Autopay credit wheN I suspend the SIM card

[linyx9]

Hi 

I suspended the SIM card for one day because I thought the phone was lost. Turns out I found it later. However, I noticed on my payment cycle that I was not given the $2 autopay credit (even though I was still on AutoPay and it in fact charged my credit card automatically).

Is there something I am missing (will that $2 credit come later), or this is typical that the $2 credit goes away when you suspend the SIM?

Also what will happen next month, assuming I dont suspend the SIM anymore?

[pm-smayer97]

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@Triguy wrote:

@linyx9 It is part of the reward rules.

• Your account must be active and in good standing to earn and use Rewards. It cannot be in a suspended or deactivated status. For example: if you earn Rewards and immediately go into a suspended state because of a late payment, you will not be able to use your Rewards until you have made that payment.

https://publicmobile.ca/en/on/get-help/articles/reward-rules

---

This is the Rule that gets quoted MOST often to justify NOT paying the AutoPay reward but is misapplied. Notice that there are 2 parts...one about earning rewards, one about using the rewards. So keep in mind that any reference to using the rewards is irrelevant to this whole discussion.

Consider both the scenarios being discussed (as I listed above):

1. if the account is suspended then reactivated BEFORE the renewal, the account IS active at the time of renewal, therefore, according to this written policy the account IS eligible for the AutoPay Reward. This has been confirmed multiple times by PM management (e.g. Alan_K, and others). The system fails at the moment.

2. if the account is suspended before the renewal then reactivated AFTER the renewal, the system will not auto-renew until you make ANY payment (even as little as $1). So then AutoPay DOES trigger and auto-tops up the account with missing funds then Auto-re-activates the account. Therefore, AutoPay IS active AND triggered AND the account IS active; therefore, the account is eligible for the AutoPay Reward. Again, the system fails at the moment.

The policy wording as is only makes sense and applies that at the time of renewal, if the account is not active, it is not eligible to earn the AutoPay Reward even if the account is registered with AutoPay.

The problem seems to be that PM is not resetting the account to Active at the right time, so in each of the above scenarios, the account is seen as inactive at the time that AutoPay triggers.

Each of these scenarios has different timing BUT both algorithms should be easy to fix.

[pm-smayer97]

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@linyx9 wrote:

Hi everyone

Wow I did not realize that this was such a common problem. As  @S--S @HALIMACS @darlicious  and others have suggested I did reach out to mods to get the manner resolved, and I did get my Autopay credited.

To my question " For future reference, does that usually occur if I have to do a suspend ?", I I got the response:

Just to confirm with you that at the moment that you place your account on a suspended status(lost-stolen) the rewards will not be applied for that month.

So it seems to be a policy.

Thanks everyone for their input.

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Keep this in mind... Just because a mod says something does NOT mean it is policy. They OFTEN get things wrong. Just think of the game Broken Telephone... they OFTEN lose information in the translation of the ACTUAL policy and have convinced themselves that they know their policy. Even some managers get it wrong.

@darlicious  and have made that point in oh so many ways.

[darlicious]

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@linyx9 wrote:

Hi everyone

Wow I did not realize that this was such a common problem. As  @S--S @HALIMACS @darlicious  and others have suggested I did reach out to mods to get the manner resolved, and I did get my Autopay credited.

To my question " For future reference, does that usually occur if I have to do a suspend ?", I I got the response:

Just to confirm with you that at the moment that you place your account on a suspended status(lost-stolen) the rewards will not be applied for that month.

So it seems to be a policy.

Thanks everyone for their input.

---

@linyx9

Yes I have been given that answer many times. Always seek a second opinion or escalate the issue. If you run into this response in future private message me and I will provide you with the private message from Alan_K that counters that response.

