Activation- Service not working

[Christinaduncan]

I registered my iPhone 6 online with public mobile with a SIM card I purchased before. I waited a few days and the phone still isn’t activated. I can’t call, text, or connect to the data I’ve purchased. I’m getting really frustrated not being able to use a service I’ve paid for.. help ASAP please? 

[Christinaduncan]

No it does not and I selected a new number.

[johnpaul]

Thanks @darlicious @Anonymous 

I hope my experience with the activation issues helps other people. I got really confused after the activation since self serve said account is "active" and yet I didn't have service. And I still had the $25 in my funds when it's supposed to be gone during the activation. I thought it was my phone and so I had to do reboots and sim card removal and adding funds and suspending/resuming and changing plans. Just imagine the amount of my time wasted in troubleshooting the issue.

Well, it's water under the bridge now but at least we learned something.

• calling 611 seems to be best indicator of your account status
• 1969 bug is an indicator of a payment system issue
• don't change plans unnecesarily
• to be sure you don't lose service during renewal, top-up ahead even with auto-pay "on"
• the "1969" payment system issue will resolve itself. be patient.
• check your self serve page regularly. it will give you clues on what's happening related to your service issues.

[darlicious]

---

@johnpaul wrote:

Update on my case

• Sept 6 5PM. I activated a brand new sim and topped up $25 and chose Plan $25. Activation successfull. Self serve shows Account status active. Auto pay "on" and i'm on plan 25 and my fund balance is $27 (25 top up + 2 auto pay bonus) and $25 amount owing due on Dec. 30 1969. My phone shows public mobile and LTE but cant send and receive calls and texts. no data as well. Played around in self serve and unintentionally changed my plan to $40. Couldn't change it back to $25 (errors keeps coming out). Topped up some more funds just in case the system activates me on Plan 40 during the night. My Funds at $44 at that point. Called 611 and it said that my account is suspended. Slept for the night.
• Sept 7 8AM. Self serve shows my plan 40 is expired on Sept 7. My balance is $44. Amount owing $0.  "1969" is gone. Wondering why system doesn't reactivate my plan since I have funds available and I'm on auto-pay.
• Sept 7 3PM. Self serve shows Available fund $35 (dunno why) and amount owing $20. What??? It says my plan cost is $55. I need to top up $20 to reactivate current plan. I said no way. I just wanted to try the Plan 25 and now I need to top up more??
• Sept 8 9AM. No change in Self serve. I still need to top up $20 to reactivate. I gave in and topped up $20 using one time payment and voila. Account status became active immediately. Phone service started to work. Call texts and data. Ran a speedtest. ~ 3 Mbps.

It seems this is what happened:

• On Sept 6, only the SIM was activated but the $25 payment for Plan 25 was not successfull (payment system issues) , this resulted to the suspended service as per 611 on Sept 6th 
• On Sept 7 8AM, the system changed my status to "expired" to trigger a reactivation but at this point, the payment system and auto-pay was still down
• On Sept 7 3PM, payment issues resolved (but not auto-pay), me changing the plan from $25 to $40 in self serve on sept 6 incurred additional costs. Thus the system showed that I owed $20.
• On Sept 8. I added $20 in my account and the payment system immediately reactivated my plan (auto pay is still not working)

Lessons Learned

• PM should have advised of payment/auto pay system issues.This way people didn't have to panic.
• Changing plans on the fly will cost you money. Do it if you really need to. Else, have your plan change starting on the new cycle.

---

Thank you for the clear and concise summary of your resolved but still needs to be addressed by the pm moderator team. This will give hope for the many other new users being frustrated and let down by the "1969 " issue. And as a good will gesture not only does pm owe you a credit for your funds lost by changing plans in hopes of kickstarting the system. The inability of pm not to activate your account And offer you service within a reasonable time period should be enough to induce them into an additional credit. I hope all goes well for you. I read over the changes to the wireless code in 2017 and there is some obligation on pm's part to correct it to your satisfaction. Every complaint to the cctc requires a fee to be paid by the the provider. I can't imagine that it is less than $25 equal to the amount of your original plan and credited over and on top of your lost payment. Only a suggestion but a review of the code yourself could go a long way. Best of luck and please report back.

[Anonymous]

 @johnpaul 

Nice wrap-up.

