Interrupted service

[RMcL]

Has anyone else been cut off without notice?

There was some technical error in a payment and our account was suspended - without notice - so we were left without service and missed important calls. I had no idea this had happened until hours after the service stopped.

It took quite some time to resolve as the Public website kept giving us Error404 screens when we tried to fix the issue.

Finally, the website came back and we paid our account with a new card. This was a very annoying and unnecessary cessation of our service. Next time Public, at least send us a notice of interruption.

Thanks all for letting me 'vent'.

[darlicious]

@RMcL 

Do both you and your wife renew on the same night using the same card? Do you also have the same plan amount? This can cause an issue. While normally the payment sets a maximum limit of 2 plans renewing on the same night using the same card you can still suffer an autopay failure by way of your card issuer seeing the exact same plan amount within seconds as an imput error, suspicious, fraudulent, system error, glitch etc....causing one or both autopayments to fail.

You may want to have different cards registered for each account, manually top up one account more than the plan amount (so that at least two renewals can occur before payments match again?) Or allow one plan to suspend for one day before reactivating so that future payments are staggered by one day? It could have been just a one off unlucky timing of the renewal payment system. Ultimately to ensure you always have service simply pay your plan amount a day or two ahead of time.

[RMcL]

Hi darlicious, thanks for your response.

There was nothing wrong with my card payment credentials. Both my and my wife's phones went out together and we did not get any notice. Then when I went to the website I couldn't accomplish anything, so I was frustrated and a bit angry. However, eventually, the website came back online and I got things sorted (with a new card for payment). Hope this proves to be a "one off" event.

[BCW]

It’s unfortunate that you had this problem.

i was never without service, but I agree with you the minimum would be a notice of service interruption.

[darlicious]

@RMcL 

Did your credit card expire? Change plans? Address change ? Did you recieve the " Your plan has successfully renewed text at noon eastern on the day that your plan renewed? If not that's good indication that your account has been suspended. In that entire time that you were suspended you didn't use your phone once to send a text or make a phone call?

You can also make a payment via 611 with the card on file if you know your 4 digit account PIN #. 

I have never been suspended for non payment as I always prepay for my plan services and leave autopay as my back up plan in case I forget to pay my "bill" which now that I think about it I did forget once.....and autopay worked flawlessly!

[softech]

@RMcL   

Unfortunately, Pre-authorized will fail occasionally. 

PM is a prepaid service and hence service will stop if there is payment issue during renewal.

Prepaid is good or bad, it is good that you won't be paying for something you are not aware of.  But the bad part is that prepaid does not allow you to still use the service in this situation.