The application of rewards should not punish the customer if they have indeed lost or had their device stolen or have used that feature to trouble shoot or suspend their service to prevent renewal of the plan because they are registered for autopay or maintain a balance that exceeds the plan amount. Rewards are earned on an active account that has already been paid for in full not the upcoming 30 day cycle. The non application of rewards in this case are intended to prevent the use of said rewards to pay for a plan for an account that has been suspended for non payment. The rewards should always be applied manually after the plan has been for in full and reactivated.

[linyx9]

Hi @Triguy 

I guess the key part of this is that the Autopay reward did not reactivate when I reactivated my SIM. 

I understand why that may be the case. However Autopay itself did not need any special reactivation but still continued to work.

So in my mind, either both the Autopay and the autopay reward should have been deactivated, or both should have been activated together the moment I unsuspended my SIM. 

The selective deactivation of autopay rewards (and the need to manually complain about the autopay reward) whereas Autopay itself did not deactivate is where I took issue. In addition, it is not as if my monthly fee was prorated with the time I turned the SIM card off anyway. 

[Triguy]

@linyx9 It is part of the reward rules.

• Your account must be active and in good standing to earn and use Rewards. It cannot be in a suspended or deactivated status. For example: if you earn Rewards and immediately go into a suspended state because of a late payment, you will not be able to use your Rewards until you have made that payment.

https://publicmobile.ca/en/on/get-help/articles/reward-rules

[linyx9]

Hi everyone

Wow I did not realize that this was such a common problem. As  @S--S @HALIMACS @darlicious  and others have suggested I did reach out to mods to get the manner resolved, and I did get my Autopay credited.

To my question " For future reference, does that usually occur if I have to do a suspend ?", I I got the response:

Just to confirm with you that at the moment that you place your account on a suspended status(lost-stolen) the rewards will not be applied for that month.

So it seems to be a policy.

Thanks everyone for their input.

[HALIMACS]

Again, @darlicious , your passion on these matters is palpable.  All I was saying from the onset is that there is value in volume when it comes to exercising displeasure with a corporate entity.  Sure, sometimes it only takes ONE very loud or persistent individual with the correct following/approach to enact change, however when MANY take up the cause, it can be more effective.

That's all that prompted me to suggest the OP petition the Moderator for an explanation as to why - nothing more.   Was never meant to de-ride anyone else's efforts towards the common goal.

I especially like the statement, "If you want change you have to enact the change, organize the people, direct the derision...."

Should we start a rally - masks on, of course.  😷

[darlicious]

@HALIMACS 

I don't think registering your "complaint" with a moderator for whatever the failing on pm's part will do much of anything unless perhaps you escalate it and how many customers are going to be bothered to do that? And follow up? Just to get a generic "We're working in improving our systems to better serve our customers. Thank you for your patience."

If you want anything to change ( maybe) or improve around here you have to be proactive, diligent and creative. It takes a considerable amount of your own free time and will usually involve making your intentions public ( which can work in your favour or will just get deleted by pm and die a slow death.) If you want to see improvements you start a thread and bump it up to the landing page at least once a week. Start a "petition" type thread. But be careful don't let a thread dominate the latest posts or it will be sent to the abyss by the ones who have the final unappealable decision making powers around here. If you want change you have to enact the change, organize the people, direct the derision....

Asking a moderator what pm s doing about it is a nonstarter and just wasting their valuable time but if it makes a customer feel better.....I prefer to exploit pm for their failings by asking for free stuff for my inconvenience and their inability to fix stuff that should be fixed. ( Except of course when I get on my soapbox but I have to pick and choose my battles....that I will follow thru to the bitter end!)

[Anonymous]

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@HALIMACS wrote:

In fact, the more users that take issue with this with the moderators, perhaps the more likely PM may actually make a permanent change instead of a Band-Aid approach to customer problems.

---

This I agree with. Some around here would say to always report that autopay didn't work for them so that the company might build up a critical mass of complaints and do something about it.

But then if those that happen to self-suspend are having to ask the mods to re-apply rewards then in that way the company is getting the report. Will they do anything...who knows.

