Confusing Customer Support?

[darlicious]

I am perplexed by my recent customer support request(s) to have the "more is merrier" holiday gifts added to 4 separate accounts that I manage. I had sent out a heads up text to them explaining the procedure to recieve them. After running in to one of them on December 30th who was unsure about replying and when he replied with my assistance he recieved a reply that "this promo has expired". By the morning of the 31st I had 4 accounts needing the holiday gifts added who had recieved this same message after texting YES2 to 4911. (I found a 5th customer's account on January 1st who is also without holiday gifts.)

I sent my initial private message requesting support prioritizing 2 of the accounts in the early afternoon of the 31st. After an hour or so with no reply and figuring customer support was probably inundated with similar requests I sent a second message containing all of the necessary info to verify the second 2 accounts so the holiday gifts could be added. I then went about figuring out how to reactivate the first 2 accounts since I couldn't count on customer support being able to update the payment card info for me (which led to me testing out muskbird.com).

I sent another follow up inquiry to customer support around 5pm and about 2 hours later responded to a member's post in the community with the same issue to contact customer support before midnight eastern and expect a reply the next day. It was only once they posted a follow up praising the quick response and resolution they had recieved that I realized that my private messaging glitch had likely returned and my messages to them are all for naught! I reached out to a friend to contact customer support on my behalf and concentrated on ensuring all accounts were active and had texted YES2 to 4911 before midnight eastern.

By late morning on January 1st I still had no reply while customer support has replied to my friend's private message and after confirming they had not recieved any of the 5 messages I had sent the day before nor the 1 sent when I logged in we set aside my private messaging issue and went about relaying the required verification info for the 4 accounts to have holiday gifts added. 3 of the accounts I was assured that the holiday gifts were added and the 4th had to have the 4 digit account pin # reset due to another glitch I have encountered this year whereas the account pin # chosen at activation is not recognized by the system (this was the 5th account I have activated in the past year that has run into this glitch?!!)

The account pin # was reset and my friend recieved a follow up message by a different CSA who accessed the 4th account and added the holiday gifts. They are now working on restoring my private messaging to customer support....so far nothing they have tried has worked as of yet? It was only overnight that I decided to check on the accounts starting with the 4th account that the second CSA had added the holiday gifts to.....all good as far as the 2gb data add on and the 500 international minutes but no sign of the 1gb data add on redemption gift having been added to the account or available in the points account (not that I expected in there but checked regardless).

However when I logged into the other three accounts that were handled by the first agent there were no holiday gifts added at all?!! I logged out, cleared my browser and logged back in using secret/incognito mode with the same result. Puzzling? Did I miss something? Or misunderstand something? I reread the messages relayed to me.....

Thanks for the information! I have checked for the phone lines I was able to get access to based on the PIN and the More is Merrier bonuses have properly been added. For XXXXXXXXX2, XXXXXXXXX3, and XXXXXXXXX4, I couldn`t check because the provided PIN is not valid.

Followed by.....

For line XXXXXXXXX4, I still cannot validate PIN XXXX, but your friend can change that online.

For line XXXXXXXXX1, the PIN matches, and the 2 Gb bonus are added and will be available.

You may need to restart the phone on that line though. For lines with the Public points system attached, the 1Gb will automatically get attached.

The second agent replied that the holiday gifts were added to the 4th account which as mentioned was indeed true. What happened to the holiday gifts supposedly added by the first agent is a mystery? Along with the last statement in bold which is erroneous unless someone can enlighten me on that process?

Curiously earlier in the month on another account who recieved an ineligible reply from 4911 the agent who added the holiday gifts told me they did it as a favour as the customer was required to have an active account starting from December 1st to be eligible?!! There is nothing in the announcement mentioning this as a condition of eligibility. The holiday data add on gift added to that account was in fact from the 2020 "more is merrier" campaign.

What is a customer supposed to take away from this? While I have sadly come to expect this kind of customer service from public mobile....how is the average customer supposed to deal with this? Along with the long drawn out process spanning days to resolve customer support issues? I know the majority of the customers whose accounts I manage would just give up and  the few customers who have also suffered the rare private messaging glitch that I have are beyond frustration but are at least extremely relieved when I have recognized the signs of the glitch and have been able to suggest making a new community account to workaround the issue.

It's now day 4 and I am barely any farther along to resolve the lack of holiday gifts being added to the affected accounts?

