If I change my old plan, will I lose the recurring discounts?

[savvy]

I have an old plan from 4 and a half years ago. It was I think $10... it has 50 mins, 50 texts. But I basically never use it (actually lost the sim card and will replace it soon). The point was to have a backup in case of outtage, since it's not my main phone. They raised the price to $13 now which kind of sucks, but even with that it costs me $6+tax to keep. But logging in and roaming around I see there is a $15 one with 100 mins and unlimited incoming calls and texts, which might be better. Would I keep all my discounts and end up at $8 ($15-$7)? Or would I end up suddenly paying $15 with the cashback they are doing now? If I ended up paying the full $15 I would be forced to cancel since I used it a handful of times a year, so I don't want to switch if I lose my discounts. Please help, thank you. 🙂

[darlicious]

@savvy 

Fongo is 100% Canadian owned. It's very trustworthy and they were trying to be more of a mvno in the Canadian telecommunications market but with the crtc and their stupid rulings they've been restricted to being a VoIP provider. I am very cautious with which apps I have on my phone or my tablet and I only tried fongo because it came so highly recommended by 

  @Luddite otherwise I never would have tried it. So I would download it and try it and if you don't like it delete it. And I really hate ads as well and they're very unobtrusive. Of course if you just want to phone the US you can always just add the $15/1000 min add on. A bit of an upfront cost but at 1.5 cents a minute you probably won't have to buy another one for a very very long time. Or of course if customer support adds the holiday gifts for you you get 500 international minutes so you can just use that to phone the US.

Edit:

All incoming calling to your fongo number is free so is texting but you do have to pay for outgoing texting.

[savvy]

I'm looking at it. I would just get it and buy the ad free immediately. I really truly hate ads, not because they are annoying, but because some of them are so sketchy they might actually infect the phone.

I couldn't find anything that says about receiving calls though. Also, when I checked into fongo it does say US is Free, but when you dig deeper it says, border cities are free, the rest of the cities are free only if you have plus, and if you don't it's 1-2c, sometimes 4c to call with credits.

[savvy]

You actually reminded me of some stuff in talking lol.

I was looking at both apps. Turns out I had textPlus Gold at some point, but never had textnow or fongo. I still technically have a VOIP freephoneline.ca number, even though they shut down officially. I can use an ATA to make calls in a bind that way (although I usually forget I have it lol).

The US calling and US roaming are about the only things left for me to change up really, the more that I think on it. At some point I bought some PC Mobile calling cards, which work, but 1) a free option would be better, and 2) that still doesn't solve my future US roaming. (I will be travelling for health reasons eventually, if everything goes according to plan). It's both incoming and outgoing calls I will need to be able to make, and I will not be allowed any detours to go get a sim card. So I may be stuck there alone with no way to call back.

I don't know if I want to log in anymore to change my plan... I'll have to think about it, after learning what I have so far. Thank you.

[darlicious]

@savvy 

 Both textnow and fongo have free calling to the US. Several other North American countries as well. Check out the fongo free version. The only ad you get is one after your phone call that you close or "X" out.

Edit:

Oops my bad...fongo is free across Canada but not the north. And you can also make unlimited calls to the United States cities that border Canada such as Buffalo text now allows you to call for free across the entire US and Canada.

[savvy]

I thought it was textnow, but it was actually TextPlus I used to have. I looked into both fongo and textnow and well, it seems at least with Fongo you can pay $6.99 to go ad-free, which I'd prefer. I was thinking though, with how glitchy the internet can be, I'm not really prepared to go down to a one-service solution. Right now I have the internet, plus cell phone on one network and then have public for backup over here, and all 3 cost $76+tax. So the only thing I really want that I don't have is US calling. Is there a free way to do that? I don't text the states, but I may call the states. I spent a few bucks here and there calling earlier in the year, using PC Mobile time cards.

[darlicious]

@savvy 

I use fongo on my tablet just for the convenience of checking voicemail and that kind of thing but the call quality can vary. The advertising on it though is kept to a minimum which is nice because text now the ads can be very annoying!