[HALIMACS]

Hmmm...  @pm-smayer97 

Darlicious wrote in reply to me:  "The moderator will not be able to answer that question any better than I have. They do not know why the glitch returned after briefly fixing it around this time last year."

Perhaps not "disparaging" contacting the Mods (also, i never said that - these are your words), but certainly sounds to me like discouraging it or positioning it as a useless exercise.

I understand that she has a history with this with you, and all for the betterment of all customers, however when customers come on board and have questions about this, I don't see any issue with them engaging the moderators separately.

In fact, the more users that take issue with this with the moderators, perhaps the more likely PM may actually make a permanent change instead of a Band-Aid approach to customer problems.

[pm-smayer97]

@HALIMACS  I do not see anyone disparaging reaching out to the mods... I think @darlicious is just giving background to what is underfoot and setting expectations aright.

[pm-smayer97]

@darlicious  oooh drag me back into this frustration why don't you.

Note to all, there are 2 scenarios to consider:

1. Autopay reward being lost if you suspend and re-activate before the next renewal

2. Autopay reward being lost if you suspend but do not re-activate until after next renewal was supposed to happen.

And to be clear, AutoPay reward is only lost for one cycle and returns on the following renewal after reactivating the account.

[EDIT: I forgot to clarify and mention that in #2, part of the problem is that after an account is manually suspended/On Hold, when you re-activate the account, AutoPay does NOT trigger even if there are sufficient funds... BUT WILL trigger if you simply apply a small top-up to the account...like $1)... So clearly the system knows to trigger AutoPay but under specific conditions... the problem is that the AutoPay Reward is NOT applied, even though AutoPay has triggered. According to their written policy, AutoPay Reward should be applied. ]

Note that PM has been dealing with both of these separately and it is important to be clear which one you are dealing with when communicating with the Mods and make sure they understand which (many do not make the differentiation).

Though @darlicious has been focused on the first scenario, I had tried for a long time (many many months) to work on the second one. After repeatedly opening tickets and getting conflicting information, being told it was being worked on, then fix, but not really, and also being told it was not something they would fix, or that their policy said something else than what is actually written, to other seemingly made up excuses, and back and forth, I gave up... especially since I found a work-around to #2, the one scenario that I use most often ...though somewhat inconvenient, it guarantees I always get my AutoPay reward, so it works for me. Far less effort than arguing with PM.

(BTW, if anyone really wants to know how for #2, I can share BUT only privately... for hopefully obvious reasons).

[darlicious]

@HALIMACS 

I see your point. And no I don't feel it diminished my post at all. So the OP can have at it. I was just trying to say that since I have first inquired about this glitch before Christmas 2019 that pm from almost the top ( Alan_K) on down no one has yet to have been able to answer that very question. Even the fix as temporary as it was......was the lucky side effect of pm fixing the ghost referral issue. Which fixed the rewarding of $$ for ghost referrals but alas did not actually fix awarding of said referrals. This I suspect will be one of many unsolved mysteries of public mobile for sometime to come......

....and yes maybe some of us regulars are being overly sensitive to having other member(s) diminish our replies/answers by insisting that only oracles correct misinformation and that the information they provide is somehow better or more reliable than regular community member's contributions. To cry "bully" just because they don't want to their misinformation corrected by anyone but oracles or be tagged or complain that a percieved "snide" remark should be against the terms of service and subject to warnings, temporary or ultimately permanent bans has perhaps started discord within the community like it did last year when another member was spreading these same seeds for their own sick form of entertainment.

[pm-smayer97]

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@linyx9 wrote:

Hi 

I suspended the SIM card for one day because I thought the phone was lost. Turns out I found it later. However, I noticed on my payment cycle that I was not given the $2 autopay credit (even though I was still on AutoPay and it in fact charged my credit card automatically).

Is there something I am missing (will that $2 credit come later), or this is typical that the $2 credit goes away when you suspend the SIM?

