Add ons

[Meatball69]

How to block add ons so my kids doesn’t add data because I got charged for 1 gig of data and he said that he never purchased it 

[dust2dust]

@Meow- Like I said, it's a cart system now. You select the add-on which goes in to the cart. Then you pay for it. You can select using your already registered and probably even add a card if you have an older account before ti was required and also using a voucher. But I don't think that's this situation.

@hairbag1- It's an unusual circumstance. People prefer to set it and forget it and so autopay would be on. The test would be for someone to have autopay off or maybe also a zero balance gift card and see what happens when they get that offer and reply yes.

I'm entirely assuming and guessing that this is how the kids are purchasing these add-ons. I suspect the kids are on the 250mb plan and use it all and they get the text and say yes (why wouldn't they 🙂 ) and then deal with the consequences with the parents after. Meanwhile for that time they had more data to use.
I doubt the kids are logging in or using 611 and the pin to get the data.

[hairbag1]

@Meow 

I have a cc set to Autopay. Last weekend, I purchased a US roaming add-on. The add-on was successfully added and the cost was deducted from my on-file cc. No pin needed and didn't need to add funds before purchase.

[Meow]

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@dust2dust

@Meow- The system changed last year where it's now a cart system. Before then yes it was a deposit money first then buy it. But in this case the company seems to be sending text offers to the phone inviting to reply yes to get more data. Nice and simple but not so good for parents.

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Thank you for clarification. But what about straight forward add-on purchase? Log in, select add-on and...? Do you have to have $ on account or it is automatically charged due to autopay ON or you have to select your registered card to pay?

Not only parents... distracted phone owners (ohhh, all those tictok, yourtube, etc. nonsense) can accidentally reply Yes.

[hairbag1]

@LitlLdy 

I'd "assume" customer would need a pin to buy the add-on w/o autopay. Hopefully son doesn't have that pin number. BUT...you and @dust2dust could be on to something. Now that credit card is required to activate account...perhaps add-ons can be purchased w/o autopay. We'd all be interested to find out exactly.

[LitlLdy]

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@hairbag1 wrote:

@dust2dust 

well I've never taken advantage of one of those text offers, but w/o autopay, I'd assume one couldn't buy it unless different payment method selected like vouchers etc. Can you see how else the text offer payment would work ?

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@hairbag1 , I wondered how that would work. I thought with auto pay not enabled that only stopped the plan from being paid for to renew it. I didn’t think it would stop being able to make purchases with the card since the card itself is not locked from being able to make purchases! I don’t have the income to test that theory though so I can’t do it for anyone. Sorry 😞 Plus I don’t need data, especially ones that expire 30 days after purchasing it.

[dust2dust]

@hairbag1- Oh. Assuming. I'm not sure autopay would happen outside of the renewal. But there has to be some kind of registered card. If it's good and valid then I could easily see them taking money from it if there's no other balance available. Knowing this system anyway 🙂

[hairbag1]

@dust2dust 

well I've never taken advantage of one of those text offers, but w/o autopay, I'd assume one couldn't buy it unless different payment method selected like vouchers etc. Can you see how else the text offer payment would work ?

[dust2dust]

@hairbag1- Really eh? Huh. Well thanks for that info.

[hairbag1]

@Meow

with Autopay disabled, he shouldn't be able to purchase anything unless prepaying with payment vouchers. Of course he'd need to re-enable Autopay on the day of regular plan renewal.

@dust2dust 

unless there's surplus funds in the account, there's no way to pay for text offered purchased, w/o Autopay enabled.

[Ash33]

I'm not sure about blocking add ons, but I would consider changing your password, and unsubscribe from text messages.  If you reply to certain automated texts from Public Mobile, you can easily purchase add ons.  If you don't get the texts anymore that might help.

[dust2dust]

@hairbag1- I'm not sure turning off autopay will stop these text offer purchases from purchasing. But maybe.

@Meow- The system changed last year where it's now a cart system. Before then yes it was a deposit money first then buy it. But in this case the company seems to be sending text offers to the phone inviting to reply yes to get more data. Nice and simple but not so good for parents.

@Meatball69- Look in the texting history on the phone for any offers from here and whether a yes was replied. But of course the kid might have removed the evidence. If you find it maybe you could screenshot it and post it here.

[LitlLdy]

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@Meatball69 wrote:

How to block add ons so my kids doesn’t add data because I got charged for 1 gig of data and he said that he never purchased it 

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@Meatball69 , to add to what others have said here, you could get a prepaid reloadable card to replace the payment card on your kid’s account then only add enough funds to that card when it is time to pay for renewal of the plan. That way there’s no more funds left on that card to mistakenly pay for anything else! That’s how I pay for my own account due to I don’t want any unwanted charges that I didn’t make. I use KOHO . Or you can send a private message to a CS_Agent to ask for your payment card to be removed & pay using a voucher to avoid it happening again. I sometimes purchase one from muskbird.com

Edit: With the KOHO prepaid reloadable card I can lock my card on my KOHO account at any time to avoid any funds from being taken from it. So, there’s another option for you.

I know my suggestions are not what you asked for but it is all I can offer. Sorry.

[softech]

@Meatball69 

Best way to do so is to change BOTH the Account Password and PIN so they don't have access to the menu to buy addo

To change Account Password, login to My Account, go to Profile page and click Manage EverSafe ID

https://myaccount.publicmobile.ca/en/account/my-profile

To change Account PIN, login to My Account and click the pencil beside PIN Password

https://myaccount.publicmobile.ca/en/account/reset/pin

[Meow]

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@hairbag1 wrote:

@Meatball69 

log in to your account and disable Autopay (Unsubscribe)...this will prevent easy add-on application...but it won't prevent as they could get vouchers to pay for data.

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What autopay has to do with purchasing add-ons????

I thought you have to have funds on your account in order to purchase add-on.

Are you saying (I never purchased add-on) that with autopay set to ON you can keep purchasing whatever add-on you want and that will charge credit card right away?

[abtest]

@Meatball69- However, if you disable auto-pay, you will need to manually top up the account every 30 days, so that the plan can renew.

[hairbag1]

@Meatball69 

log in to your account and disable Autopay (Unsubscribe)...this will prevent easy add-on application...but it won't prevent as they could get vouchers to pay for data.