Cha-Ching text

[Metal1967]

Got the successful referral text twice now yet I haven’t referred anyone recently.. the text only, no reward.. anyone else have this happen?

[LurganIeUk]

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@AE_Collector wrote:

@darlicious Not even a short lived increase that was gone by next morning? It wasn’t easy to keep up but I think I always received an extra credit that soon was gone. @LurganIeUk mentioned he was Cha hinged with no increase to the friend referral reward line. 

AE_Collector

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But I did get one the next day that was NOT a phantom one. So am thinking my last real referral was acknowledged a day late. I think.....could be wrong.....that they are working on it and that is why it was a day late. 

[AE_Collector]

@darlicious Not even a short lived increase that was gone by next morning? It wasn’t easy to keep up but I think I always received an extra credit that soon was gone. @LurganIeUk mentioned he was Cha-Chinged with no increase to his friend referral reward line. 

AE_Collector

[darlicious]

@AE_Collector 

I had 3 in the last week but no change in my account.

[computergeek541]

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@JK8 wrote:

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Even though customers are not receiving the ghost referral text are the phantom refer a friend rewards still showing an increase in self service without a corresponding increase in phone numbers displayed? Example: Refer a friend says $3 but only 1 number is displayed. Is this still going to occur?

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@JK8 I am still recieiving daily "ghosts".  I do not believe anything has changed yet when it come to that.  The ficticious referral bug is a long standing one, although something must happened recently to make them more frequent. "Ghost" referrals get automically corrected/removed.  I believe today's update could just be about the text messages that customers are getting about them. Catherine, please correct me if I am misinterpreting.

[JK8]

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@Catherine_T wrote:

Hi everyone,

Thank you for your patience! We have been working on this issue, and now customers should no longer receive the “ghost” Refer A Friend reward SMS’s. Customers who successfully refer a friend will receive an SMS within 24 hours.

Thanks again,

Catherine

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Even though customers are not receiving the ghost referral text are the phantom refer a friend rewards still showing an increase in self service without a corresponding increase in phone numbers displayed? Example: Refer a friend says $3 but only 1 number is displayed. Is this still going to occur?

[computergeek541]

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@Catherine_T wrote:

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For customers who successfully refer, the SMS will take up to 24 hours to be received. If the customer still hasn't received the referral success SMS in 24 hours, I would suggest reaching out to the moderator team. 

Hope this helps! 

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@Catherine_T 

I'm trying to say that the referral reward/credit was allocated properly, but it's my belief that the text messages  about them might be conpletely disabled. I'm not getting text mesaages about new "ghosts" or legitmate referrals now, although that's my preference anyway.

[Catherine_T]

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@computergeek541 wrote:

@Catherine_T 

My findings have been that the text message no longer gets.received by the customer for either a "ghost" or a real referral now.

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For customers who successfully refer, the SMS will take up to 24 hours to be received. If the customer still hasn't received the referral success SMS in 24 hours, I would suggest reaching out to the moderator team. 

Hope this helps! 

[computergeek541]

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@Catherine_T wrote:

Hi everyone,

Thank you for your patience! We have been working on this issue, and now customers should no longer receive the “ghost” Refer A Friend reward SMS’s. Customers who successfully refer a friend will receive an SMS within 24 hours.

Thanks again,

Catherine

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@Catherine_T 

My findings have been that the text message no longer gets.received by the customer for either a "ghost" or a real referral now.

[Catherine_T]

Hi everyone,

Thank you for your patience! We have been working on this issue, and now customers should no longer receive the “ghost” Refer A Friend reward SMS’s. Customers who successfully refer a friend will receive an SMS within 24 hours.

Thanks again,

Catherine

[computergeek541]

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@Pawprints1986 wrote:

So, in case I get any, what exactly are these ghost referrals? Did someone somehow get a hold of and fraud your referral number? Or is it nothing but a text sent in error? What triggers these texts when they're not due to actual referral ?

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They are phantom referral credits added to your account, usually as a result of a customer coming out of suspension. When your friend/referral comes out of suspension, $2 sometimes gets added instead of $1.  Something differnet has been happening for a week or two now, because these credits for non-existent referrals is happening almost daily. Customers wouldn't mind that so much, but the credits are taken away within 24 hours (as they should be), but Public Mobile was also sending daily text messages to customers about these fake referrals.

[Pawprints1986]

So, in case I get any, what exactly are these ghost referrals? Did someone somehow get a hold of and fraud your referral number? Or is it nothing but a text sent in error? What triggers these texts when they're not due to actual referral ?

[computergeek541]

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@dougc wrote:

Has  PM  actually stated (past incidents)  this is a annoying internal system error/glitch   ?   

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They haven't said it in as many words, but I can tell you that this is a long standing issue. I referred someone but did not receive the text message, so I believe that it's at least possible that Public Mobile may have disabled the sending of this message for the time being. And yes, I also got more fake referrals today that I know will be removed tomorrow.

