Can someone give me a reason for optimism?

[steveb11]

Hi. I've been a Public Mobile customer for four days and it's been a really lousy experience so far. Signing up was unpleasant. Transferring my phone number was a nightmare. I eventually had to use my investigative skills to find a 1-800 number so I could actually speak to a live human being to help me move my phone number from PC Mobile. Thank God I did find that person because I may never have succeeded in getting my phone number moved over. The instructions I have found online so far haven't been particularly helpful. I now have concerns about data usage and how it's calculated by Public Mobile. It's incredibly difficult to figure out how to submit a message that will be read by an actual person at Public Mobile. And it's impossible to actually speak to a human voice. So far, I've got a better answer to my question from this user community than the answer I received from the Public Mobile moderator. That doesn't fill me with a lot of confidence.

So my question: Can someone give me a reason to be optimistic about Public Mobile? Will this experience get better? Thank you.

[softech]

Welcome to PM.. I hope you will enjoy it more as it seems like you are now fully setup.

Honestly  the service is decent and price is good.  And great that you found this Community, you can get quick answer from many experts here.   

Only thing I think have to be aware is there is no roaming outside of USA.   However, if you ever go to Europe or other country, it's probably better to just buy a local SIM and it might not be a big problem. 

To me, what is see is that .. once the phone is setup and working, you don't really need to find support a lot.    🙂

[steveb11]

Well, that was sobering. Thanks for your candour. I appreciate it.

Maybe life at Public Mobile will be seashells and balloons for me.

Or maybe I'll be back knocking on PC Mobile's door in a month or two begging forgiveness.

[lheintzman]

Hello steveb11 and welcome. 

For me, your question comes at an interesting time as I contemplate pulling my two accounts after 2-1/2 years. Yes, once past the initial speed bumps, things will surely get better. Maybe even great. Cell reception, coverage, data delivery, etc. is excellent. Day-to-day operational service is indistinguishable from the major carriers and mostly seamless. The prices cannot be beat.

The snags come with unresponsive customer support, a miserably slow website and an outdated, convoluted accounting system, which can rise up and wipe out your phone reception when you need it most. One piece of advice: be sure to register for AutoPay; it will save you a couple bucks. But don't ever, ever rely on it to keep your subscription going. It's one of the bigger sources of complaint in this forum because when it fails, which happens way too often, you can lose your phone for days. Log into self-serve a bit before the current 30-day term ends and pay manually. That will save you a lot of grief. 

Some of the back room problems have been around for years. Management just doesn't seem inclined to fix them. The general attitude seems to be, hey it's good enough, whaddaya whining about. There's zero interest in making things easy for customers or even more efficient for the company. In my case, it's become impossible to use a valid charge card - - simply because there's no way to update the expiry date. And yeah, I've gone the service ticket route, so far with minimal, fairly indifferent results Actually, as we pass the famous 48-hour response window, I've had exactly one totally useless message from a mod. No follow-up, so I guess that's it then. Heck, Visa was more accommodating than Public Mobile, but they still couldn't solve this company's data entry problems. 

I've enjoyed my time here. There 's a genuine sense of community. And occasionally, I have to admit to feeling a little smug about how much I was saving compared to friends. Now I'm wondering whether the low cost, bonuses and freebies really compensate for the aggravation. As they say YMMV and I hope it does. Public Mobile has the potential to be the hands down best value in the Canadian market. If only...... 

Best of luck. 

[HALIMACS]

You're welcome, @steveb11 

[steveb11]

Thanks again.

[HALIMACS]

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@steveb11 wrote:

Thank you for your very thorough response. I appreciate it.

I have followed some of the steps you've mentioned. I have had some technical questions and I have to admit I'm a little worried that I seem to have gotten more accurate responses from this user community than I received from Public Mobile's own moderators.

In any event, I hope these are just some minor hiccups that will soon be behind me.

Thanks again.

---

The last thing I want to do is diss the Moderators - they're crucial for account related matters that require access to your account.

It's been my experience that once you stray into technical or even practical type considerations that aren't strictly "account related", you're much better off to seek the advice of users here, on this Community.

You'll eventually get used to what requires Moderators and what's best left to the rest of us.

There are folks represented by Oracle titles here - they have nice yellow stars by their usernames.  These folks are subject matter 'experts' and have earned the Oracle title through appointment or selection by Public Mobile.   Truth be told, though, you'd be amazed at how even newbies can have excellent suggestions.

Cheers and welcome!!!

[steveb11]

Thank you for your very thorough response. I appreciate it.

I have followed some of the steps you've mentioned. I have had some technical questions and I have to admit I'm a little worried that I seem to have gotten more accurate responses from this user community than I received from Public Mobile's own moderators.

In any event, I hope these are just some minor hiccups that will soon be behind me.

Thanks again.

[HALIMACS]

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@steveb11 wrote:

Thanks. I'm hoping these are just short-term speed bumps on the highway to happiness.

