loyalty discounts that we previously promised you could keep if you remained a customer. If you don't like it, bye-bye and good riddance."

Oh well, some of the competitive options suddenly looks a lot better. 

[ShawnC13]

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@colleeno wrote:

Just a question about this. → When I see in my notifications (that you and 243 others have replied to this thread), does that mean that there are only 244 unique users who have commented multiple times to bring the thread count to almost 1500?

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@colleeno probably, many posts by the same people in the thread as it usually is.

[colleeno]

Just a question about this. → When I see this in my notifications (that you and 243 others have replied to this thread), does that mean that there are only 244 unique users who have commented multiple times to bring the thread count to almost 1500?

[hTideGnow]

@ATHENS wrote:

If you're unhappy with the change -----Why not do as I and others  have done just finding another provider? I have used this to my advantage by calling another provider and asking that I would switch if they gave me a better deal ---😀- and in my case they did.😀 -------------------For now I have switched my PM plan down to the $15 plan and waiting to see what their point compensation will be and plan to use it up. -------------It is obviously wise not port and close your PM account in order to be able to  take advandage of your point $$$. Also by keeping your existing number it will allow you to update to your new number on  your banking - cards etc.

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but @ATHENS  , you and your many other accounts have been talking about leaving, you are still here after all these time.. LoL

[ShawnC13]

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@Patrick_PM wrote:

The complaints are getting noticed ... 🤔

https://www.iphoneincanada.ca/2024/03/11/public-mobile-users-protest-rewards-cut-ccts/

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I would bet the author is in this community, and is watching this thread grow

[Wolfcore]

Yes, and in that very same post, they make a promise that your rewards will remain as long as you remain an active Public Mobile customer. So you tell me, what takes precedence? 

Also, what does "change" mean? It's very vague. To me, I read that as, they have the right to change the plan moving forward, not that they have the right to get rid of everything that you've earned up until that point. If this is not what they meant, then that just means that they shamelessly and openly lied in one sentence, and then tried to counteract that in the next. I've seen false advertising cases lost for less. If not a lie, the English language tells us that those two sentences can co-exist at the same time, and not apply to each other (which is what myself and others read that as).

Regardless, this honestly doesn't even matter at this point. There's no need for you to try and protect the multibillion dollar company. Let people voice their outrage, and we'll see how it plays out. They performed their actions, and now there are consequences that will follow. If nothing changes, oh well. At least their reputation will be completely destroyed moving forward, and that's a win for all consumers.

[colleeno]

Exactly! Do what’s best for you.

[ili_pop]

An unwritten policy: Customers reserve the right to change providers without advance notice!

[colleeno]

I found this posted originally on the Community Page in 2015 and updated in 2018.

https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Knowledge-Base/General-Reward-Rules/ta-p/164

[ili_pop]

I don't want points.  I want a discount that lowers my monthly bill immediately.  This is a bad decision.  Please reverse it, or I will be going to the CCTS, and if that does not work, I will be leaving, along with three members of my family.  Yes, you have a right to change your rewards program, but we have a right to change providers.  Thanks for a good 5 years!

[edmensah]

Exactly! They have no clue. Why not consult the PM community. This change is outrageous.

[Wolfcore]

These terms and conditions apply to the new points system, which is why it mentions points, so it's irrelevant. With the old system, their wording was a lot more vague, and they outright told us that our loyalty and referral rewards, would remain as long as we continued to have an active account.

[ili_pop]

Yes, they can change their Rewards Program, but we can change our service provider!