[darlicious]

Still NADA....even getting support thru the bf's community account is hit and miss. But I have discovered what may be the cause or at least a contributing factor to the fix.....if I don't send customer support a new message at least once every 30 days this issue creeps up. The last message I had initiated was November 30th. The next was on December 31st....one day too late it appears?

[darlicious]

Follow up:

After wasting an entire day of back and forth with a CSA that was not grasping the concept of my issue a new CSA replied and very quickly open a ticket with the tech team to investigate the separate issues on each of my community accounts. A very intuitive CSA.

@esjliv 

Yes it does. That's great if I want to look at it.....still can't be seen by customer support. This is the 5th or 6th time I've had this issue. I fully understand what the issue is....explaining it to a CSA so that they fully understand it and open a ticket with the tech team is the problem..... rather than make useless suggestions or continue to insist that I contact them on my community account?!!

[esjliv]

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@darlicious wrote:

@esjliv 

Submitting a support ticket via Simon does not resolve the issue it simply disappears with the rest of the messages.

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@darlicious submitting a ticket through SIMon automatically goes to your Sent messages, which leaves a record of the request (which is very useful for poking or following up with)...unless this changed that I am not aware of? 

As for the other part of your response, as @HALIMACS mentioned, if this is not the best fit model for some customers, there are other providers that may be a better fit. To each their own I suppose.

[darlicious]

@esjliv 

Posting about my issue is helpful for those who run into the same issue with their own private messaging. While rare I have helped 3 or 4 new members who have expressed their frustration here of not recieving a reply from customer support despite submitting a multitude of tickets via SIMon and private messages only to be given the same advice over and over again from the community. There is a great sense of relief when someone else can assure you that you are not crazy and get you the assistance you have been seeking for so long.

If an account I manage has no use for a community account I manage all of their issues thru this account. Those that can struggle their way to reach customer support on their own have an account that on occasion I will direct them with their messages or if really needed I will make the inquiries for them but I actively encourage them to make the effort themselves to seek help. I have two community accounts for my two active lines of which I only use this one 99% of the time except with exceptional circumstances do I use the maximum_gato account. I prefer to manage all accounts from this community account only.

Submitting a support ticket via Simon does not resolve the issue it simply disappears with the rest of the messages.

[darlicious]

@gpixel 

Nothing. I've done all of the tricks of the trade. The first CSA simply did not add them to any of the accounts as far as I can tell?

If you only knew the irony of the current agent handling my private messaging issue. The last suggestion was to contact them via my darlicious account or the maximum_gato account that I have now reset the password for the 7th time. I'm completely incognito!

[esjliv]

I am unclear if the accounts you manage have individual community accounts to help with support tickets, or if you are using same community accounts on multiple PM accounts.

If you are using same community accounts for multiple PM accounts, my personal suggestion would be to ensure each one as a unique community account to 'keep things clear' when it comes to PM support.

If you are getting no responses after a 48 hour period from multiple pings to a ticket/CSA, then yes, perhaps an account that is getting responses may need to intervene, or have a newly created community account made to inquire.

While this no doubt does sound frustrating @darlicious, submitting a ticket with your opening post to a CSA or supervisor rather than under Get Support may be your best solution for resolution. 

This forum may be therapeutic as a stage for venting, but we (as customers) cannot help (as I am sure you know) to fix these issues you are posting about. 

[gpixel]

@darlicious 

what happens when you press the refresh button for the add-ons section?

CSA blacklisted you lol. 

[dabr]

@darlicious   Good to know you were able to remove all the personal info within a minute but yeah I'd be pretty alarmed to see it too, even if briefly.

I agree you shouldn't need to keep asking CSA's to add the gifts to the account after the first response confirmed it was already done. 

[darlicious]

@dabr 

I agree I have sufficient evidence to eventually get the holiday gifts added I just don't understand why it was communicated that they were added when they obviously have not been?

In regards to the accidental post which was meant to be a link to payment info I must have accidentally tapped the original link and the one next to it on my clipboard. Once posted I was initially confused at the jumbled post then I quickly realized in horror my huge error.....and the eternity it took to delete a long post. In reality the post was only up for about a minute but one of the longest minutes of my life!

To be safe I immediately changed the account pin #'s but now out of an abundance of caution a whole new group of celebrities have joined public mobile and moved to an entirely new neighbourhood. Announcing my mistake to the community was a nice touch though.....I guess 2023 is a test of my fortitude.

