Insufficient Funds Message Despite Pre-Authorized Payments?

[Bookworm88]

My mom and I have Public Mobile plans and I pay for both with pre-authorized payments with my MasterCard.  Today we received text messages notifying us that our bill is due on Jul. 16 and we have insufficient funds to renew our plan.  This is the first time I've ever seen this message and when I checked my account information I confirmed that I have pre-authorized payments enabled like always.

Does anyone know why this is happening and what I should do to correct this problem?  I've submitted a ticket to customer service, but I don't know how long it'll take before I get a reply and the payment due date is already so close.

[Bookworm88]

@softechThe new automated message says:

"Public Mobile here. We recently notified you that your account had insufficient funds for your upcoming renewal. Wea??re reaching out to let you know that if you have pre-authorized payments enabled or have sufficient funds in your account you can disregard that message. Your upcoming renewal will not be affected. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused."

I'm guessing "Wea??re"  was a typo for "We are" 😉.  Anyway, I'm happy with how quickly I got a reply from a customer support agent and that they sent out a text explaining the situation.

[softech]

@Bookworm88 

so, this time another automated text but a correct one?  how the text look like?

[Bookworm88]

@softechYeah the wording is what scared me.  It sounded like there was something wrong with my pre-authorized payments.

I received another text message from Public Mobile this morning explaining the situation and it says that if we have sufficient funds or pre-authorized payments enabled, we can ignore the previous message.  A Customer Support Agent also replied to my ticket and confirmed this.  Supposedly, the messages are the result of a back-end system update which generated some errors.

[softech]

@J_PM 

I think the text itself scared people

Should either not send to people with Pre-Auth. setup or send a different text to those who already has  Pre-Auth. setup

Or at least, would be nice to have a line like "You can ignore this if you have pre-authorized payments setup already"

Original text:

"Public Mobile here. Just a heads up, your payment is due on Jul. 16 and there are insufficient funds in your account to renew your plan. To view your upcoming bill, manage you payments or sign up for pre-authorized payments, visit publicmobile.ca/selfserve and go to the May Payments tab."

[J_PM]

@Bookworm88 If you have insufficient funds, but you are on ATU, no need to make a manual payment. 

[Bookworm88]

@J_PMThanks for the reply.  I was wondering if I should make a manual payment ahead of time to be on the safe side, so I'm relieved to learn that will be unnecessary.

[J_PM · Accepted solution]

@Bookworm88 

Thanks for sharing this on Community. Our teams are investigating this issue further. If customers already have pre-authorized payments setup, they can ignore the SMS.

[will13am]

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@softech wrote:

@Bookworm88   I guess it is not a glitch but poor wordings.  They should have something like if you have setup pre-auth. payment, you can ignore this message

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One could say it is a glitch if the notification is true.  If the words are not true, it still is a glitch because incorrect information is being given.  

[Bookworm88]

@softech Agreed.  If this is the message everyone is receiving, it makes it sound like we're all about to lose our plans because we don't have enough funds to make the payments.

I wonder if the new messages have anything to do with the new MyAccount, and they only have one payment message that gets sent out to everyone regardless of their payment method.

[softech]

@Bookworm88   I guess it is not a glitch but poor wordings.  They should have something like if you have setup pre-auth. payment, you can ignore this message

[dust2dust]

Yeah it's a lot like the usual old heads up text except for the bit about implying that they might not have a way to take payment.

Maybe it might be wise to do a manual payment of your plan cost while they figure out the apparently unseen, apparently untested bugs that had popped up around payment. The IT team around here seem to be a bit of a training ground.

[Bookworm88]

I just did a search of the community forums and I see there are others who have been experiencing this problem like we are.  I'm hoping the text message really is nothing more than a glitch and it won't interfere with processing payments.

[Bookworm88]

The message says:

"Public Mobile here. Just a heads up, your payment is due on Jul. 16 and there are insufficient funds in your account to renew your plan. To view your upcoming bill, manage you payments or sign up for pre-authorized payments, visit publicmobile.ca/selfserve and go to the May Payments tab."

What worries me is if this indicates that Public Mobile is having problems with detecting autopay settings or unable to receive payments. I really don't want to lose our phone plans.

[dust2dust]

Can you provide an image of the whole message? I don't think it matters. Maybe it's just saying you don't have a balance. But the fact that autopay should work makes it kind of useless. I wouldn't worry about it.

[will13am]

@Bookworm88 , I think there is a glitch in that text message.  Anyway, I have reported this odd behavior earlier today as I too received the same message for an upcoming renewal on July 16.  I have adequate account funds as well as being on autopay.  There is no chance of insufficient funding.