AutoPay - How Does it Work

[sa7375]

Hi,

 I’m a newbie having activated my account only yesterday, Oct 28th 2018. Everything went smoothly and I'll perhaps share that experience later — a good one. 🙂

Currently, I've a question about Autopay. I've setup my account for Autopay but fail to find its exact interpretation in the forum posts.

Per my previous understanding and experience whenever I have placed my credit "card on file" with a business, they seem to auto-charge me for whatever I am due to pay. Does it work like that at PM also? I ask because I’ve seen dozens of posts people asking about funding their account despite being configured for Autopay. So to be precise, my question is:

Do I have to fund my account every month on my own so there is enough balance available for PM to withdraw automatically?

OR

Does PM charge my credit card automatically (without my involvement) for whatever I am due to pay — for each occurrence or each month? Example: I’ve $5 in my balance and I can still purchase an add-on of $20 because PM will automatically charge me Credit Card the balance amount of $15 ($20 - $5).
@Alan_K: Re your post on Knowledge Base covering AutoPay

[sa7375]

Thank you, @srlawren. This discussion could have gone on infinitely without a definitive conclusion but your adding the perspective makes me understand and mitigate the not-so-smooth functioning of a few things in the AutoPay system.

Your adding the postscript (in the second post) prepares me well for when and how to fund. That was a very sincere advice indeed.

Thank you for taking the time for explaining it so clearly and eloquently. Appreciated.

@stonechucker  @RobertQc

[mcs11]

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@srlawren wrote:

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@sa7375 wrote:

When you say "I highly recommend everyone to top off in advance” it doesn’t add to my confidence in the AutoPay system. Why should there be a need for me to top off in advance if I have placed my trust in PM to charge my credit card.

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@sa7375 let me try to add some perspective here.  Yes, the system should "just work" and for the majority of people the majority of the time, it does.  You don't see very many people come to the community to post "hooray, my Auto Pay worked fine again this month!" (though you do see the occasional post of the sort).  As with most support communities, most people only post when they are having trouble.

That said, there is no such thing as a piece of software more than about 100 lines long that has zero bugs.  And unfortunately, one of the drawbacks of using a lower-cost, no-frills, self-serve brand like Public Mobile is that--and this is with no insider info on how the company is really run, it's speculation based on 3+ years of personal observation of the community--Telus (PM's owner and operator) seems reluctant to invest much in bug fixes.  Overall, they appear content to let the moderator team (PM's support team--read more about them and how to contact them here https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Knowledge-Base/How-to-Get-Help/ta-p/251745) handle issues as they come up instead, with manual corrections rather than proper systematic fixes.

There is also an element of user error as well.  For example just this morning someone posted that their auto pay failed due to an expired credit card on file.  With a self-serve brand like this you really need to make sure that when you get a new credit card number or expiry date, that you go to your self-serve account and update it.  The onus is on you.

But as I said, for most customers, most of the time, their AutoPay and renewal carry though without an issue.  The problem is that if an issue *does* happen, it can take several days (based on recent moderator team turnaround times) to get it resolved.

So the advice that @RobertQc gave you is one that I often tell people as well and it worked great for me for several years.  Leave AutoPay turned on as a failsafe in case you forget the manual payment, and with the added bonus that you get the $2 every 30 days credit for having it on.  However, I feel that it's best to make a manual top-up for your renewal amount about 4-5 days before your payment due date.  I used a recurring reminder to remind me to do so.  

The advantage here is some lead time.  If you try to make the payment 4-5 days early and something goes wrong, you have time before your renewal and are far less likely to lose service for a period of time.  If it's due to a CC expiry, you will see the failure right away and realize you need to update the expiry date and try again.  If something else has gone wrong, you still have time to contact the moderator team or go to one of the voucher vendors and purchase a voucher for the payment instead.  

So while it may seem that you shouldn't *need* to do this--and again most of the time you won't--it's about minimizing the chance of downtime should something go wrong.  That's my personal outlook on it.

EDIT: i forgot to add a bit.  Sorry for the long reply. I meant to also recommend not making the payment further ahead than 4-5 days.  You can if you want, but know that any funds you load into your account is non-refundable should you choose to go to another provider or close your account.  So for example if you're on a 30 day account and decide to load enough funds into your account for your next renewal date 29 days in (shortly after activating or renewing last) and then 20 days later decide you need to port elsewhere, you will lose those funds in the process.  So the trick is to make the manual top up a little early, but not so early that it would limit your flexibility down the road.  

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Thanks @srlawren for this post. I haven't yet had Auto-Pay charge my credit card as we signed on with the one-month free deal, but this prepares me for next month when our payment is due. I really don't want our service suspended in any way, so will consider this early top-up method.

[srlawren · Accepted solution]

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@sa7375 wrote:

When you say "I highly recommend everyone to top off in advance” it doesn’t add to my confidence in the AutoPay system. Why should there be a need for me to top off in advance if I have placed my trust in PM to charge my credit card.

---

@sa7375 let me try to add some perspective here.  Yes, the system should "just work" and for the majority of people the majority of the time, it does.  You don't see very many people come to the community to post "hooray, my Auto Pay worked fine again this month!" (though you do see the occasional post of the sort).  As with most support communities, most people only post when they are having trouble.

