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.

[Anonymous]

 @epsteinsbody : I'm still curious to know why, way back, you were trying to use the change sim function when you didn't have a sim in hand yet. I understand you lost your phone with its sim. Apparently you got a phone but you didn't say you got a sim until later in the story. So it's a bit of a mystery to me.

[darlicious]

@epsteinsbody

I am so relieved for you. Can you tell me though did you originally supply your pin# and d.o.b.? I have a vested interest in this as I have to change the bf's sim card all the time....he loses his phone on average every 6 weeks.

[epsteinsbody]

He ended up calling a number (not sure which) connected to public mobile, and I had to show two pieces of ID. He said that usually Public Mobile does not like people calling that number, but this time they didn't care. Must be because they understand the chaos this new policy has caused.

[Anonymous]

 @epsteinsbody : Thanks for the update. London Drugs is good. Nice western company. 🙂

So what did they do?

It seems maybe possibly they've been authorized to do a little more help for customers beyond just activations. But that's purely guessing.

[HALIMACS]

WOW!!!

Great news, @epsteinsbody 

Can we ask what you had to show or demonstrate to 'prove' that you were the customer?

[epsteinsbody]

Well. Went to London Drugs and they were able to fix it for me. Great store. 

Thank-you everyone for the help!

[Camera4617]

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@darlicious wrote:

@Camera4617 

The porting issue took just under a year. This knee jerk reaction to the sim-swapping issue took a year. So yeah....it wouldn't surprise me if this took a year to resolve even though I have suggested a reasonable fix that is readily available.

---

@darlicious Yep, you might be right but we'll see. Based on how things move slowly here, it will take some time but I hope we'll be pleasantly surprised. 

[darlicious]

@Camera4617 

The porting issue took just under a year. This knee jerk reaction to the sim-swapping issue took a year. So yeah....it wouldn't surprise me if this took a year to resolve even though I have suggested a reasonable fix that is readily available.

[Camera4617]

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@Luddite wrote:

@Camera4617  IF PM has decided to replicate Chatr/Lucky/Koodo marketing strategy then, yes, sure go to a store/kiosk. But PM is currently predicated on ONLINE ONLY support. Ergo, find some other way. 

Another,  lesson is to never use SMS to your phone number as your 2FA even if offered by your bank. I now use Authy for Paypal, and partner's phone/number if SMS is the only way.

---

@Luddite I'm not defending PM here, I'm just saying that this is temporary and what options now they have till they implement something. If they do nothing, do something, If they do something, this is not good. We have PINs, people forget them. We have passwords, same thing, people forget them. We have security questions, guess what, people forget them. There is no perfect solution here and I'd like to see what PM comes up with. Personally, I'm more concerned about SiM hijacking then having hard time to change SiM, but that's my opinion. 

As for 2FA, none of the banks (as far as I know) is using anything else but phone number nor even Government of Canada. So, I do use Authy too where I can, but it's not up to us to decide what options to have. 

[Luddite]

@Camera4617  IF PM has decided to replicate Chatr/Lucky/Koodo marketing strategy then, yes, sure go to a store/kiosk. But PM is currently predicated on ONLINE ONLY support. Ergo, find some other way. 

Another,  lesson is to never use SMS to your phone number as your 2FA even if offered by your bank. I now use Authy for Paypal, and partner's phone/number if SMS is the only way.

[Anonymous]

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@HALIMACS wrote:

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Public Mobile has no other REAL identifiers - everything else can be manufactured and made up on activation.   Full of holes - needs fixing.

---

No. The criminal element in society needs to be caught and charged and tried and convicted and imprisoned. Or their parents need to teach them how to be civil adults in a civil society. Assuming of course the parents aren't also the criminal element and being uncivil.

[HALIMACS]

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@computergeek541 wrote:

---

@HALIMACS wrote:

One effective way would be if there was a registered credit card and the account was on auto pay.  The person can bring in credit card statements which display payments to public mobile which match the amount paid to the account on recent renewals.

---

Someone who has been given permission to use the card would not necessarily be the same person as the person who was issued the card. The card issuer also wouldn't necessarily be authorized to make changes to the Public Mobile account.

---

@computergeek541   You didn't include the key part of that option in your quote, being:

"And if the name on the payment card matches some other picture ID they can provide, that's pretty good evidence for verification purposes."

Indeed, this would only serve beneficial in situations where the registered payment card holder is also the registered PM account holder.  