I use TextNow on my phone that way if I need to make phone calls or give my phone number out to less than reliable source I'll give my textnow phone #. That way I can still easily answer the phone whether it's the TextNow number or just my regular number it also works well as a call screener.

It also works as PM (poor man's) roaming by call forwarding your public mobile phone number to your text now or fongo phone number once you leave the country and you can no longer connect to the network or for that matter a US tower you can receive your incoming calling on your VoIP app on your phone and if you have a local Sim while traveling then you get your incoming calling on both Wi-Fi and your mobile data. If you're in the US you have to remove your Public Mobile SIM card because once it connects to a US tower your call forwarding will default back to the voicemail. Both these voip providers are a nice compliment to the unlucky $13 plan or the $15 plan.

Clear your browser or use a different one and log in using secret/incognito mode should prevent the error messages you are getting.

[dust2dust]

TextNow is great. It can make and take calls. It can send and receive texts and MMS. It's a tad ad-heavy though. With wifi practically everywhere, you could actually almost get by with no cell service at all. You just lose the mobile, away from wifi convenience.

There are many voip apps out there.

[savvy]

Jeez I feel so spoiled. I used to be so good at getting all the deals, and I feel like I've become complacent. That being said, I wanted to get into self serve to check if I got the 1 GB, but can't. (I think I did) Some header error every time I try to log in...

The thing is, you got your bill to $0 and now they increase your price and you kind of rewarded them for it, with multiple new customers... So I think they're winning even more than they expected.

As for sticking around.... I probably wouldn't. I'm too mentally sick now to really commit to much. I volunteer once a week, and that does it for me. I need absolutely stress free at all times, and with the glitches I've encountered on this website today alone (between the login issue and the fact that my page reloaded itself, thank god it saved what I wrote)...it's just too much for me.

PS: Does your textnow+fongo actually give a receiving number, or just outgoing calls? I used to use textnow a very long time ago.

[darlicious]

@savvy 

I understand where you are coming from especially when it comes to the community reward you really shouldn't have to argue for something like that since it's already slave labor but a labor of love. And I had to argue over my very first community reward which I was very proud of earning all $2 of it but it wasn't the money it was the principle and I will always argue the principle of matters.....

Unfortunately that didn't get us very far this time with the ccts. But I'm not done yet and if you like going forward I'll send you an update if you're interested in our pursuit of justice in an uncanadian way. 🇨🇦 Lol...

You likely got a text message warning of the 30% rate hike as most people got one or the other (email) and some people got nothing at all. Those who did not receive any notice at all and went through the ccts process and did not settle resulted in a little rap of the knuckles for pm and that's about it. So we learned your public mobile terms of service as far as the provider side goes is it worth the air it's printed on. Most customers who complained got a $15 bill credit. I again..... refused the offer on principle.

 As I look at it when you get lemons 🍋make lemon drops 🍸 so seeing as there's another $25 bonus referral credit promotion on currently I am seeking that very last referral to get me back to a $0 bill. I got one referral on my other account in June when I was forced into suspension due to my ccts complaint. Once I reactivated my $10 plan now $13 in July I was able to refer two more in August leaving me one more referral to get back down to that $0 bill and I'm hoping that will occur in the next week as I have all my feelers and tentacles out there.🦂

So despite the $3 rate hike being completely unjust, unreasonable, unfair and discriminatory I just had to double down and refer away that 30% rate hike. Two down, one to go. This way at the 5-year mark I will be assured I will be free forever although my balance pretty much assures me of that anyhow.

Maybe consider hanging out here once or twice a month again and get that top 25%🏅 reward. It's easy enough and you'll be up to date on all of the "improvements" around here....lol...then you just have to refer one person get yourself back to where you were to begin with reward-wise that is....? It's only $6 in rewards to get to $0 bill pretty sure you're savvy enough to do it!!😀😃😆😅😅😂😂😂

So now that you mentioned you did not get a text and you do not mention anything about getting a 1 GB thank you promo that was awarded to all customers that had an active account on August 19th 2019. No action was needed to receive it and they sent a text out when they added to your account roundabout the first week of September 2019 so if you never got that one you can ask for that add on as well.

