Autopay fails on renewal date

[madmanpierre]

I have 3 times now been told I can't make a phone call " Sorry, can't complete your call since you don't have an active plan on your account ..." Then an hour or so later it works fine.

It happened again today, my autopay renewal date.

This is getting annoying enough to consider changing to another provider.

There is NO indication on my account that public tried to bill my card yet and that it 'failed'. Something I would assume they would have on file if they had tried.

I checked the credit card on file and it is a correct valid non-expired credit card.

It appears to me:

1. That the account is suspended on the day it is set to auto renew

2. Sometime later in that day, after I've missed a bunch of calls and been frozen out, it decides to go and do the autopay action.

3. Then my account is 'fixed and working' until the next due date.

My first guess is that there is a bug in Public's software that basically worries more about suspending the account then it does about running the Auto-Pay.

This apparent bug leaves me stranded without a working phone.

The fix should be obvious:

1. Allow me to set the auto-pay to bill 2 or 3 days EARLY so there is no interruption in service. or ... not QUITE as nice (because it gives NO room for recovery)

2. If Autopay is set for 'today' - then don't cancel my account until you have at least TRIED to do the autopay.

Am I missing something? Am I the only one that keeps getting cut off by this apparent bug in Public's software?

[Anonymous]

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@darlicious wrote:

I guess it's a good thing you're a 21st century guy....the hardships of the 1990's bill payments by cheque or a bank machine, Canada post mail and landlines!!! Goodness how did we ever survive?

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Do not fold, bend, spindle or mutilate.

Goodness how did we ever survive without the internet?

[darlicious]

@madmanpierre  Then you have a quandary on your hands. You chose as prepaid service. Autopay is the last chance way to pay for your service. If it fails then your service fails. If you have no service that's public mobiles way of telling you....autopay has failed. Public mobile informs you a few days before your renewal that you need to pay. Unless you want to set your alarm at 3am after your renewal passes to check your account or test your phone to see if it has failed rather than pay a couple of days or a couple of hours before renewal or prepay for your service quarterly  your only other option is to choose a postpaid or prepaid service provider that allows scheduled automatic payments from your credit card or bank account. You have to decide is saving money with public mobile worth making manual payments and/or the risk of occasional autopay failure. I guess it's a good thing you're a 21st century guy....the hardships of the 1990's bill payments by cheque or a bank machine, Canada post mail and landlines!!! Goodness how did we ever survive?

[madmanpierre]

I guess I have 2 comments to that.

Yes it really is that hard. Through my work I have about 60 accounts that I deal with. But I guess if I treat the AutoPay as a zero value feature (it dosen't work) then it is just as bad as every other account that I have to go and manually pay each month. Oh wait, I don't have any of those anymore other than Public Mobile.... (Sorry for the slight sarcasim, I'm not as upset as it might sound)

As far as the very low percentage it affects, I can't say whether you are correct or wrong, I can only say that EVERY person I contacted (the ones I recommended switch to Public mobile) say they have had the SAME problem. But they either

a) Just waited (like I did the other times it happened) and they eventually got their phone back or

b) the manually fixed it AFTER it was a problem.

but I guess if everyone who runs into this problem gives up on autopay and pays in advance ... then the autopay won't fail for very many people.

I also still think it is very user hostile to have a feature like autopay and then give NO inidication that it failed other than to cut the phone service off.

THAT is where I'm particularly upset. And particularly becasue I didn't even KNOW they had cut it off until AFTER the school tried unsuccessfully to call me to pick up my sick child.

Now ... if the problem had been:

- my card expired and I didn't replace it

- I was over my credit limiit (I wasn't I had oven $50,000 left on my credit limit)

Then that would be one thing for them to cut off my phone and cause my sick child to be stuck at school.

But ... it wasn't - my card was, and continues to work fine with everyone else.

And Mobile did not TELL me that their process failed - they just cut off my phone.

THAT is why I (for the first time) reported an ongoing problem. And that is why I'm not letting the issue drop with 'oh well, you should assume the auto-pay is going to fail, then you won't have a problem'.

[darlicious]

@madmanpierre  Unfortunately autopay randomly fails for a small percentage of people every month. It seems like a bigger problem than it is because the community is the front of line help centre for problems being experienced by pm customers.I can tell you this public mobile has a minimum 200,000 subscribers of which less than1% report an issue with their service on the community and less than 10% of them report an issue with autopay. The absolute maximum amount of users that have an autopay issue in a one month period would be 0.001% of all public mobile customers. 90% of the posts are about a issue needing fixing or a question about how something works. The other 10% are positive feedback. I could guarantee you that other providers have similar rate of problems with their service you just don't hear about them because they call a customer service agent to complain. In a prepaid service auto pay is set up as a back up system if you forget to pay and by offering a reward they can almost guarantee they keep you as a customer automatically billing you. They don't want it to fail anymore than you do. It happens...now you may need a tech to look into what is causing your particularily unusual autopay glitch which can be done by reaching out to a moderator.

