Account Expired - despite having auto-pay set up

[chrissyhj]

Hello PM users,

I got a text from PM, "your payment is due on Feb 1."

But I see "your auto-pay is set up for Jan 31" on the PM website as well as "Account Expired" on my page.

Should I be concerned?

I hope the auto-pay goes through and my phone still works tomorrow.

[srlawren]

@WearySky yeah I might be off slightly on my timing.  Presumably they kick off their overnight before midnight then--probably due to the lenght of time it takes to process.  Regardless, it is actually functioning as expected unless there is a payment issue or a failed scheduled plan change.  It would be ideal if it displayed differently, which I would call an enhancement more than a bug per se. It's a bit semantic and I get the point, they should make it more friendly even if behing the scenes it's expiring your plan for a period of time etc.

[WearySky]

@srlawren Well, the reason it seems (to me) to be a bug is that people seem to not just be seeing it around midnight EST.  @chrissyhj posted yesterday at 7:53pm, for example.  

[srlawren]

@WearySky depends on the timing whether you will see it or not.  If you look at around midnight eastern (Toronto/Montreal time) you should see it.  Essentially the way it works is that your previous cycle ends at midnight so essentially you account does temporarily suspend, but in a way that it doesn't disrupt your service.  Then at some point through the overnight, the payment is processed and applied and your account renewed back to Active.  All of this is seemless to your service (provided the payment isn't rejected by your credit card provider, eg. your card expired and you haven't updated it, you're over your credit limit, etc.).  I say it's not a bug because other than a lot of angst the first time you notice this, it doesn't really negatively impact anything.  It's not a bug because it's operating as designed; the deficiency is that it doesn't hide that from you properly.

[WearySky]

@srlawren is it really not a bug?  I was wondering if it would show up on my account, so I logged in to self service the day before my payment was due to be taken out and I didn't see any account suspended/expired messaging.

[srlawren]

@chrissyhj as the others have indicated, this is completely normal, and by the time you look again in the morning, your account will show "Active" instead of "Expired".  Contrary to popular belief, it's not really a bug per se, but rather a weird side effect of how the renewal system processes during the evening of your renewal.  It could be friendly, but everything's working precisely as it is intended.

[suno]

You will be fine

[dohadotahmed]

Auto pay set January 31 is correct because it will take the fund 1 day before your service expiry date which is February 1. So don't worry about the account expired because it's a known bug of the system. Hopefully there will be no service disruption.

[CalvinW · Accepted solution]

Just wait until tomorrow. If it still doesn't work, you should definitely try contacting the moderators. Some users reported actually losing service and they had to make the payment manually to regain service.

[david_l]

It will work tomorrow. It's a common display bug. Not to worry.