Also what will happen next month, assuming I dont suspend the SIM anymore?

---

It is typical... a PM oversight. Was fixed then seems to have come back.

To answer the last question, yes, the AutoPay reward is only lost for one cycle and returns on the second cycle after reactivating the account.

[HALIMACS]

@darlicious 

That's great.   Fill your boots.  You're a great resource and advocate for many - and I've said before, I'll say again, I like your passion.

Again though, what's the harm in proposing that the OP asks the Moderator for input as to why this happens?  They're gonna be communicating with the Mod's anyway to get the reward credited back.

And how does it diminish your post in any way?  (do you feel it did???)

Just because you have a 'tech review' underway doesn't mean that others are precluded from doing and asking questions for themselves.   I think some of us have become a bit too engaged in what our roles and responsibilities really are within Public Mobile.  We are just customers, aren't we?   Some of us (present company excluded) have become far too engaged in picking apart other's attempts to be responsive and helpful to the point it's not at all helpful.

Perhaps this pandemic is getting to some of us more than others.

Be well, all.

[darlicious]

@HALIMACS 

I have an open ticket with the tech team on this issue that I follow up on quite regularily. So if a fix is in or the reason it occurs or reoccurred is to be explained I will likely be one of the first people to be informed about it. I have recently had to argue and submit to a senior moderator messages I have recieved from Alan_K from well over a year ago confirming that a customer is not to be denied their rewards for using the lost/stolen feature in their accounts. If you want the foremost authority on this glitch you're talking to her....either that or @pm-smayer97 has quite a bit of experience dealing with this issue before me and @stonechucker ( retired oracle) originally brought this issue/glitch to pm's attention.

[HALIMACS]

Did everyone get up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?

@darlicious --  a Moderator may (not absolutely) have a line of communication with PM Staff that users on the forum do not.   Maybe a really keen Mod will ask internally what causes this problem to occur.   Maybe someone within PM will take the time to ask someone else "why", and maybe (just maybe) someone with the right knowledge and skill-set will know why.

Is there a problem asking the OP to ask the Moderator if they can find out why this occurs?   

How does this in any way diminish your reply?    

[darlicious]

@HALIMACS 

Maybe you should read my thread. The moderator will not be able to answer that question any better than I have. They do not know why the glitch returned after briefly fixing it around this time last year.

[HALIMACS]

@linyx9 

As @Anonymous recommended, contact the Mods to get the auto-pay credit placed back on.

It seems unusual that PM's systems allow the auto-pay discount to be missed on the renewal following a Lost/Found use - however it's a downside to using that feature.   Some other users frequently use it for periods of inactivity (or when they want to render the 'user' of a device unable to use it, for whatever punitive reason...).

Use this as an opportunity to ask the Moderator why the system Lost/Found feature affects application of these rewards like this - and if they reply with a reason, please kindly post their reply. (without necessarily identifying the particular Moderator, of course).  😉

[darlicious]

@linyx9

This is a known glitch when suspending an active account using the lost/stolen feature. You will have to contact the moderators and ask for your reward(s) to be manually added to your account.

For more info on this glitch and if you get pushback from the moderator about adding your reward please link this thread to the moderator for reference....

https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Rewards/Autopay-reward-Do-not-use-lost-stolen-trick-I...

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

you have to Submit a ticket to a moderator.

Here’s when and how to contact the Moderator Team:

• Get help with your account the easy way by starting a conversation with our virtual assistant, via SIMon the chat bot  , It’ll take you to relevant help articles, Click here to get started.
• or if it’s something more urgent, the can help you submit a ticket to Moderator Team. 
• you can send a private message to the @Moderator_Team by clicking here. You’ll need to be logged in to your Community account for the link to work.

• In your message put it, please include.
  
• your account number,
  
• your phone number,
• your account PIN,
• explanation to them nice Team and nice service 
•  the will adjustment to your account.

• Good Luck