Absolutely insane bureaucracy. I can't just change my SIM card?

[epsteinsbody]

Just went through an hour of time simply trying to change a sim card (they had that feature before, it was simple, and worked..), and eventually I got to this stage:

So.. you have to wait 48 hours to change a sim card? Are you kidding? Good thing I don't have any lives or people depending on a working phone.

I know this is a cheap service, but this is just ridiculous bureaucratic nonsense.

[epsteinsbody]

I literally call the x'ed out number (which is my fathers number) every day. Looks like because I complained here, they're now playing a game. I now have to go from the countryside into the city to a store (which is a day's trip) to verify my identification, or wait five business days. Absolute insanity.

"Thank you so much for your response.   I've had the opportunity to review the usage history and I was unable to find phone number________ in the usage history for phone number _________

At this time, we have been unable to complete the additional verification established by our anti-fraud team and we're presently unable to complete these changes.

If you'd like I can submit a form on your behalf explaining the situation to check if they can offer any alternative verification methods, their response time is usually from 3 to 5 business days. Alternatively, you can visit one of our retail partner locations with a photo ID and request that the sales rep on the store calls their support team/activation support to complete these changes on your behalf."

[epsteinsbody]

It's not her fault. They're just employees who are probably as frustrated as me. Yep, answered all of the questions.

[LurganIeUk]

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@epsteinsbody wrote:

They now want me to confirm the last phone number I called. Isn't who I call supposed to be private? Why would they have access to this?

What is the next confirmation, confirm your **bleep** size or eye color? Come on.. 

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You must have hit up the wrong  MOD. Can you not look at your usage history for that? And give the the number with times for a call a few days ago as well. If every time you are asked another question and you answered it only to be asked another question is making the process painfully longer. Are they saying some of your answers are incorrect? 

[Anonymous]

 @epsteinsbody : They have logs of all your activity. They're just verifying it's you. But they really must be struggling to confirm it's you. This does seem rather extreme.

[epsteinsbody]

They now want me to confirm the last phone number I called. Isn't who I call supposed to be private? Why would they have access to this?

What is the next confirmation, confirm your **bleep** size or eye color? Come on.. 

[hTideGnow]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I wonder why they seem to having trouble verifying who you are after did the ticket. I thought the ticket was it.

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Maybe the Mod monitoring this thread, too  🤔

I will think the extra hassle is the necessary evil until a more secure online method is found

[Anonymous]

 @epsteinsbody : No one. That's why they send a welcome email when you activate. That's your date and time that you activated. But I get that not everyone keeps emails like I do.

I wonder why they seem to having trouble verifying who you are after did the ticket. I thought the ticket was it.

[epsteinsbody]

They now want me to confirm the month and year my service was registered. I'm sorry but, you need a photographic memory now to use a phone :/? Who would be able to remember such a thing?

[epsteinsbody]

Mmm no. A company that cannot defend itself with crooks, and still provide a decent (and I'm talking a pretty low bar) service, does not deserve to be in business, just like a country that can't defend itself does not deserve to be a country. They could easily create an alternate multi verification or even different set of software to fix both issues. Too bad that will affect their bottom line and they are the real crooks.

[epsteinsbody]

Yep. Did a ticket, used the keywords, and did everything correctly. I guess this is just the society we live in now. I do hope that if more people complain, they might take this seriously, but I doubt it.

[Anonymous]

Maybe they weren't satisfied with your verification answers. But again, you can thank the crooks that caused this security reaction to begin with. It sucks. We know. Just keep at it. Did you use the keywords suggested? sim swap fraud. Apparently that's supposed to speed things up in these events. Did you use the ticket method or the simpler private message method?

[epsteinsbody]

They finally replied. Too bad they want me to confirm (after confirming like eight things before) my credit card expiration. Too bad I use prepaid credit cards and don't have the vanilla prepaid card.