That said, there is no such thing as a piece of software more than about 100 lines long that has zero bugs.  And unfortunately, one of the drawbacks of using a lower-cost, no-frills, self-serve brand like Public Mobile is that--and this is with no insider info on how the company is really run, it's speculation based on 3+ years of personal observation of the community--Telus (PM's owner and operator) seems reluctant to invest much in bug fixes.  Overall, they appear content to let the moderator team (PM's support team--read more about them and how to contact them here https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Knowledge-Base/How-to-Get-Help/ta-p/251745) handle issues as they come up instead, with manual corrections rather than proper systematic fixes.

There is also an element of user error as well.  For example just this morning someone posted that their auto pay failed due to an expired credit card on file.  With a self-serve brand like this you really need to make sure that when you get a new credit card number or expiry date, that you go to your self-serve account and update it.  The onus is on you.

But as I said, for most customers, most of the time, their AutoPay and renewal carry though without an issue.  The problem is that if an issue *does* happen, it can take several days (based on recent moderator team turnaround times) to get it resolved.

So the advice that @RobertQc gave you is one that I often tell people as well and it worked great for me for several years.  Leave AutoPay turned on as a failsafe in case you forget the manual payment, and with the added bonus that you get the $2 every 30 days credit for having it on.  However, I feel that it's best to make a manual top-up for your renewal amount about 4-5 days before your payment due date.  I used a recurring reminder to remind me to do so.  

The advantage here is some lead time.  If you try to make the payment 4-5 days early and something goes wrong, you have time before your renewal and are far less likely to lose service for a period of time.  If it's due to a CC expiry, you will see the failure right away and realize you need to update the expiry date and try again.  If something else has gone wrong, you still have time to contact the moderator team or go to one of the voucher vendors and purchase a voucher for the payment instead.  

So while it may seem that you shouldn't *need* to do this--and again most of the time you won't--it's about minimizing the chance of downtime should something go wrong.  That's my personal outlook on it.

EDIT: i forgot to add a bit.  Sorry for the long reply. I meant to also recommend not making the payment further ahead than 4-5 days.  You can if you want, but know that any funds you load into your account is non-refundable should you choose to go to another provider or close your account.  So for example if you're on a 30 day account and decide to load enough funds into your account for your next renewal date 29 days in (shortly after activating or renewing last) and then 20 days later decide you need to port elsewhere, you will lose those funds in the process.  So the trick is to make the manual top up a little early, but not so early that it would limit your flexibility down the road.  

[stonechucker]

@sa7375in recent months, AutoPay has been flakey.  It should charge your card when plan is renewed, early hours on renewal date, which is the day following payment due by date.

You should be able to trust it will work, it has only failed once for me in two plus years, and it was a case of renewing the wrong plan, by not applying all the funds at the right time.

[sa7375]

Thanks for your quick response but the process of withdrawal of funds from my credit card seems a bit murky. It needs to be definitive: either PM is responsible or me: it shouldn't be both.

When you say "I highly recommend everyone to top off in advance” it doesn’t add to my confidence in the AutoPay system. Why should there be a need for me to top off in advance if I have placed my trust in PM to charge my credit card.

Further, the link you referred to in your post doesn't add any authenticity either because in its very opening statement, it says "First a word of CAUTION: the following analysis is based on personal experience and observing posts to this forum, and has not been confirmed officially by Public Mobile”

Can we possibly have an official word from PM on this! This is a matter of finance that should be resolved definitively! Having trusted PM with my credit card, its logical for me to expect them to withdraw funds as and when these become due.

[smp99]

Autopay will only automatically get funds from you credit card to renew your regular plan on renewal date. No need to do anything on your end (assuming everything goes fine)

Auto-pay will NOT automatically get funds for you if you are purchasing an Add-on. You have to first add funds to your account by authorizing PM to get funds from your credit card. Then once the funds are in your account you can purchase the add-n.

You can use the same credit card on file for both types of charges. You get a $2 credit per 30 days when auto-pay is enabled on your account. You still get this reward even if there are enough funds or credits to completely cover your renewal cost.

[RobertQc]

@sa7375

Add-ons must be fully funded in advance before you purchase them.

As for the "plan" PM will "automatically" charge you without your involvement each 30/90days (whatever your plan length is) for whatever your plan cost is. But I do not recommend this. 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 in advance as this process can prevent the somewhat common occurrence of autopay failure which causes a HUGE pain in the butt account suspension and loss of service and while there are tricks to try to get it to "re-activate" you may have to wait for moderator intervention which some people are currently having to wait up to 6 days for, which at that point you will wish you just topped off early.

If today was your payment due date, then here's what to expect:
1. Expiration of completed period. Account will show "plan expired" sometime before midnight tonight.
2. Conversion of all rewards (including autopay) to available funds at midnight; rewards reset. Payment not collected yet at this point.  Account will show "Your account has been suspended" in big red letters.
3. In early hours of the morning, available funds will be used (if any), credit card will be charged (if necessary), plan will be renewed. Account status will then show "active."

If you look around the self serve pages, you will see two days, a top up day and payment day.  The one shown in the overview page is the day they want people who do manual top ups to put money into the account.  The next day, early in the morning is when the funds are converted into a payment.  The payment day is also shown.

This post explains the renewal process: https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Plans-Add-Ons/EXPIRED-vs-SUSPENDED-AVAILABLE-FUNDS-vs...