PM should absolutely be informing customers/prospective customers that an issue is occurring.

Changing plans on the fly aka. immediate plan change - yup...forfeits what you had previously and starts fresh.

Whenever the mods get back to you, I'm sure they'll sort it all out for you.

[johnpaul]

Update on my case

• Sept 6 5PM. I activated a brand new sim and topped up $25 and chose Plan $25. Activation successfull. Self serve shows Account status active. Auto pay "on" and i'm on plan 25 and my fund balance is $27 (25 top up + 2 auto pay bonus) and $25 amount owing due on Dec. 30 1969. My phone shows public mobile and LTE but cant send and receive calls and texts. no data as well. Played around in self serve and unintentionally changed my plan to $40. Couldn't change it back to $25 (errors keeps coming out). Topped up some more funds just in case the system activates me on Plan 40 during the night. My Funds at $44 at that point. Called 611 and it said that my account is suspended. Slept for the night.
• Sept 7 8AM. Self serve shows my plan 40 is expired on Sept 7. My balance is $44. Amount owing $0.  "1969" is gone. Wondering why system doesn't reactivate my plan since I have funds available and I'm on auto-pay.
• Sept 7 3PM. Self serve shows Available fund $35 (dunno why) and amount owing $20. What??? It says my plan cost is $55. I need to top up $20 to reactivate current plan. I said no way. I just wanted to try the Plan 25 and now I need to top up more??
• Sept 8 9AM. No change in Self serve. I still need to top up $20 to reactivate. I gave in and topped up $20 using one time payment and voila. Account status became active immediately. Phone service started to work. Call texts and data. Ran a speedtest. ~ 3 Mbps.

It seems this is what happened:

• On Sept 6, only the SIM was activated but the $25 payment for Plan 25 was not successfull (payment system issues) , this resulted to the suspended service as per 611 on Sept 6th 
• On Sept 7 8AM, the system changed my status to "expired" to trigger a reactivation but at this point, the payment system and auto-pay was still down
• On Sept 7 3PM, payment issues resolved (but not auto-pay), me changing the plan from $25 to $40 in self serve on sept 6 incurred additional costs. Thus the system showed that I owed $20.
• On Sept 8. I added $20 in my account and the payment system immediately reactivated my plan (auto pay is still not working)

Lessons Learned

• PM should have advised of payment/auto pay system issues.This way people didn't have to panic.
• Changing plans on the fly will cost you money. Do it if you really need to. Else, have your plan change starting on the new cycle.

[darlicious]

As far as I can tell you were activating a new Account? If this is the case I would say you have an excellent argument to be allowed to take advantage of the flash sale or at least be credited that amount. I wouldnt want to suggest activating a separate account taking advantage of the flash sale and at least getting a working phone with a new SIM card and then asking for a credit to be transferred. That would take some looking into service terms, cctc help and telecom legislation. I have no idea if moderators have the ability to make credits like that. Maybe I'll have a read thru the service terms myself..a good plan before a problem may arise. Fingers crossed this issue gets resolved quickly for you.

[johnpaul]

After putting in $50 and auto pay to try out the $25 plan on September 6. My account status remains to be "PLAN EXPIRED". Should have gone to Lucky Mobile instead. ***SIGH***

[mhark]

@ChuckYeah  Thanks for the help and letting me vent.

Update: 

Mine is working right now, and the due date of "1969" is corrected. For my case, it seems to be a porting issue from my previous carrier, Freedom Mobile. I received a text message from Freedom at 3 am saying the porting failed, but now everything seems to be working.

Either that, or the Flash Sale is affecting the account: https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Announcements/FLASH-SALE-Get-your-next-30-days-of-ser...

Thanks everyone for the attention on this issue.

[johnpaul]

So here's an update. Take note I activated my account Sept 6 around 5PM. I logged in to my self self page today Sept 7 and it now looks like this. The "1969" bug is gone. I have funds and have auto-pay and yet the system does not automatically renew my plan. I also can't change my plan. If I click reactivate, it bring me to the payment page. But why would I add to my funds when I have funds enough to pay for the plan renewal? Something is definitely wrong.

edited by computergeek541: screenshot contained referral code

[ChuckYeah]

I don't think anyone here would refute that this is your worst experience signing up. Today has been rough for many PM customers. However, realize that this is an isolated case of system "failure", which hopefully will be remedied quickly, and we can get back to expecting reasonable signup times and a few issues for a few new users. 