Unfortunately the "more is merrier' gifts from 2019 and 2020 had to be bought for $0 in your self serve account so as a result those ones you can't get added. And of course they cost you nothing they're add-ons so one time only and they will roll over every 30 days to supplement your plan until completely consumed. Since you don't use your account very much you'll probably have them for quite a long time.

The 500 international minutes can be used to call any of the current international countries on the list except the Philippines and there's a few mystery bonus ones but these minutes will also be used for US minutes and for Canada-wide minutes so keep that in mind if you want to save them for their full $0.05 per minute value then you may want the $5/500min add-on to supplement your minutes if needed....ever.

You can also download textnow or fongo for free North American calling and additional texting while on Wi-Fi but I they can also be used with mobile data. They're handy for checking voicemail if anything.....☎️.

[savvy]

I didn't get a "more is merrier" gift, and I have not actually checked if I get any promo texts. I get the promo emails though and sometimes read them. Currently they want me to buy a phone to get a $30 credit. If they had more than 1 single Android I would consider that actually, but since Apple is stupid about warranty, there's no way I'll bother with them again (I had iphone 2 phones ago. Brand new $650 before credits applied.... the refurb replacement under warranty they wanted $679 6 months later)...And that's assuming they would even warranty a refurb at all.

I think I got an email not a text about the plan changing. Something told me. Maybe it was a text. I was kind of annoyed about it to say the least. Here I was keeping it open in hopes of getting to have an emergency phone for barely anything and they jacked it up on me by 50% of what I was paying. I barely even put the sim in. I had some rogers/chatr outtages and that's when I used it, or to test if a problem was my phone or the other sim card. Not any other time.

Thank you so much for telling me I can have those promos still added! How do I do that? And how much would they be? And is it a 500 mins per month or a one time block? (it would've come in handy when I was calling the US for a few hours a couple months ago! I had to buy multiple PC LD cards to do that)

And yeah, you can probably tell from my profile that I was super active here about 4 years ago, and then just ...stopped. I Remember why. I earned one of the higher tier community rewards and they never gave it to me. And it took weeks of complaining and they still only gave me a part of it. So I stopped contributing. If they couldn't even be bothered to reward someone who was doing their tech support for them for free, then why bother right?

And I'll take note to log in in December, thank you! 🙂

Personally I never worry about the data speeds. Heck on my non-Public plan, early on I was going over the base data and they have that dial-up speed data. Well, I was fine with that. Not "happy", but fine with it.... Because I could still listen to spotify at the lowest quality without pausing and that's all that matters to me. I will wait. For a few years I literally had dialup at home up until about 4 years ago, and the slowest unlimited phone data is still twice as fast as that due to no overhead. I am perfectly fine "roughing it" with 3G speeds, since I don't consider it roughing it really until I get down to 64kbps (my unlimited on my outside plan). Frankly I've been holding out against hope that public copies Chatr and Lucky because that's the only thing stopping me from going to one single plan.

[darlicious · Accepted solution]

@savvy 

Yes...basically any plan that does not include data in the plan features defaults to full speed 4G LTE data speeds when you purchase a data add-on or you get a gifted data add-on or promotional data add-ons like the "more is merrier" gifts we've been getting at Christmas time from public mobile.

Did you get a text between December 1st and December 15th 2021 from 4911 offering you a 2 GB data add-on and 500 international minutes? Do you get promotional texts from public mobile? Did you get the text telling you your plan was going up by $3? Well if you didn't get the bonus holiday gifts text you can always contact customer support and ask for them as these two promotional gifts can actually still be added to your account. it's only fair that if they're offering these to everyone and your requirement to get them was to reply yes to the text then you couldn't reply yes to a text you never got. And unless you come to the community on a regular basis you wouldn't know about them. Although you might want to log in every December from now on in!

