Being bullied by PM to pay $83 for no reason!!!!! (account suspended)

[ty666666]

I have been with PM for more than 2 years on a 90 day unltd province, 12gb LTE plan for $40.
I'm on autopay (mastercard)
Service has been disconnected since Tuesday (almost 6 days now) and I'm not able to log in to my account (online access suspended too)

When I contact mods here, this is what they say:
"It seems like one of your payments was disputed as non authorized" and they ask me to pay $83 by bank draft or money order and to be mailed to them (no c.c payment accepted)

They provided no explanation. This came as a shock to me. I'm on auto pay, and i'm prepaid already for at least another month & I have not disputed any payments with my credit card co. WTF is that???
I tried to explain to them and ask for more info and that's all I got:

"It is clearly specified on the account that a payment of $ 83.48 needs to be made in the form of CERTIFIED CHEQUE or MONEY ORDER (NO OTHER PYMT METHOD WILL BE ACCEPTED), payable to Public Mobile. The payment has to be mailed to 320 Bayfield St Suite 201 Barrie, ON L4M 3C1. If you have any other questions, please do not hesitate to contact us, we` ll be more than happy to help!"

It is completely unacceptable to suspend somone's account, ask for money & not provide a reason why. 
This must be a huge error on PM's side. Maybe they suspended the wrong account by istake but nevertheless staying without a phone for 6 days is unacceptable.
Has anyone here experienced anything similar?

I will be filing complaints with CRTC & BBB if this doesnt get resolved by tomorrow

[climber164]

Wondering how this got resolved in the end, as I am experiencing the EXACT same thing. In addition, the Mods are also saying that I have to pay via mailed vouchers for the next year, whatever that means. This is the most boggus thing I've ever encountered. 

[ty666666]

I hope things resolve by tomorrow. But if turns out my credit card company didnt charge back & PM refuses to fix their error, the I will  definitely not pay them $83. Let's hope it doesn't come to that

[computergeek541]

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@ty666666 wrote:

They can blaclist it even if it's not their phone/subsidized?

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Should they or are they supposed to is a good question.  Can they?  Absoulutely, yes - there have been some disputes between customers and carriers in the past about devices being blacklisted.  I even recall reading that in one case, a carrier was forced to replace the device for someone who wasn't even their customer.

[ty666666]

They can blaclist it even if it's not their phone/subsidized?

[Alex888]

@ty666666 Just so you know, if you do try to move to a different provider while owing money your phones IMEI may be blacklisted. You would be better off getting it sorted before moving.

[popping]

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@ty666666 wrote:

I don't believe there is any fraud, I've been in touch with 2 or 3 different mods. so it should be legit. But everything else doesn't make sense.
I dont think my online account was hacked, I was told by the mods that it was disabled as part of the suspension. In cases like these when you spend 6 days with no phone & you cant get an answer from anyone, you start questioning if it's worth it to stay with PM.

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You should find out from your your bank

- When was the charge back and the reason for the charge back since you did not initiate the charge back,

- When will the money be back to your account?

After finding out the reason, then you can decide whether to stay with PM or not.  

[ty666666]

I don't believe there is any fraud, I've been in touch with 2 or 3 different mods. so it should be legit. But everything else doesn't make sense.
I dont think my online account was hacked, I was told by the mods that it was disabled as part of the suspension. In cases like these when you spend 6 days with no phone & you cant get an answer from anyone, you start questioning if it's worth it to stay with PM.

[RobertQc]

Although at the same time, this has happened to another customer by "mistake"

https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Self-Serve/Account-disabled-and-no-phone-service/td-p...

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@Mary_M wrote:

Hey everyone, 

just an update - this was not a scam! Simply a mix up in the back-end that has been resolved 🙂

Cheers,

Mary

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I would really grill my credit card company ASAP, and if they did do a chargeback, send public mobile the certified cheque asap, luckily this is an extremely rare thing around here.

[RobertQc]

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@ty666666 wrote:

i did not dispute any charge with my credit card company & I have not received any refund from my credit card for that amount.

