AutoPay

[Tim999]

I have had service with PM for years now and yesterday was the 2nd time this has happened to me. For whatever reason my autopay did not go through... my CC is fine and does not have any issues with it. When I noticed my phone wasn't working my first instinct was to figure out what was wrong with my phone not suspecting the service was suspended. A couple hours later I get a txt from PM saying my service was suspended pending payment.

Instead of suspending my service for a problem that is obviously beyond MY control, why not send me a txt stating that my payment did NOT go through and that I have 24 hours to make the payment manually. Would that be too much of a stretch to ask?

[maximum_gato]

@Tim999 

I suggest you contact customer support and ask them to open a tech team ticket to investigate the source of your autopay failure if it did not stem from one of the more common reasons for an autopay failure such as an expired card, more than one account renewing on the same date (especially with the same plan amount) or a transaction flagged as suspicious.....among others. More than one autopay failure indicates that your account may have some kind of glitch. Be sure to ask for the ticket reference # from the CSA for easy follow up inquiries as these kind of investigations can take more than 30 days to be resolved.

While autopay has been renamed "pre-authorized payments" this is actually a misnomer as "PAP" requires a specific authorization from the customer that allows the merchant to make charges to the payment card without any additional approval from the customer.

Public Mobile's autopay system is not designed nor is it allowed to make more than one attempted payment charge to the card on file and enabled for autopay per 30 days. It is only allowed to charge the plan amount owing for the next 30 days of service after deducting any available funds from the account balance. It is only allowed to do this on the date the plan payment is due for continued 30 day service on Day 1 of your next 30 days of service.

All other payments charged to the registered card on file can only be authorized by the customer themselves thru manual top up payments or purchases or by contacting customer support and authorizing a CSA to do so on their behalf due to the inability to do so thru self serve or the 611/IVR system and only once the customer has satisfactorily verified they are the account holder to the CSA.

Plan renewal payments are scheduled to occur at 2am eastern on Day 1 of renewed 30 day service plan. This gives customers 2 hours of grace time (midnight to 2am eastern) regardless of their method of payment to manually top up their account before renewal payments are debited/charged to their accounts.

Once payment system has finished with renewals the customer is given an additional 4 hours of grace time to make a manual payment and ensure their plan/service renews before an account is suspended for non payment. If renewals run on time as scheduled (at 2am eastern) then accounts are suspended at 6am eastern. Renewals often run late....when doing so the grace period is extended the same amount of time. So account suspension can occur as late as 12 noon eastern on day 1 of the new 30 day cycle.

If you rely solely on autopay and you do not wish to take the extra 5 minutes to manually top up your account ahead of renewal the only way to determine in your pm account or via the 611/IVR system if autopay has failed would be to attempt a manual payment after 2am eastern on your renewal date. No payments or purchases can be made while the renewal payment process is occurring. Only once it finishes can successful renewals be viewed in your payment history or manual payments/purchases made.

Public Mobile currently schedules 2 types of SMS texts messages to be sent to the customer via 611 on their phone. These messages are determined at the end of the 4 hour grace period (6am eastern if renewals occurred on time) however they are delayed so as to not disturb customers outside of regular business hours due to their time zone. All renewing customers recieve these SMS text messages shortly after noon eastern (9am pacific time). Customers recieve one of the following messages:

1. Public Mobile here. Thank you for your payment. Your plan has successfully renewed! Let's keep the conversation going.
2. Public Mobile here. Your plan did not renew because we did not recieve your payment. To resume your service, make a payment at http://myaccount.publicmobile.ca/

If your autopay failed you will also recieve the additional SMS text message:

1. (1/2) Public Mobile msg: We tried to process your Autopay renewal but something went wrong. Please make a one-time payment at *611 or selfserve.publicmobile.ca (2/2) Ensure that your credit card details and billing address are correct. If the card is still declined please contact your credit card provider.

Personally when I still had to pay for my plan I only used autopay as a back up plan if I forgot to manually top up my account (it happened once and worked as expected). I much prefer to take a few minutes after recieving the payment reminder text to log into my account and review my account, usage and payment history.

I download either history if needed and take screenshots of my plan and add ons to ensure I have any proof necessary in case anything goes wrong in my account during renewal. I then double check after renewal that everything occurred as it should as once I did suffer the much rarer renewal failure that set off a chain of glitches in my account that took a further 90 days to finally get corrected.

But that's just me.....I always do my due diligence when it comes to my accounts. Ignorance is rarely bliss for very long? 🤔😉😀

[pmbc]

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@hTideGnow wrote:

  We can't have the best of both world

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Why not? 🙂

[hTideGnow]

HI @Tim999   The Autopay 48 hours before renewal is good idea.  Or I think the system should at least attempt Autopay twice instead of just once

A prepaid provider like PM has it good or bad.  Good is that you won't got charged unexpectedly.  But at the same time, payment failure means no service.  We can't have the best of both world

[Yummy]

PM does send SMS regarding payment. At least I got one for successful one.

You can discuss your issue with agent and suggest they start sending such SMS regarding successful and unsuccessful payments.

It is good practice to have a little bit of extra $ on account in case autopay fails. BUT, some customers EVEN with extra $ on account did experience suspended account after renewal. Not to mention names, let them speak up and confirm...

[Tim999]

So when I get the two day notice of an upcoming payment I should pay manually... Insanity.

I believe a better option is for PM to actually TAKE the payment out 48 hours in advance and then if it fails PM can txt me letting me know and then I still have two days to correct it without losing my service. For me this is more of a safety issue as most of us rely on phones these days.

PM, open your mind and your ears to suggestions before customers start marching to the competition.

[softech]

@Tim999   Autopay would fail sometime unfortunately.   

Also, PM is a prepaid provider, pay before you use the service, so, there is no 24 hours grace period like what you suggested 😞

What some people sometimes do is to manually load enough fund onto the account before renewal day.  I agree it is troublesome and loss the purpose of Autopay.   😞