Auto pay failure

[Ninja500]

I signed up with Public mobile about a month ago. I also specifically signed up for auto pay. Suddenly today, my phone stopped working; wouldn't send texts, make calls, and my data wasn't working. Called *611 and the automated message said my account had been temporarily deactivated due to insufficient funds. I checked my self serve account, and it it acknowledged that I had auto pay activated. Why didn't it charge my credit card automatically? I had to manually make the payment... Please help. 

[LovesToPM]

@Ninja500  Unfortunately PM does not have state-of-the-art systems. For whatever reasons, we cannot rely on AutoPay to work 100% of the time.

I have to pay my other bills once a month anyways. So I also login PM account to make sure there is sufficient balance in Available Funds to cover the next bill. So far, phone service has been working well.

[popping]

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@dabr wrote:

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@popping wrote:

@dabr 

Agree with your reasoning.  But this is PM system which is not predictable.  It is no big deal for subscribers who know exactly what need to do to pay and re-start a suspended account.  After re-stared the account, experience subscibers will know to try the lost/stolen phone trick to re-provision their plan features if some features are not working.  Otherwise, the downtime may be longer.

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@popping  The problem seems to be that not too many people are aware of this lost/stolen phone and other work around tricks.  I'll add myself to that list until I started reading more of the posts here a few months ago.  Agree it shouldn't be a big deal if users were aware of some these procedures in order to avoid delays for a fix to their account issues though.

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That is the reason why we like to recommend a fool proof approach to load fund to account before renewal date.

[dabr]

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@popping wrote:

@dabr 

Agree with your reasoning.  But this is PM system which is not predictable.  It is no big deal for subscribers who know exactly what need to do to pay and re-start a suspended account.  After re-stared the account, experience subscibers will know to try the lost/stolen phone trick to re-provision their plan features if some features are not working.  Otherwise, the downtime may be longer.

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@popping  The problem seems to be that not too many people are aware of this lost/stolen phone and other work around tricks.  I'll add myself to that list until I started reading more of the posts here a few months ago.  Agree it shouldn't be a big deal if users were aware of some these procedures in order to avoid delays for a fix to their account issues though.

[dabr]

@RobertQc  wrote:

I understand and agree, its frustrating, but I also understand this is a 3rd tier service for a "do it yourselfer" kind of person, work arounds, moderator assistance, waiting, downtime and sometimes tricks you don't want to do. The price to me is right, if this kind of stuff doesn't float your boat go to a 2nd tier service like koodo

@RobertQc  Agree price is right (especially factoring in rewards).  Don't have too much issue for occasional downtime or work arounds either.  Just wondered why PM's autopay setup had this issue.  Like I said, so far I consider myself lucky not to have to had this problem.

[popping]

@dabr 

Agree with your reasoning.  But this is PM system which is not predictable.  It is no big deal for subscribers who know exactly what need to do to pay and re-start a suspended account.  After re-stared the account, experience subscibers will know to try the lost/stolen phone trick to re-provision their plan features if some features are not working.  Otherwise, the downtime may be longer.

[RobertQc]

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@dabr wrote:

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@RobertQc wrote:

@Ninja500 

Unfortunately, sometimes auto pay fails. Think of auto pay as a method for public mobile to charge you IF your account does not have sufficient balance. If you have sufficient balance it does not need to autopay, but auto pay is still configured so you get the reward. I highly recommend everyone to top off (by manually adding funds) in advance (even many months) as this process will prevent the most common and preventable reason that your account goes into suspension with a complete loss of service.

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@RobertQc   I'm going to be repeating myself, but to me having to manually add funds into your account before the renewal, when you've already registered your credit card, in order to 'prevent' the account going into suspension, kind of defeats the purpose of having autopay set up in the first place.  I'm not sure why PM's autopay service seems to have these issues (maybe other carriers also have problems, I don't know).  I can understand if the card is expiring and has not been updated with new expiry date, or someone has exhuasted their credit limit before renewal, but otherwise this shouldn't ever be an issue.

Is there anyway to verify that no account has never gone into suspension if funds are always manually loaded prior to renewal.  I'm just trying to understand why this seems to happen on a somewhat regular basis, although I've never personally, so far, experienced it.