Thank you for your calm demeanor and empathy they are appreciated.

[HALIMACS]

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@darlicious wrote:

@HALIMACS 

And what would your frustration level be if you never get a reply from customer support?

HIGH

How many tickets and/or messages would you send before getting an inkling that something is wrong?

TWO

There are 2 serious issues here.....the glitch within my private messaging blocking my ability to get customer support and recieving customer support that says one thing but does another or specifically does nothing at all. It doesn't matter what kind of business model a provider offers neither of these issues should ever occur?

AGREE;  3RD TIER IS 3RD FOR A REASON

Or continue to occur....should they?

THAT'S NOT A QUESTION ANYONE HERE CAN ANSWER WITHOUT KNOWING WHAT MAY BE DRIVING YOUR EXPERIENCE.   PERSONALLY, I'D BE LONG GONE.

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[dabr]

@darlicious   Well I'm glad I only have couple of household accounts to manage besides my own as it looks like it can get messy trying to sort out things especially if working against a cutoff date. 

However, unless I'm misreading something, you do have confirmation from the first CSA that the holiday gifts were added to the account and even if they don't appear in those accounts right now, the CSA message should be sufficient proof to have those holiday gifts be eventually added to those accounts?

Regarding the mention of personal info being exposed here inadvertently, this is one part of this community forum that I really dislike as it seems that it's easily done even by regulars let alone by newbies who don't even know that this forum is open to anyone with internet access. 

Anyway, if I had seen that info, I would prefer to alert the community member, or even a CSA, ASAP whether they're a regular or a newbie so that it could be removed quickly as possible.

[darlicious]

@HALIMACS 

And what would your frustration level be if you never get a reply from customer support? How many tickets and/or messages would you send before getting an inkling that something is wrong? There are 2 serious issues here.....the glitch within my private messaging blocking my ability to get customer support and recieving customer support that says one thing but does another or specifically does nothing at all. It doesn't matter what kind of business model a provider offers neither of these issues should ever occur? Or continue to occur....should they?

[darlicious]

@walker1 

That's called grasping at straws to get an account reactivated by any means necessary so I suggested every possibility at their hands that could get an account reactivated without needing a reply from me to facilitate it. In the end I discovered muskbird saved the day when precious minutes counted with a turnaround time of less than 5 minutes and a reactivation at 2 minutes to midnight. 

I was once offered an account transfer more than 3 years ago so I thought I would put it to a test......but since no one from customer support has seen those messages I will never know what the answer might have been?

[HALIMACS]

@darlicious 

I would offer what I offer to any other customer with a similar set of circumstances and apparent frustration with online support. 

It might seem that the self-service model of this mobile service provider is not your (or your 'others') cup of tea.

There are lots of full serve companies out there who may better suit either yours (or others) needs.

This, by no means, is a suggestion or recommendation. It's just an observational comment.

[walker1]

@darlicious 

All I'm curious about is , when you ask a CSA to transfer $5 from your account to your referrals account, do they do that just for you?  I didn't care about all the other stuff. Couldn't care less.

But the transfer of money between accounts, is interesting 🤔

[darlicious]

@walker1 

I'm sure you realize it was an accident but thx for the heads up that my momentary glitch with my clipboard was copied with ill intentions. Since I have already changed the account pin #'s as a cautionary measure and all of the addresses and names are fake it's only a matter of Julia Child, Angie Everhart, Burt Reynolds and Jimmie Connors joining public mobile in the next hour. Unless of course you've already profited from your lucky draw?

[walker1]

Why did you post all your referrals information in the other post?

Was it wise to post their names, addresses, pin numbers and phone numbers..?

[darlicious]

@hTideGnow 

It doesn't matter the method if it cannot be seen by the intended recipient? And there is no point verifying my account when it's not the account that has the issue?

[hTideGnow]

HI @darlicious   you are a  regular , but why you so against open ticket with Chatbot? you should have all the trick to get through SIMON and able to open ticket without being go round and round in Chatbot like those newbies

One thing I like Simon, after you open ticket, you have a ticket number as a reference.  This is the best "proof" you need for any future argument.

I understand private message is easy, but Chatbot has it usage too.  I usually suggest people to use Chatbot to open first, the private message to follow up