Account Suspended Without Warning

[dwright27]

Good morning, 

I was out this morning and needed to make a call, only to be met with the “We’re sorry, there is no plan associated with your account” message. I have been on Auto-Pay for as long as I have had an account. I checked my bank account and the payment came out today. My bank card is not expired. I got the text the other day telling me my amount and when it was due, and to ignore it if I was on Auto-Pay. 

Luckily, the phone call I needed to make was not urgent. If there had been an emergency I would have been completely screwed. I just had to pay a second time to get my phone working again because I can’t wait the 48 hours for someone to respond to my ticket. 

How can this happen with ZERO warning, on an account in good standing?? 

My experience with Public Mobile up until now has been great, but this is very upsetting as I was out by myself in a rural area. 

Thank you.

[Anonymous]

 @dwright27 : I know you've had a lot to digest in this thread but I had mentioned that here recently when you hinted at paying early from your bank. No indeed. It's what I call push or pull. Paying from the bank is a push whether recurring or manually. Paying via this autopay is a pull. This place doesn't take push.

You could use the "heads up" text as your reminder that it's time to pay. You could use 611 and your 4 digit PIN and your pre-registered payment card. Or log in and use it. You could also pay by the Instant Top-up method at some stores like gas stations. Vouchers would be more work but also 611 or login.

[dwright27]

Welp, there goes that idea. Public Mobile is not in the list of available payees for CIBC. It doesn’t allow a manual addition. 😫

[dwright27]

It looks like that other thread was posted by my dad.. lol. 

[dwright27]

@Anonymous 

I will set up my bank to pay it a few days early going forward. Thanks for that. Hopefully this isn’t a more widespread issue (re: the other thread you mentioned). 

@darlicious 

Thank you for that detailed breakdown of the schedule. So there is a short grace period, just when most of us are asleep.. lol. 

@BearFBI 

Yes I am aware that 9-1-1 will still work, but there could have been other non-life-threatening emergencies, or one involving my sick father where they would have been trying to reach me. It’s unfortunate but I have come to rely on my phone far more than I’d realized until I was without, even for a couple of hours. 

@esjliv 

I have been in contact with a moderator, a payment investigation is underway both on PM’s end and my bank’s. I’m going to set it up to pay early to hopefully avoid any issues going forward. 🙂 

[esjliv]

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@dwright27 wrote:

Good morning, 

I was out this morning and needed to make a call, only to be met with the “We’re sorry, there is no plan associated with your account” message. I have been on Auto-Pay for as long as I have had an account. I checked my bank account and the payment came out today. My bank card is not expired. I got the text the other day telling me my amount and when it was due, and to ignore it if I was on Auto-Pay. 

Luckily, the phone call I needed to make was not urgent. If there had been an emergency I would have been completely screwed. I just had to pay a second time to get my phone working again because I can’t wait the 48 hours for someone to respond to my ticket. 

How can this happen with ZERO warning, on an account in good standing?? 

My experience with Public Mobile up until now has been great, but this is very upsetting as I was out by myself in a rural area. 

Thank you.

---

@dwright27 If you lost your services then this does sound like a failed autopay.

I am glad you were able to get your services working again.

Whether or not you ended up paying once or twice I would still report the autopay failure to the Moderators. I really have not heard of so many 'autopay' failures with any other vendor before; although I am sure it happens.

To contact the Public Mobile Moderator_Team, there are two methods to reach them:

1 -  Faster - Click the bubble comment circle on the bottom right-hand side of your screen,

or use this link to: Get Help With SIMon the Public Mobile chatbot

OR

2 – Slower - Use this link to:

Private Message to Public Mobile Moderators (PM Customer Service Representatives)

[BearFBI]

@dwright27  "If there had been an emergency I would have been completely screwed."

You know you can call 911 without cell service....

People really need to know this.

[Anonymous]

 @Meow : Another thread has happened but we don't yet know if it was Visa Debit on that one. This one was. I might be wondering if a trend has popped up. We'll see as the few days traffic will tell.