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@dabrI understand and agree, its frustrating, but I also understand this is a 3rd tier service for a "do it yourselfer" kind of person, work arounds, moderator assistance, waiting, downtime and sometimes tricks you don't want to do. The price to me is right, if this kind of stuff doesn't float your boat go to a 2nd tier service like koodo 😞

[dabr]

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@RobertQc wrote:

@Ninja500 

Unfortunately, sometimes auto pay fails. Think of auto pay as a method for public mobile to charge you IF your account does not have sufficient balance. If you have sufficient balance it does not need to autopay, but auto pay is still configured so you get the reward. I highly recommend everyone to top off (by manually adding funds) in advance (even many months) as this process will prevent the most common and preventable reason that your account goes into suspension with a complete loss of service.

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@RobertQc   I'm going to be repeating myself, but to me having to manually add funds into your account before the renewal, when you've already registered your credit card, in order to 'prevent' the account going into suspension, kind of defeats the purpose of having autopay set up in the first place.  I'm not sure why PM's autopay service seems to have these issues (maybe other carriers also have problems, I don't know).  I can understand if the card is expiring and has not been updated with new expiry date, or someone has exhuasted their credit limit before renewal, but otherwise this shouldn't ever be an issue.

Is there anyway to verify that no account has never gone into suspension if funds are always manually loaded prior to renewal.  I'm just trying to understand why this seems to happen on a somewhat regular basis, although I've never personally, so far, experienced it.

[popping]

Adding fund to your account will prevent accidential suspension to void the promo $10 credit. 

But don't overpay too many months.  PM is a prepaid provider.  There is no refund of the fund in your account.  You do not want to create a virtual contract by paying too many months in advance.

[RobertQc]

@Ninja500 

Unfortunately, sometimes auto pay fails. Think of auto pay as a method for public mobile to charge you IF your account does not have sufficient balance. If you have sufficient balance it does not need to autopay, but auto pay is still configured so you get the reward. I highly recommend everyone to top off (by manually adding funds) in advance (even many months) as this process will prevent the most common and preventable reason that your account goes into suspension with a complete loss of service.

[geopublic]

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@Ninja500 wrote:

I signed up with Public mobile about a month ago. I also specifically signed up for auto pay. Suddenly today, my phone stopped working; wouldn't send texts, make calls, and my data wasn't working. Called *611 and the automated message said my account had been temporarily deactivated due to insufficient funds. I checked my self serve account, and it it acknowledged that I had auto pay activated. Why didn't it charge my credit card automatically? I had to manually make the payment... Please help. 

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@Ninja500  The AutoPay system is not 100% reliable so once in awhile it doesn't work. The workaround is to setup a reminder a couple of days before your renewal date and make a one-time payment using your registered credit card on file by signing into selfserve using the payment tab. That way if there is an issue you will have a couple of days to notify the moderator and get it resolved instead of finding out the day of your renewal.

[Triguy]

You could  manually add funds either with your CC or a voucher so your phone is working then deal with fixing the autopay.  Contact a moderator to fix your autopay.

[dabr]

@Ninja500  I'm not sure why your autopay didn't work, I've been on autopay and never had any issues so far.  But maybe you can go back into your account and remove your current card and then re-register your original card again or another cc for autopay.

[MandyJ]

I've heard of various accounts where the autopay feature doesn't work as expected. While I'm not sure what can be done to fix it, I have also heard that you can apply vouchers to your account balance before the payment date and still receive the $2 discount as long as you have a credit card connected for the autopay, whether the funds come from the card or not.

I guess you could try using another credit card for your autopay if you have one in the hopes that it would work normally next time, or perhaps get in touch with the moderators to see if they can identify the issue with your current card.

Here's a link to private message the moderators if you want to give that a try:

https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/notes/composepage/note-to-user-id/22437

[jordan23]

Yeah, that's quite odd. Did you confirm to make sure your credit card that's setup for autopay hasn't expired? If not, it's probably better to send a private message to the moderators to make sure your account is setup correctly for autopay.

[dabr]

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@Ninja500 wrote:

I signed up with Public mobile about a month ago. I also specifically signed up for auto pay. Suddenly today, my phone stopped working; wouldn't send texts, make calls, and my data wasn't working. Called *611 and the automated message said my account had been temporarily deactivated due to insufficient funds. I checked my self serve account, and it it acknowledged that I had auto pay activated. Why didn't it charge my credit card automatically? I had to manually make the payment... Please help. 

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If you've manually made the payment, then restart your phone to see if it refreshes the account.