I will contact CCTS, thanks for the info

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@ty666666Did you actually contact them to ask? Refunds especially chargebacks can take a while to show in your account.

I am not choosing any sides here. But if I understand this correctly. You can do what you want, but as a pre-paid service, understand from public mobile's point of view, if you paid for something then in the middle of using it you took all the money back, your fault or your credit card company, your payment was reversed. Contacting the CCTS won't do very much, you should be reporting your bank not your phone provider.

You should really complain to the bank / credit union asap, as I very highly doubt the CCTS will be on your side in this matter.

[CalgaryBen]

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@ty666666 wrote:

"It is clearly specified on the account that a payment of $ 83.48 needs to be made in the form of CERTIFIED CHEQUE or MONEY ORDER (NO OTHER PYMT METHOD WILL BE ACCEPTED), payable to Public Mobile. The payment has to be mailed to 320 Bayfield St Suite 201 Barrie, ON L4M 3C1.

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Does Public Mobile have any presence in the Bayfield Shopping Mall?  This raises red flags to me.  Unfortunately Google isn't giving much more detail, but it looks like this shopping mall has maybe 70ish merchants, anchored by a Canadian Tire.  I can't find any PM address here, but very curious about the tenant in Suite 201.

@ty666666 is it possible your account was somehow compromised/hacked?

EDIT: I see PM confirmed the address/note in the other post referenced by @NDesai.  Just seemed very odd that PM has a billing office in a mall... and the insistence of cheque/MO seemed to fit the signature of typical scams...

[ty666666]

I will contact them tomorrow. But it is highly unlikley, and if my credit card company in fact did  a charge back without me asking for it (which is also highly unlikley) I should at least be able to see a refund on my credit card for that amount which I don't see.

[ty666666]

i did not dispute any charge with my credit card company & I have not received any refund from my credit card for that amount.

I will contact CCTS, thanks for the info

[RobertQc]

@ty666666  You should also know, that in the case of @osama11 that @NDesai linked you where he did not do a chargeback but was in this exact same problem, his credit card DID do a chargeback and took the money from PM. So you need to call your credit card company and ask them what they did and why.

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@osama11 wrote:
 Something is really fishy, I called my credit card and they said the fund was returned back to me. And I was like why and they told me that it was used more than once a month, cuz like I said I have more lines. In total I have 5 lines.

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[computergeek541]

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@ty666666 wrote:

It is completely unacceptable to suspend somone's account, ask for money & not provide a reason why. 
This must be a huge error on PM's side. Maybe they suspended the wrong account by istake but nevertheless staying without a phone for 6 days is unacceptable.
Has anyone here experienced anything similar?

I will be filing complaints with CRTC & BBB if this doesnt get resolved by tomorrow

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It's not impossible that there could be a mistake.  I do not know what happened.  However, Public Mobile did provide you a reason why.  Public Mobile's records show that a credit card was used for payment/to top up to your account but that someone/or the bank initiated a chargeback. This means that Public Mobile has had money taken away from them and has not been paid for services that have already been provided.

You should know that CRTC does not handle consumer-level complaints.  The proper agency to do that if you feel the need to is called CCTS.  In addition, I realaize that people do like to go through BBB for maximum exposure about an issue, but you should know that The Better Business Beureau has zero authority nor any powers to do anything.  Any company that participates in the process there is doing so voluntarily, likely to maintain goodwill.

[RobertQc]

This doesn't seem to be the norm around here. I feel your pain but am just a customer like you. Sorry for your troubles. Have you contacted your credit card company to make 100% sure?

[NDesai]

@ty666666 Sorry to hear that your account was suspended without notice. Such case has happened before and that person was also in a shock to hear something like that. I just want you to know that it is actually legit and not an error from Public Mobile. I am not sure why and how they randomly chose you even though you did not dispute the charge. 

EDIT: Here is the post i was referring to: https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Discussions/Fraud-Alert-Why-was-my-Thread-deleted/m-p...