I personally prefer to manually add funds to my accounts usually the same day I pay my hydro, gas and my outrageously high tv/internet bill online thru my bank. Is it really that hard to log into your account, click make a payment, choose the option and submit. Its easier then bank payments....less steps and no worries. If there are funds in your account your plan will always renew...cash is king in this situation.

[Rosguru]

Excellent suggestion.  I hope that Public Mobile technical support will look into this.

[JFOW]

Same thing appears to be happening to me..

I ahve been without service all day

and spent hours trying to fix it..

my autopay is from bank account and there is plenty in account to pay it.

I have been unable to get any answers

As Keanu says in the Matrix

"Must be a glitch in the mainframe"

But it completely screwed up my day and I could not deal with

urgent matters and important business

and no one to call to sort it out

and, from what I can tell, none of this has anything to do with me

and is not my fault...

This really needs to get fixed ASAP.

Thanks for any suggestions.

I still have no phone or text and its been an entire day from morning till night

NOT GOOD!

[dabr]

@madmanpierre   Unfortunately, it looks like you are one of the minority of customers for whom autopay seems to fail now and again.  I do believe the majority of people with autopay (including me with two accounts over a year old), rarely have issues with autopay not working as scheduled.  Of course, that is little consolation when you are the one having the issue, especially if it's happens more than once. 

Hopefully, the moderators will have technical support dept. take a look at why you are experiencing this, and until it gets fixed, adding funds a day or two early might be your only option.  Yes, I don't thnk that is great but a lot of long standing customers prefer to preload funds ahead of their payment renewal date to prevent this outcome.  Good luck!

[hairbag1]

Once you get into the manually adding funds routine...it seems to work good. If you want, you can also add more than 1 renewal to Avaiable Funds as well.

Send a message to moderators with your concern, for sure...but until the have a rock-solid fix, I'd recommend the methodology I've proposed. I've employed it for over a year now and haven't had a failure...yet !!

Notwithstanding the flaws...it's still a good service for personal / family use. If you absolutely MUST have reliable service all the time, say for business use...maybe a higher tier provider would be a better fit for you.

Good luck wherever you land up.

[madmanpierre]

I didn't see any of the replies below (I guess there is no automatic way that I am notified when there is a reply.)

I contacted Visa, they said there is no problem, I have more than $50,000 available credit. And other charges from other companies are going through fine.

I eventually used a different card and it worked 'this time'.

Looking through all the other people complaining about this, it appears this is a systemic problem with Public Mobile.

I talked to other people using Public (using a phone that is not on the Public plan) and they said that this is a common problem for Public and they just use one card until Public screws up, then they switch to another card. When that card fails, they go back to the first card and repeat the process.

Here are my observations in summary:

1. Public mobile waits until the last minute (or after the last minute) to run the auto pay. So if anything goes wrong, you lose your account until you happen to notices that it screwed up.

It COULD be because your card is invalid, no funds available, expired etc.., but other times it is just simply that something goes wrong either at Public or between Public and your card. And it appears this happens a LOT to a lot of people. Hence: A systemic problem.

2. When an autopay fails - Public IGNORES it. Gives NO inidication on the account, gives NO email. They probably figure "Our system screws up all the time, no point telling people we screwed up again, we'll just suspend their account - after all, people don't rely on their phones if they are on a cheap plan like Public Mobile'.

3. I am best to NEVER rely on the auto pay, but always go and manually pay a couple days early so I KNOW in advance if there is a problem and I can switch cards BEFORE I lose my phone service.

4. OR I say "It's a cheap service, I expect my phone to fail on a monthly basis and then have to go and manually fix up Public's screwup.

5. OR I switch to a company that charges more and has a system that works.

But obviously I'm cheap, other wise I wouldn't go with a company that has these types of problems. So ... I guess I go with 3 when I remember and 4 when I don't.

For other people:

- assume if you get this error that Public screwed up again like they do with many people

- check first to see if your card is truly having a legitimate problem (it probably isn't) 

- change your card to another card (you DO have 2 credit cards just for problems like this don't you?) and process the payment

- decide whether to put a tickler for 28 days from now to make sure the payment goes  through early.

- don't expect Public to tell you the REAL reason your account was suspended (the real reason being: Their payment processing failed and they didn't tell you it failed and they did it at the last possible second so there is no way to fix the problem until it is already a serious - no phone - failure.)

[PAULRANG18]

Contact a moderator for this complicated issue by clicking ?, bottom right, and follow instructions.

[will13am]

@madmanpierre , have you taken this case up with the moderator team.  There could be some sort of hidden issue with your account that they can identify and fix.  The moderator team can be reached via private message using smartforms which is initiated by clicking on the ? on the lower right corner of the webpage or try using this link. The guided process will facilitate documentation of the issue or concern and the required resolution which will be submitted to the moderator team. Refer to this announcement link for additional details on smartforms and the ticketing system for moderator team interactions. If use of smartform brings no joy, then use the following direct link to private message the moderator team. Refer to the following knowledge base article for additional information on the moderator team.

[hairbag1]

Frustrating, to say the least. A work-around...a couple of days before your renewal, manually add $$ to cover your plan costs. This seems to make the renewal process happy and you still get the autopay rewards.