[dougc]

Have always received my monthly renewal reminders  but none of these cha-chings !

If I received them I would be thinking  external authored phishing/malware attempt,  when I saw a attached link  within a unexpected  text.  

Of course,  I never tap on these (especially email format)  embedded links.

Has  PM  actually stated (past incidents)  this is a annoying internal system error/glitch   ?   

[AE_Collector]

I got a real referral a couple of days ago as well but I can’t begin to figure whether one of the Cha-Chings was associated with it!

AE_Collector

[LurganIeUk]

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@LurganIeUk wrote:

I just received a text a few minutes ago but there is an improvement. 

Text only

No increase in referral $s

And of course no xxx-xxx-1234

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But in hindsight I got a real referral the day before and no text. Perhaps this one was just super late. 

[LurganIeUk]

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@Jb456 wrote:

Looks like I'll be getting two fake cha-ching texts at 9am EST today.😃

I have 7 referrals but now apparently $9 lol. 

Second time this week 😢

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= 2 phantom referrals. 

[Jb456]

Looks like I'll be getting two fake cha-ching texts at 9am EST today.😃

I have 7 referrals but now apparently $9 lol. 

Second time this week 😢

[AE_Collector]

I was just Cha-Chinged as well but my friend referrals $$ HAS incremented by $1 with no associated xxx-1234 of course. I have received 4 now since last weekend (none are valid) but I see the wording has changed a little bit on todays text though maybe they should have added YMMV at the end.

[LurganIeUk]

I just received a text a few minutes ago but there is an improvement. 

Text only

No increase in referral $s

And of course no xxx-xxx-1234

[Jb456]

I got one yesterday. Referral credit went up a $1 was gone this morning lol

[computergeek541]

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@Vivian_Y wrote:

Hi Community! 

Thanks for flagging this issue - we'll definitely look into it.

In the meantime, it'll be really helpful if you could DM me your account # so our technical teams can start working on the issue 🙂

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@Vivian_Y 

These are not isolated incidents and are also not specific to certain accounts. I have 4 accounts and it's happening on all of them. This is also not a new phenomenom. This has been going on for years now, the only difference now being that a correction was made so that Public Mobile removes these ficticious referral credtis automatically since a fix was implemented earlier in the year. Honestly, the text messages are starting to annoy your customers as it is now happening daily, so I suggest to at least disable this text message for now.

[Vivian_Y]

Hi Community! 

Thanks for flagging this issue - we'll definitely look into it.

In the meantime, it'll be really helpful if you could DM me your account # so our technical teams can start working on the issue 🙂

[AE_Collector]

Here are my renewal messages for two accounts that renegade the same day. Notice that one of my messages seems to have turned into the Cha-Ching message and sure enough, I had phantom $.

AE_Collector

[AE_Collector]

Maybe PM will make up for getting our hopes up that we had received some new referrals (yet again) by offering us a Referral Bonus that is stackable with a New Customer Promo. Sometime this week would be great timing! It has been awhile....

Anyone else waiting for this at Black Friday to close some New Customer Referrals?

AE_Collector

[Anonymous]

 @AE_Collector : I don't direct or do any community reward on my second "data" account.

[AE_Collector]

Only easy way to tell would be if your community $$ went there as it would normally go away at renewal and not instantly repopulate that field.

AE_Collector

[Anonymous]

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@AE_Collector wrote:

So no “rewards were applied as follows” message, no phantom referral texts AND no rewards were used for your renewal? Did the rewards (likely) disappear and then repopulate the appropriate fields like usual for renewal 30 days from now? Not your account with community rewards?

AE_Collector

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I wasn't watching it at midnight ET to see if it flipped in or not. It's 6 bucks. But still. I do watch my account before and after to see if anything odd happened each time. It has.

[AE_Collector]

So no “rewards were applied as follows” message, no phantom referral texts AND no rewards were used for your renewal? Did the rewards (likely) disappear and then repopulate the appropriate fields like usual for renewal 30 days from now? Not your account with community rewards?

AE_Collector

[Anonymous]

 @AE_Collector 

One of my accounts renewed last night/this morning. I got the heads up and I got the thank you at about the usual time. Nothing else. And none of the rewards paid out. I just got around to asking the mods. We'll see how long it takes.

[AE_Collector]

This may be a clue. My account and my wife’s account both renew on the same day, this time on Friday night/Saturday morning.

We both received the “Heads Up, payment is due in three days” text messages warning of our upcoming renewals.

My wife’s account received the “congrats, rewards have been applied to your account as follows” text message the morning after renewal (Saturday). 

My account did NOT receive the above message this time though I usually get it. Instead I got the Cha-Ching message. And sure enough, I had a phantom $ with no associated tel number.

Then we both received the “Let’s keep the conversation going” text message.

AE_Collector