This is insane. And yes, this does affect me. I require a phone to even get a pay cheque to buy food. I will now not have food for a couple of days. Imagine if I was an elderly person. I'm already having a hard enough time navigating this as a young man with a normal mind.. What if someone was in a life or death situation? Well, I guess they'd be screwed.

Sorry, but a wealthy mega corporation (Telus) can do better than this.

[LurganIeUk]

Just to add....another process taking up MODS time....slowing down other responses requiring MOD help. Means pissed off customers with out, or an unacceptable delay in answers,  adjustments or functions being fixed VS leaving as is or adding a level of security ie. to re input your password and PIN number or something that you can respond to that you have when creating your account. 

[darlicious]

@epsteinsbody 

I'm with you and @TheGx on this one. I had literally done a sim card change the day before this poorly announced change (by editing an existing thread) was made. Had public mobile made this seemingly "knee jerk" reaction a year ago when this emerging  problem first came to light and was quickly pounced upon by the community who came up with ways to quickly stem the possible financial losses by victims who came here for help. It would then be more understandable. This better be a short term inconvenience while they implement strong security measures to protect customers from fraudulent sim-swapping activities rather than the nearly year shut down of the ability to port your number from your account in response to fraudulent ports.

In the week since this change was made there are an equal amount of users if not more now coming to the community seeking help in how to overcome the inability to change sim cards in their account. How this problem is prioritized over a former sim-swap issue is unknown at this time and by blocking the ability to even view the last 4 digits to confirm a sim swap has been putting more pressure on the moderators to resolve what would often be a non-starter issue. I will stress this point again....the ability to allow customers to change their login username from their email to an actual username already exists and would solve vast majority of instances of account access by non account holders intent on carrying out fraudulent activity via a simswap.

If public mobile allowed this change to take place and informed its entire customer base to change their login credentials for increased account security it would not only shift the onus of account security squarely into the customers hands it would drastically reduce the incidence of this issue and put the ability to change sim cards back in the hands of customers in a safe and easy manner while pm comes up with an extra step to require verification in order to change a sim card of a customer if they so choose to add the extra step for their own peace of mind similar to the way banks give their customers the opporunity to employ extra verification steps for their online banking secure access.

It makes no sense to me to suddenly block an account holders access to sim card changes because of poor personal account security by a small percentage of account holders and security breaches at telus owned companies that they refused to properly inform their customers that breach has occurred and across the board password changes should have occurred. Half-gassed changes that only create additional issues for other customers and can actually create a larger problem and greater financial loss by the victims of these sim-swapping crimes.

However @epsteinsbody  instances of 48 hour waits are extremely unusual and are more commonly 2 to 4 hours and lately about one hour or less. There is even the possibility of overnight service if you remain online and the late shift moderator sees that you are available to communicate with them to resolve your issue and answer any additonal questions they may have for you.

[hTideGnow]

@epsteinsbody did it really take you 48 hours to get it done or you just upset at the official ETA stated on the page ?? There had been report previously that the who process was quick like within couple hours.

True, it's inconvenient but there werr\e many incidents before , not just couple individuals,  An once thier got simjacked, those simjackers start trying to get into their Bank accounts, Paypals (as they hold the key to the 2FA now) and caused financial loss as well. 

But,  I agree this process can be improved.  I think PM should considered a Hotline for SIM switch (even a small fees for immediate service while keeping the current "slower" switch for free).    And of course, they should bring back self SIM change once they figure out more verification steps in the process.

[TheGx]

I gotta agree with @epsteinsbody , Pubic should not make it inconvenient for those who need to change their SIM card quickly, in order to make it harder for hackers - once anyone self serve is broken into, why shouldn't the thief or anyone with access not be able to make changes to that account? That is the whole purpose of self serve account to be convenient.

It's like if when people lose the keys to their cars they had to wait for the police to show up each time - just because stolen vehicles are on the rise.

Once someone breaks into self serve other information can be stolen anyways and used for other identity thefts anyways, so there no point to prolong the process of losing something that's already gone.