[darlicious]

@Meow 

Both....any card registered for autopay.

[Meow]

Is this auto-pay failure happens only with debit or credit cards, too?

[darlicious]

@dwright27 

Many of us(at least when I had to pay my "bill") manually pay a day or two ahead of renewal and use autopay as a back up if we forget to pay. Sort of the same way I automatically have my bank pay the minimum payment on my credit card if I forget to pay it. I used to pay for my plan along with paying my credit card, hydro, gas, tv and internet bills. And I always review the billing statement before I pay in case there is a mistake or something is not right...same goes for my account(s) at pm. Before and after renewal with screenshots of the overview, payment history and rewards page.

But if it helps....your renewal works like this :

• At 9pm et your account/plan will say expired.
• Midnight et it will change to suspended and your data counter and/or your minutes and texts counter (on limited minute/texting plans) will rest to zero (ie. 0/100min). Technically you are now on day one of your 30 day plan.
• Soon after your rewards will be applied to your balance.
• 2 am et the payment system will apply your plan amount to your payment history and debit your balance. Any (or all) remaining amount outstanding to pay for your plan will be charged to your card on file ( one attempt only).
• Between 2am et and 6am et there is a grace period where your services remain active without sufficient payment. In theory you can make a manual payment during this time to keep your services going....
• At 6am et your account will change to active or with insufficient funds or an autopay failure your account will truly suspend its services. Or your account will deactivate if this is your 90th day of suspension.
• At noon et pm sends out the 2 texts from 611 regarding rewards application and successful or unsuccessful renewals.

**When there are larger system issues renewals can be delayed by up to 6 hours but it is not that common. So times are estimations only but are mostly accurate.

[Anonymous]

 @dwright27 : Lots of people pay manually before the expiry to avoid autopay problems. Simply having some kind of payment card registered and autopay toggled on will always get you the $2 reward. I have a spent out prepaid "credit" card gift card on there. I otherwise have a balance. The card never gets touched (and it would fail if it did) but I still get the $2.

Edit: the payments don't go that direction. It's only this side pulling from your card.

[dwright27]

@Anonymous if people are using services they aren’t entitled to then that cost should be added to their bill for the following period. 

As an update: they have begun a payment investigation that will take 15 to 20 days. I called my bank and spoke to a supervisor who is putting something through faster (5-7 days)—she said it’s not showing whether it’s gone through successfully or not (but the second, manual payment I made did go through which is fine). 

If I set up a pre-authorized bill payment from my bank to Public Mobile for 5-7 days before my bill is due each month, will that screw with my rewards? I’m just concerned this will happen again and I won’t be able to do anything. Thanks again for all your help. 

[Anonymous]

 @dwright27 : Also an excellent idea. But I would again say that 24 hours is too long of a grace period. Then people would go crazy using unpaid services for that time. Maybe even just that one grace call or text. Like ok you're suspended, we're tellin' ya but this call can go through. No more.

Glacial speed.

[dwright27]

@Anonymous 

Or if your account is about to be suspended, when you try to make a call it should tell you: “There is a problem with your account. Please visit (blahblah) within 24 hours to prevent any interruption in your service.” —and then just go through with the call. At least then you have SOME warning. 

[dwright27]

@darlicious if the payment is taken out in the wee hours of the morning and the texts aren’t issued until noon, am I just supposed to constantly check my account all morning until then?? 

I used my card today at the veterinarian’s office with zero trouble. There is not a problem with my card. 

[Anonymous]

 @darlicious : Hotels and some EV chargers do that little pre-auth thing (amongst others I'm sure like pay at the pump gas). Then when the final number happens, _that_ gets charged and that pre-auth eventually drops.

No I don't allow much of anything to take money out of my bank or credit cards automatically.

[darlicious]

@dwright27 

Pm sends out two texts from 611 noon eastern after your renewal. The first telling you your rewards have been applied and the second that your plan successfully renewed.....or not.