---

Hi @steveb11 

You got some GREAT reasons from other users to stay.

To be brutally honest, the worst part is behind you.  (that being the activation/porting processes - the porting process itself having recently gone through some changes so i'm sure that's fun for some customers...)

The best advice I would give you would be as follows (these represent the vast majority of issues from customers post-activation):

1. SIM swaps/hacks  -- make sure public profiles are secure with good passwords and no indicator of your actual identity or personal account information posted on any public forum (let's start with your username here...  is it in any way your REAL name/initial?)
2. Auto-payment failure -- other than making sure your credit card is active and all the information is where it's supposed to be, there's not a whole lot you can do to prevent auto-pay failure.   Some users have elected to make manual payments with payment cards or vouchers the day prior to their renewal to ensure should there be an auto-pay failure, the funds are still there to renew the plan.   I haven't and no issues yet.  🤞    Oh, and even if you do make manual payments, so long as the payment card is registered you STILL get the auto-pay discount applied to renewal price.
3. Data counting/measuring --  the best advice i can give here is to reset your phone's data counter on each renewal, which you'll notice will NOT BE on the same day every month given the 30-day cycle.   This way, your phone's data counter will be based on your cycle and not calendar months.   Some folks have used data apps to do this.
4. No direct customer service line -- to be honest, you're FAR better off to ask away on this forum (as you've done).  It's been my experience that the seasoned users on this forum have seen and heard practically ALL the situations that could occur and you'll get plenty of responses within minutes which very likely will resolve your concern.   In fact, the challenge will be to figure out which recommendation will work.

I'm sure there are plenty other issues, but I think I've touched on the most routine.   If you EVER need to contact Public Mobile customer service, you can try the SIMon chatbot on bottom right, or reach the Moderators (their current term for "customer service") this way:

To contact a moderator, there are 2 methods:

1. Use the ticketing system for a faster response time. Click on the chat bubble in the lower right and type moderator assistance, then select account-related issue, then select you need a human now.  Follow the prompts to submit a ticket,  or, 
2. Send a private message to the moderator by clicking here

Watch for their response in your Community private mailbox which will be indicated by a number on the small envelope icon to the left of your Community avatar.

[steveb11]

Thanks. I'm hoping these are just short-term speed bumps on the highway to happiness.

[dude65]

Welcome to PM....Having a hiccup is par for the course, not only public mobie. If you have questions or concerns on how things work, just ask here on the community forum.  Some one will give you the answer or tell you to contact a moderator. PM is a lower tier provider then Telus or Koodo, so they (PM)  can offer great rates, rewards, and giveaways.

[steveb11]

Thank you. I wasn't aware of that feature. I feel better already.

[Anonymous]

And here, the add-ons are buy once, consume over time...not monthly. So with the 100 minutes, get the $5 add-on and that will cover you for those times you do happen to go over 100 minutes. Then at the next renewal, your 100 minutes come back and the add-on steps back and waits to be needed again.

Same with data. Buy the 1GB and then if you happen to bump over the 250MB...there it is. Then back to the 250MB after renewal.

I'm tellin' ya...it gets better. 🙂

[steveb11]

Thank you for your reasoned response. I, too, am a low-usage consumer. That's what attracted me to Public Mobile. At PC Mobile, I was pay-as-you-go, with a $10/month add-on for 100 MB of data. I paid 20 cents/minute for calls and 15 cents for outgoing texts but I would use Google Hangouts to make outgoing calls (a small bit of data consumed) and WhatsApp for texts. I could make $100 last eight or nine months. But I realized that Public Mobile's $15/month plan ($13/month with Autopay) would actually cost me about the same per year as PC Mobile but with more goodies -- 100 minutes of outgoing calls per month, unlimited incoming minutes for calls, free incoming and outgoing texts and 250 MB of data instead of 100 MB.

So I hope it does get better. Maybe these are short-term, temporary growing pains. Thank you again.

[Anonymous]

tl;dr: it gets better

Some people do experience a few bumps at startup. Many people don't. No there's nobody to call...just the moderator method.

No other provider has the range of rewards this place has. I'm a low-usage customer so this place also has the best low-price plan where having the add-ons makes it a no-brainer to me.

The data counter has been challenged many times. It's almost immediate and it's still accurate. Two Xmas's ago, the company gave some gift data that somehow consumed ridiculously quickly. They promptly fixed it and reset everybody.

There have been very sporadic reports and not for a while now where the counter doesn't get reset at renewal.

Many phones don't know how to do 30 day terms...just monthly. So if you use the phone counter then you need to reset it each month if you're the type to keep a close watch on it. The fact that there aren't any overages here makes it kinda pointless. If you've nailed down all your data consumers then there shouldn't be too much to worry about.

[Triguy]

All support is done online either by using the community forum or by moderators.  

You can save money with setting up autopay, referring family and friends, and loyal awards.  PM has given out free data and minutes during the last Christmas holiday.