I have both $13 plan and the $15 plan I don't notice a great amount of difference between the data speeds but it is a little snappier on my $13 account pages load a little faster, payments go through a lot faster....so this is can definitely be nice to have when needed.

It's a little like having a flagship phone and a middle of the road mid priced phone that works just fine, the cameras almost the same, the battery is good enough and then you get the flagship phone in your hands and you're like 'Oh that's the difference!' but would I pay for a flagship phone at the release date? No I wouldn't.... unless I got it at a bargain basement price like $10 or $13?!?

[dust2dust]

When this place had options to have data or not, and then the old $10 plan, any data bought or given were set at full 4G speed. Then all plans were set at 3G. Then recently they came up with the 4G speed plans. So if you change to a 3G plan like the $15 plan then all those purchased or free data add-ons will end up being only at 3G speed. Or so the theory goes. For all I know everything stays at 4G. I doubt it.

It's why I mentioned it. Yes.

I have a couple accounts still on the $13 plan. Mostly to be stubborn at the company to not be coerced into the obvious choice of changing to the $15 plan. So I'll justify it by saying I keep 4G.

Sure yes 100 outgoing instead of 50 total. Unlimited texting instead of 50 outgoing. I don't care. Adding- I have a couple thousand minutes. I have two accounts in a dual-sim phone (currently having a problem) so I can do 100 texts. I have TextNow. We can do unlimited MMS. I don't need to spend the extra money.

[Timer]

@savvy 

for your old plan $10 was and now for the $13 it's has full 4G speed,

so why you like to changed to new plan $15 has 3G speed.

and @dust2dust  was explain about this point if you have full 4G speed and you lower to 3G speed,

what is the deal you what the advantage of changed maybe about minutes & SMS..correct.

Edit: @savvy 

be careful if you changed plan to new one .. you will not allowed to getting back old plan it's will be finish.

so why not use this app  Download the TextNow  has unlimited Call & SMS,and getting from that app a free number, works on Wi-Fi, to help your minutes and SMS..

[savvy]

No it wouldn't matter to me. My other plan is with another company, and the data is on 3G and it's plenty fast. 3G let's me watch Youtube just fine (usually 480p). But what you're saying is the data I currently have (I had a block of it), suddenly get's to 4G?

So basically the only change is I lose data speeds if I change plans?

[savvy]

What do you mean 4G speeds? I have data I still own from buying it when I started (It just sat there and I still have 99% of it lol). Are you saying that data block I bought would actually be faster on the old plan than the new one?

[darlicious]

@savvy 

As mentioned by @dust2dust if you keep the now $13 plan you get the full speed 4G LTE data speeds. You can change it to the $15 plan if you like as that's what telus wants you to do or you can be a stalwart like the many of us and keep the $13 plan just to irritate them and save the extra $2.

You can also complain to public mobile about the unreasonable 30% rate hike to your plan especially if you did not get the text or email notice you can threaten or follow through with a ccts complaint they will offer a $15 account credit to resolve the issue. So that's an option you can think about you can private message me if you need more information.

Personally if you don't use it that often I would stay with the current price point until you get to a point where you think you do need the extra features. You never know our further complaint process options may change this price hike while unlikely there's always a chance and if you switch to the $15 plan you will not benefit from any revocation of that rate hike.

[Timer]

@savvy 

if you change plan your rewards and add-ons gift is will be in your account as is.. 

Tipc: use browser from computer,and clear cache and cookies and use one page inPrivate mode,

To Login Page

and go to Plan & Add-ons, and scroll the plans using the down and up arrows on the far right. select the plan you want, and select ‘Change plan now’ then you pay full price plan, or ‘Change plan on renewal date’..to you not losing any money..

[dust2dust]

Changing the plan will not affect rewards and any freebies collected over the years. Nor would it enroll you in points. Stay with the old rewards anyway.

Adding - there is one small benefit of that plan in which any data you buy or get as a freebie comes in at full speed 4G LTE. If you switch to the $15 plan the data will end up at 3G (3Mbps) speed. But it doesn't sound like that will matter for you.