Public Mobile has no other REAL identifiers - everything else can be manufactured and made up on activation.   Full of holes - needs fixing.

[Luddite]

@epsteinsbody  Totally agree with your concern. It's ridiculous to ask you go a store. It would be faster just to activate a new SIM and go through the hoops with a new phone number. 🤔

I've thought from moment I joined PM that a backup plan was essential. Over time I realized that no provider is bullet proof so I will always have a backup strategy. https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Getting-Started/100-SERVICE/m-p/183753#M33693

[Camera4617]

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@darlicious wrote:

@Camera4617 

I know my activation date(s) but many don't....the last number has been verified but the phone has been lost/stolen so really that's a moot point along with access to the sim card. Same goes for the credit card info......

While these are all good things to know they are not reliable identifiers. As I have previously posted there are only two.....your pin# and your d.o.b. which only works for those who activated on the old activation portal and the d.o.b. is not infallible if you reveal too much info on your social media etc..... and if you put the real birth date in when activating. This is why the request to show ID to a clerk at London Drugs is ridiculous as that assumes you put your real identity in your account.....a fraudster with account access could have easily edited this info to be representative of themselves.

---

@darlicious We talked about this in other threads and I'm not saying that those are reliable ways to prove identity, just that they raised red-flag and moderators don't want to take a risk and want customer to go to store. Is it unfortunately, yes but if they don't do that then what's the point of moderators confirming identity. I'm fairly sure that hijackers will not go to store and show their ID even if they changed info in the profile. This is just my assumption, not the proven fact. And again, this is temporary, unless temporary takes couple years.. 🙂 

[darlicious]

@epsteinsbody 

Looks like your the guinea pig of this issue......but you have the whole community hashing it out for you and taking pm to task on how to resolve it.

[darlicious]

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@computergeek541 wrote:

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@darlicious wrote:

@computergeek541 

Especially with the new activation portal this is a completely unreliable method of verification. Assuming a fraudster has access to the account and changes the name on the account before seeking a sim card change what does this prove? There is no address to verify (and no address on a passport) no birthdate to compare so what does this prove to pm? Absolutely nothing!!

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If the person is able to change the name on the account and does that, this would only prove that the person has access to the self serve account.

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@computergeek541 

Exactly! This is s huge problem for pm. How can you ask a customer to prove their identity when there are no personal identifiers on the account to prove this? @Alan_K  what are you going to do about this?

[computergeek541]

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@darlicious wrote:

@RosieR 

The fake name was in response to the porting fraud issue which has pretty much been solved. But now pm hax created a much larger issue of trying to prove identity for an account that doesn't require you to prove your identity to create and that they have now removed the one identifier that both a fraudster and an account holder can't see or change in their account the d.o.b. which would be the one thing you could prove to an "untrained" and I would imagine is going to be a bewildered employee.

---

Another reason for some people signing up to a prepaid carrier such as Public Mobile has to do with lack of photo identicfication.  If someone doesn't drive, they sometimes don't want to pay for a passport or provincial photo card or go through needing to renew it every few years.

[Anonymous]

Sounds like we need to go back to the old bank PIN mail-out with the warning of its impending arrival. Then it arrives with that blacked out obscured effect so that it can't be read through the envelope. You can't log in to the account until you get the PIN.

This is all straying awfully close to a guide to "So you wanna defraud some folks".

[darlicious]

@RosieR 

The fake name was in response to the porting fraud issue which has pretty much been solved. But now pm has created a much larger issue of trying to prove identity for an account that doesn't require you to prove your identity to create and that they have now removed the one identifier that both a fraudster and an account holder can't see or change in their account the d.o.b. which would be the one thing you could prove to an "untrained" and I would imagine is going to be a bewildered employee.

[computergeek541]

---

@HALIMACS wrote:

One effective way would be if there was a registered credit card and the account was on auto pay.  The person can bring in credit card statements which display payments to public mobile which match the amount paid to the account on recent renewals.

---

Someone who has been given permission to use the card would not necessarily be the same person as the person who was issued the card. The card issuer also wouldn't necessarily be authorized to make changes to the Public Mobile account.

[computergeek541]

---

@darlicious wrote:

@computergeek541 

Especially with the new activation portal this is a completely unreliable method of verification. Assuming a fraudster has access to the account and changes the name on the account before seeking a sim card change what does this prove? There is no address to verify (and no address on a passport) no birthdate to compare so what does this prove to pm? Absolutely nothing!!