An autopay failure is almost explained by a card issue......change of billing address, expired card, over limit, card hold, fraud alert etc......But then there are the inexplicable reasons? Poor phone connection, power surge, payment system computer glitch, lightning strike....who knows?!!

But the extra charge that does not appear in your payment history or your balance in your account but is already debited from your bank account is a problem .....similar to @Anonymous I don't pay anything pre-authorized out of my bank account to know how that should appear or be listed in a bank account.

You will probably have to contact the moderators but maybe a call to your branch to fully understand how these debits work in this situation and getting the payee/ merchant transaction #'s will help the moderators trace if you do indeed have a "lost" payment floating around somewhere or incorrectly applied to a different account.

[Anonymous]

 @dwright27 : I like your unpaid grace period. Autopay fails - check, notify customer - check, give them say 12 hours to pay. Maybe even just 4. I think it would be fair to turn off data (or severely throttle it) and limit calling minutes and texting quantity in that scenario. No one likes less service so they would pay up sooner rather than later. 

But this place changes at a glacial speed. This would be a pipe dream.

[dwright27]

@Anonymous I will call my bank shortly. Neither transaction is showing as pending.

Thank you.

[Anonymous]

 @dwright27 : I read here about people having payment card systems that show them that a transaction is pending. My payment card shows authorized first and then after a few days it moves to posted. But those authorizing "payments" like hotels will show there for those few days. But it's a credit card. Not Visa Debit.

I wonder if the bank could tell you if it's a fully completed transaction.

[dwright27]

@hTideGnow 

There was no message or other indication that the payment failed. I just NOW received a text about it not going through (from *611), but to ignore if I have recently made a payment.

The payment comes directly out of my bank account (which is a Visa Debit card).

From my bank account, it shows two transactions. From my PM account, it shows just the one. My bank account balance reflects the dual payment and it does not say “Pending”. 

If Auto-Pay “occasionally fails” then there should be a grace period of at LEAST 24 hours because this was not a problem with my bank. I should not be penalized for an error on PM’s end.

@Anonymous My available funds are showing $0 now. Earlier it showed $3 for my auto-pay and referral rewards. I will check again soon to see if there is a balance equalling my monthly amount. If not, I’m out $40 because my bank balance is out that extra money. 

[hTideGnow]

If your bank/credit card shows 2 transactions, can you confirm any chance one of them was just "pending"?

if we both payments went through, you should see Available Fund on your Self-serve showing some fund (should be the same amount as your monthly fee) .  If that is the case, you can let the money sit there for next month if you don't mind (requesting refund will take couple weeks and it might not worth the effort)

[Anonymous]

 @dwright27 : What is your Available Funds? Do you see two payments in your Payment history here (not payment card)? If not then I would hazard to guess that the first payment will be pending and drop off.

But at the end of it all...sometimes autopay fails. Alas.

Edit: I should add...no one should ever have a payment reception problem not of their making. If your card is valid and your address hasn't changed then the company should _never_ have a problem taking your money. But this payment system seems to trip up on random customers on occasion.

[hTideGnow]

@dwright27  you mentioned yo have to pay the 2nd time to get it working.  So, you meant the first time is Autopay failed attempt?

If you check Payment->Transaction History, did you confirm only the time you manually paid went through?   

Yes, we see that Autopay occasionally fail.  If you paid manually with the card on file and worked, it should be ok in the next Autopay.  

[dwright27]

It appears to be working now but only because I paid a second time. My bank account now shows two payments. 

I did restart my phone, I disconnected and reconnected to the Public Mobile Network, but paying a second time was the only thing that worked. The fact that there was zero warning about it is what is upsetting me the most, because I have family that may need to reach me at any time (health issues) and I always pay my bill!

[Anonymous]

 @dwright27 : So are the services working now? What do you show in your Available Funds? Is that first payment still pending? I wonder if a simple restart or airplane mode might have fixed it.

The 48 hours is "up to". Seems responses are within an hour if not less these days.