How do you accept the offer infront of you when it doesn't give you a way to do it.

[Rusty]

Why good morning all you good folks out there! Any PM pros here able to answer this question?

I log into my account on PM.

It says .....

We've got a sweet deal for you.

For a limited time, upgrade to 20GB of 4G speed data for just $50/mo.

I click on "Change Plan" and this "sweet deal" is nowhere to be found. I checked my account area under the 3G plans and 4G plans, however this offer is nowhere to be seen, yet it's staring me in the face as soon as I log in. What does one do? Thanks!

[darlicious]

@Rusty 

Any movement? Despite the solution being assigned we love to know what or if there

was a resolution?

[dabr]

@Rusty    In that case, then that's even more egregious for PM to offer a discontinued plan and then not honour it!  🙁

[Rusty]

Hi dabr,

It wasn't on a suspended account. It was a few hours before my renewal though.

[darlicious]

@dabr 

I currently have the offer in a suspended account. I had the offer in the account I was forced to reactivate that has the $60 Canada/US Roaming plan that I don't need.....? I also had it on the account that I reactivated on October 3rd/4th that reactivated on the $15 plan despite paying for the $55/20gb plan. Luckily my support request message sent just after midnight et on the 4th had the CSA fix the issue and add the plan while I was sleeping so when I finally saw their reply that the issue was resolved the $55 plan had already been pulled from the plans page. It indeed was my referrals lucky day!

[dabr]

@Rusty   Can you clarify if the offer of this discontinued "sweet deal" was on a suspended account?  Because that's the only place I can see this offer and I just checked and see it's still being advertised in my suspended account but, as you discovered, trying to accept it leads to available plans and not this offer.  Not that I need this particular offer, but I do think PM is acting in bad faith currently.

[dust2dust]

Great job Rusty! Keep up the good fight. There are two paths that lead to the company ripping people off. Your path with the promo ad and those that did choose the plan for their next renewal and got yanked out from under them.

The agents are perfectly well able to assemble the plan manually. They don't need a set plan choice. They can just assemble it.

[darlicious]

@Rusty 

Well done. Lol....maybe we should team up on another issue several of us had earlier this spring.....Plan B has not been put into action ....yet.💚👊

[Rusty]

Hi guys, so I'm not posting this to do any harm, but I'm just tired of companies thinking the law doesn't apply to them. Please don't go through and comment / debate on everything, I just wanted to give people some legal ammo incase you ever run into the same situation by big telco.

So long story short : I log into my account yesterday, I see a big ad "we've got a deal for you" and yeah cool., I try to upgrade my plan to it but nope! When I clicked on the ad, I ended up having to select a plan more expensive than the one offered with less data. This my fellow phone fans is illegal. This is how it played out.

----

I put in a support ticket so they could quickly and easily honor the advertised price for me - I mean it was "for me" after all right? 🙂 Anyways... I put in my ticket..

Francisco replied, but guys keep in mind he's just doing his job, and I get that. But when his last sentence to me basically says "don't bug us again about this". It felt rude. cold. It was only my second email. 

The reality folks is big telco can be fined millions of dollars for putting out misleading ads for services which they CAN do, however won't because of whatever excuse / reason etc. they want to say. 

Check out all the companies that have been fined millions of dollars for misleading consumers...  https://www.competitionbureau.gc.ca/eic/site/cb-bc.nsf/eng/h_04443.htmlOk so Francisco.. here's what he says..

-----

We'd like to honor the deal, but as kindly shared before the offer is no longer available.

We understand the offer was reflected online, and we're sorry that this is still the case even when the deal expired, our support teams have been addressed already and they'll work to show current offers only.

Unfortunately, the offer is no longer active, as kindly shared before, and stated on the offer, was a limited time deal, all Public Mobile offers are subject to change without notice.

We kindly share the following post/announcement posted on the Community: https://bit.ly/3VvmOIQ

As you can see under the "Offer Details": Offer is subject to change, and may be removed at any time. 

If, besides this, there's a different question or request we'll be happy to help.

Francisco.

Customer Support Agent. 

((So my issue with his last line that I've underlined for you is he should have offered to escalate it / ask a supervisor how to honor the deal and apply it, or at least given some type of empathy. It was just a cold reply to a lowely consumer... 

So I replied.