---

If the person is able to change the name on the account and does that, this would only prove that the person has access to the self serve account.

[HALIMACS]

@RosieR @darlicious @computergeek541 

It is true, if you can connect services using a pseudonym and completely erroneous address information, how does one confirm there are the registered account holder by showing any form of identity card such as driver's license or passport?

One effective way would be if there was a registered credit card and the account was on auto pay.  The person can bring in credit card statements which display payments to public mobile which match the amount paid to the account on recent renewals.

And if the name on the payment card matches some other picture ID they can provide, that's pretty good evidence for verification purposes.

[RosieR]

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@computergeek541 wrote:

An update to this:  In situations where a customers isn't able to provide enough information to verifty identity to the moderators, customers are in fact being sent to stores to show identication. 

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@computergeek541 this is good to know. 

So the OP can go to London Drugs and bring proper identification to prove he is a person, not a robot... I mean to prove he owns this account.  But what about if he used a fake name?  using a fake name is being recommended by the community to avoid getting fraudsters getting to our financial accounts.  If he used Mickey Mouse, can he prove he is Mickey Mouse?  hmmmm 🤔

Just thinking out loud

RosieR

[darlicious]

@computergeek541 

Especially with the new activation portal this is a completely unreliable method of verification. Assuming a fraudster has access to the account and changes the name on the account before seeking a sim card change what does this prove? There is no address to verify (and no address on a passport) no birthdate to compare so what does this prove to pm? Absolutely nothing!!

[computergeek541]

An update to this:  In situations where a customers isn't able to provide enough information to verifty identity to the moderators, customers are in fact being sent to stores to show identication. 

[darlicious]

@Camera4617 

I know my activation date(s) but many don't....the last number has been verified but the phone has been lost/stolen so really that's a moot point along with access to the sim card. Same goes for the credit card info......

While these are all good things to know they are not reliable identifiers. As I have previously posted there are only two.....your pin# and your d.o.b. which only works for those who activated on the old activation portal and the d.o.b. is not infallible if you reveal too much info on your social media etc..... and if you put the real birth date in when activating. This is why the request to show ID to a clerk at London Drugs is ridiculous as that assumes you put your real identity in your account.....a fraudster with account access could have easily edited this info to be representative of themselves.

[Camera4617]

Since this is long thread maybe I'll miss something but, how would moderators know if you are legit and not trying to hijack SIM?

- You don't know when you started with PM?

- You don't know who you called last? 

- You don't have current SiM card?

- You don't have credit card nor csv number? 

I apologize if I made any errors, but I'm just listing what would red-flag you. Let's not forget that this is all temporary (well, we hope so) and PM will come up with some better solution (again, we hope so). I'm not convinced that all SiM hijackings are due to weak password. If that's the case, then PM could easily to solve that by forcing all customers to create new 'strong' password on the next login. So, while this is big inconvenience for you, I'm sure you would not be happy if somebody hijacked your SiM as nobody else would be either. 

[darlicious]

@epsteinsbody 

Did you provide the correct pin#?

Did you provide the correct d.o.b.?

This should be all that is required to verify your identity beyond the name, address and phone #. They are the only two identifiers on accounts created before the implementation of the new activation portal that are not visible to the account holder in their self serve account.

[computergeek541]

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@epsteinsbody wrote:

So.. Andu says now that I must either go to London Drugs to verify, or I need to provide the expiry date of the last.credit card (even though it is a prepaid vanilla card, and I don't keep them), or BOTH.

No bloody way I am changing my number. I've had this number for years. I am job hunting. It's on all of my resumes.

Please someone help me. I don't know what to do...

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I do believe that the moderators are following guidelines about what information is needed to be provided by the customer to prove account ownership.  However, the credit card expiry date isn't the only piece of information that is used to verify an account holder's identity.   

I don't have my credit card number or expirty date memorized and if someone stole my wallet and phone I would not be able to provide that information to moderators. If customer service at any cell phone carrier ever told me that I had to go into a store to simply change to a different SIM card, I'd be extremely likely to simply switch carriers. 

i do understand that Public Mobile is trying to increase the level of security on accounts. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, Public Mobile does not send e-mail messages out to the customers when such changes are made to passwords or SIM card swaps.  They should really be sending this out for any of those types of activities - including self-serve e-mail changes- and make it so that whoever receives the e-mail can automaticallly have it undone. Such a message would provide an increased level of account security was minimizing the amoutn of inconvenience for someone wanting to perform a SIM swap.