Currently most Public customers don't ever have to create a community account or ever have to contact the Moderator Team, that is the whole purpose or the self serve portal. But now for a customer to change SIM cards they have to create a community account and wait for Moderators, defeating the convenience of self serve for those who might need it.

I for one would choose the convenience of being able to change my SIM quickly via self serve, despite the risk of the thieves being able to do so to me as well just as quickly.

[Anonymous]

 @epsteinsbody : There had been a good span of time where these things were happening frequently. Nobody likes it. But it was really the only thing they could do stop the "bleeding". Hopefully they spend the time and resources to bring back the capability but with some security. The idea I like is that after clicking proceed for change sim that it comes up asking for your PIN. Or something.

It was theorized that there was a data breach a year ago and then those crooks were using the log ins to do all this.

[LurganIeUk]

Likely a step to prevent SIM swaps. Rather than having MOD intervention maybe set a secondary password for some function changes while online. But that would mean an upgrade to the website.....which we all know...won’t happen. 

[Dunkman · Accepted solution]

Unfortunately, as mentioned above, it is a balance between Sim card swap prevention versus convenience of SIM swaps via self service account.  The removal of self service sim card change is temporary. Public mobile is working on a solution for long term fix for Sim card swap fraud.  

According to Public mobile, Sim card swap requests should be getting priority by moderators.  It should not take 48 hours.  There are dedicated moderators who deal with these issues.  However most moderators are off work now and should be back in the morning.  If it takes 48 hours, let the community know and we can notify PM staff.  

[epsteinsbody]

Do they have to do this? Is there a regulation or something? Why should the entire community suffer when an individual (and I don't blame them, I'm clumsy af) has their information stolen?

I guess I'll stop complaining now

[LurganIeUk]

I wonder if a Public Mobile kiosk or London Drugs can do for you? From what I have heard about Walmart, I would not bother.  But if you have it in the go.....you will burn a SIM if you can find an alternative option. 

[Anonymous]

 @epsteinsbody : Like locking the doors of your house and car...you can thank the crooks that make it necessary...not the company.

[epsteinsbody]

Well, is Public Mobile going to reimburse me while I wait? Nope. Didn't think so.

So, these companies destroyed home phones, and now we're forced to use cellphones to secure mates, find jobs, and do literally anything in society.. and they want people to wait 48 hours for a service that is required to even make money to pay Public Mobile in the first place?

Just seems like an insane system..

[LurganIeUk]

Telus prepaid made the change years ago. But I forget if they charged you $2 for the call. 

I am surprised there are so many differences on PM vs Telus prepaid. I believe on Telus prepaid that you can change your PIN number on line. Just imagine a new concept of waiting 48 hours for a SIM change or a $5 or $10 phone call.  

In my my opinion this is bad. If I lost a phone for sure or was stolen, instead of doing the suspend thing I would rather pull out my spare SIM and do the SIM number change online, right away. 

[JK8]

This is only a temporary security measure. Hopefully the fix in self service will be implemented soon.

[LoreckAvery]

Im sorry you’re frustrated, I would be too if I didn’t know about it prior!! 

I am happy that this small measure is happening  to help curb sim jacking! I’ve had my identity stolen (NOT via public) it is a complete violation and hassle to fix 😕

[HALIMACS]

Here's the relevant Announcement thread from Public Mobile, @epsteinsbody 

(1) SIM Swap Fraud - Community (publicmobile.ca)

[Anonymous]

@epsteinsbody- This was done as a security measure, due to all the SIM jacking going on.

[HALIMACS]

You're absolutely correct, @epsteinsbody 

I believe it was a challenging decision for Public Mobile to make.   They had to weigh the ease of doing this for customers against the likelihood of hackers to use it to SIM-swap a person.

In the end, it seems they've made a simple SIM change a bit more tedious, to the benefit of improved security for Public Mobile customers.