Rusty

Thank you for your reply. I can appreciate you wanting to honor the deal, however I am not sure why you're not doing it then. it seems like every company thinks they are immune to the consumer protection act. There's no legal way to put "subject to change" on an advertisement legally and expecting that statement to allow a company to do whatever they want. That's like saying you can put your four ways on and run into an office building for 1 minute to drop something off and be "ok". The rules are quite clear in this regard.

The consumer protection act states:

A) "It is a Criminal Offence for Businesses to sell or rent a product at a price above its advertised price within a particular market"

**In my scenario - a product was offered by way of direct advertisement (apparently even for 10 days after the deal was expired) I went to change plans, and found that the cost was much higher as PM had removed that advertised plan despite the advertisement being active. This was deceptive.

B)It is against the law to make materially false or misleading representations to promote a product, service or business interest. A representation is “material” if the general impression it conveys leads someone to take a particular course of action, like buying or using a product or service.

**For me, I saw the ad in my account, I clicked the ad, and it asked me to spend more money as the "deal" was not available for the same product. This is again illegal

C) The Act contains criminal and civil prohibitions against promoting a product or business interest by making a representation to the public that is false or misleading in a material respect. This includes offering deals or promotions for a product or service in which the product or service is available however not at the advertised price. Fines can range from $750,000 to $10,000,000 and up to $100,000,000 for subsequent offences.

***Telus and Bell both got in trouble for doing the exact thing PM is doing. PM cannot hide behind the "offer subject to change" and I'm tired of companies thinking they can make up their own rules.

D) It is a Criminal Offence for Businesses to Bait and switch. Bait and switch selling is when a product is advertised at a “bargain price” but the product is not available for sale in reasonable quantities, and/or is targeted towards an individual or business through digital or other means.

**As PM can see above, the fact is that the product was available via the "regular plan prices" and as such they could see this as a Bait and Switch due to the fact of having at least 10 days between when the offer was announced to when it was removed from the public.

And at the very bottom it says

• Ensuring truth in advertising and sales practices is a priority for the Bureau and we will not hesitate to take action if there is evidence that the Competition Act has been contravened.

• The Bureau strongly encourages anyone who feels they have been misled to contact the Bureau and file a complaint, and provide as much information as possible.

--

Thank you again Francisco for your email. I don't mean to be difficult by any means, you must understand that Telus is a giant, and thankfully the law mandates what these giants can and cannot do to us lowely consumers. If you don't have the ability yourself to honor that deal, I request that you escalate this. I don't want to file a claim, I just want some type of resolution.

Thanks,

~Rusty

TLDR: Francisco did reply to my message above and said the reason why he couldn't apply the deal was because it wasn't available to him. I don't like that reply, as If that was the case he should have escalated it to begin with right? But then again, it's not everyday support? gets a ticket like this.  So let's hope the supervisor can resolve this and maybe sweeten the deal a bit for the hassle. I've referred 20 people to PM, and yeah. Anyways - now you guys know some of your rights as consumers and don't ever be afraid to fight for your rights! 🙂 Just be polite.. as folks like Francisco are just doing their jobs.

[Rusty]

Yeah I've done that,I'm speaking to them via DM. 

It's actually totally against the law for them to not honor the deal. It's just really frustrating. The law clearly states that bait and switch selling, and the sale of a product above its advertised price is illegal. So when they offer the directed ad to me within my account page, and I go to get that level of service/options and the price is now significantly higher, that's a big time no no with the Canadian consumer protections act.

I enjoy PM and I have referred a lot of people over to them, it's in no way my fault that they failed to remove an ad, or that they failed to put an "expiration date" on the advertisement. PM is generally pretty cool at resolving things, so I'm sure they'll honor it. And as darlicious says. maybe they'll clean up their act if enough people actually follow through on their rights as consumers,

https://www.competitionbureau.gc.ca/eic/site/cb-bc.nsf/eng/03133.html

[darlicious · Accepted solution]

@Rusty 

That limited time plan expired 10 days ago. But you could take a screenshot and contact customer support and ask them to apply the plan to your account. When the decline by telling you its no longer an in market offer you escalate issue. Then you will get the run around and may or may not get someone from the non existent escalations department who will either agree to your request, refuse your request and/or offer you some kind of inducement to keep you happy and settle the matter and resolve the issue. If you still insist on the plan being made available to you your choices to file a complaint(s) would be the CCTS and/or the Competition Bureau of Canada. Whether you would still get the plan...? But pm may pay better attention to cleaning up their act when it comes to expired advertisements.

[computergeek541]

Sorry, but that plan is no longer available. That ad shouldn't be showing as there is no such plan available.