Sorry about your frustrating day yesterday.

[mhark]

I have the same problem and did already the following but they all FAILED:

• took out my sin card, rebooted
• changed sin card to another unlocked phone, rebooted
• reported phone lost, waited 20 minutes, then recovered and reactivated phone
• manually paid $25 more on my account
• changed my plan to another one, switched again

I private messaged the moderators twice this afternoon, still no response. I can't seem to get the ticket from the help bot, even though I asked for a "human". This is sad, I'm really upset that I switched to Public Mobile right now, this was the worst activation experience I had.

[johnpaul]

I am afraid that if I do any of these potential workarounds, the activation of my plan will just complicate things. Will wait until tomorrow. Maybe PM will figure out this system glitch tonight. I did get a ticket as well. thanks for the suggestion guys. Goodnight.

[Jb456]

There is definitely a system glitch going on with the 1969. Many others have same issue. Moderators will have to fix it. Unfortunately there will be a wait time. Just send them a ticket if you have not already done so.

If you're willing to try the two suggestions @ChuckYeah  suggested please post outcome here. Maybe we can figure a work around to resolve this issue. Thanks 🙂

[johnpaul]

so I called 611. It says my account is temporarily suspended and I need to make a payment. this just means that when I chose my plan during the activation, the system never completed the activation as the $25 payment needed to activate my $25 plan was not paid. I still have my  $25 in my available funds. and my credit card was only charged the $26.25 once (includes Alberta sales tax). 

[ChuckYeah]

@johnpaul are you willing to try #1 and #2 for me?

[johnpaul]

Yes. Dec. 30 1969. The fact that I still have $27 in my account, it seems i never paid to get my $25 plan activated.

[ChuckYeah]

Yup, you are in an "elite" group. However, this is one you probably didn't want to join. I've been giving this advice, but recently someone said ontly #3 is whorthwile.

Can you try them all, and then get back to me? If only moderator help will work, that's all I want to provide.

You are not alone. Others have had issues today. What does your self serve overview page indicate?

The following have been recommended and all are valid options:

Restart your phone. Not just once, but every hour or so until your service is restored.

1.

1. Report your phone lost/stolen in the self service account and logout.
2. Wait 5-10 minutes.
3. Re-login and report phone found.
4. Reboot your phone. This seems to reset your SIM card and has been known to reactivate your account.

2. If that doesn't work, try manually load $1 to your account. This sometimes jumpstarts the renewal process.

3.

You should consider creating a support ticket. Explain your issue to SIMON, the ? comment bubble in the bottom right.

Use as few words as possible to allow the BOT to understand you better. Answer his questions until you get to here:

Click on "Submit a ticket" and the Moderator team will take over your case and respond to your concern within 48 hours. May take longer, but the promise of the new Ticketing System was that it will reduce these wait times.
About @Moderator_Team

[445935293]

TRY THIS ONE IT MIGHT BE WORK

https://www.publicmobile.ca/en/on/get-help/articles/set-up-data-on-an-iphone

[Jb456]

Does it say payment due date December 30th 1969??

If so seems like a system glitch. You'd have to open ticket with Moderators to investigate.

---

@johnpaul wrote:

This is what is shown in mine. I activated today as well.

• Available Funds: $27.00
• Payment Due Date (One-Time Payment): Dec 30, 1969
• Payment for Next Cycle: $25.00
• Amount Owing: $0.0

"LTE" appears on my phone (Note 4) but no data. I have signal. But cant call and text. No received calls and texts as well. I chose Plan 25 during the activation. It says account is active.

---

[johnpaul]

This is what is shown in mine. I activated today as well.

• Available Funds: $27.00
• Payment Due Date (One-Time Payment): Dec 30, 1969
• Payment for Next Cycle: $25.00
• Amount Owing: $0.0

"LTE" appears on my phone (Note 4) but no data. I have signal. But cant call and text. No received calls and texts as well. I chose Plan 25 during the activation. It says account is active.

[ChuckYeah]

When you log into self serve, what does it say? Is there a reference to 1969?

Is there a reactiveat button showing? Did you port a number or select a new one?