Is PM payment system down?

[manolid]

Had a payment due a few days ago and Autopay did not charge my credit card. Just tried to pay the balance through self serve and keep receiving the message...

Unable to Process Transaction Sorry, we are unable to verify your credit card information, so this purchase could not be completed. Your credit card has not been charged.

Is the payment system down? Is there another way to make a payment?

[Pawprints1986]

@maximum_gato I came from koodo, lol. But that's the part I wasn't sure about is if any different things need to be in place to provide prepaid vs post paid. Besides credit checks. 

Koodo prepaid is just as costly as postpaid in most cases. In that sense it's so crazy that ultimately the system is shared with public

[maximum_gato]

@Pawprints1986  Public mobile does have a postpaid system its called koodo. Postpaid requires an entirely different system = expense = higher plan costs = koodo. Koodo has prepaid which shares its system with public mobile.

[Anonymous]

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@Naepalm wrote:

I

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@maximum_gato wrote:

@Naepalm  If you're going to be in the habit of manually paying your bill then take the time to take a screenshot of your overview page and your payment history before and after your renewal. This will leave you with a record of your account in case something doesn't occur that should such as the application of rewards or the resetting of your data.

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I did not realize I would have to do that? Have there been issues in the past where you pay before then don't get your balance? You would have a record of your card payment anyway right. 

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I happen to have a balance on my account. I have some rewards. I renewed recently and the rewards didn't convert. I paid the full amount. One of the mods took care of it promptly.

I agree about keeping an eye on it. The rewards generally convert at around midnight ET on renewal night. Out here in PT land I can see this happen at a comfortable 9pm. I saw that it didn't happen this time. I thought oh oh. I waited until after everything was done in the morning and the thank you text etc at noon ET and contacted the mods.

[Anonymous]

 @geopublic 

I have said on many occasions here that the payment system should be bulletproof. And "idiot" proof. ie. inform people what exactly any problem is. Maybe even show a counter of attempts to know you have so many left while you figure out how to get it right with a proper message from the system. Or when it's locked out for fraud, say that. And what to do next.

I'm just saying that it's not like everyone has a problem with it.

[maximum_gato]

@Naepalm  It's not a case of funds not being added to your balance but sometimes plan data has not been reset or rewards not being applied or a promotional discount being applied. There has been weird things happen in accounts.....pm glitches abound.

[Naepalm]

I

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@maximum_gato wrote:

@Naepalm  If you're going to be in the habit of manually paying your bill then take the time to take a screenshot of your overview page and your payment history before and after your renewal. This will leave you with a record of your account in case something doesn't occur that should such as the application of rewards or the resetting of your data.

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I did not realize I would have to do that? Have there been issues in the past where you pay before then don't get your balance? You would have a record of your card payment anyway right. 

[Pawprints1986]

@maximum_gato I totally agree, and prepaid definitely needs to remain an option... But it would be neat to have post paid for any one wishing to. Not forced at all, but as an option you Know? 

[maximum_gato]

@Naepalm  If you're going to be in the habit of manually paying your bill then take the time to take a screenshot of your overview page and your payment history before and after your renewal. This will leave you with a record of your account in case something doesn't occur that should such as the application of rewards or the resetting of your data.

[maximum_gato]

@Pawprints1986  The beauty of public mobiles prepaid plans and set up is its open to all. Anyone who can come up with $15 can have a phone plan thats affordable. It does not discriminate based on your financial picture. Low income, homeless, bad credit, you name it.....you won't be denied a plan with public mobile. No bank account necessary just pay cash at one of the hundreds of locations that sell vouchers and you can pay your bill. Income assistance allows for $20 towards your phone bill so there is no reason anyone cannot avail themselves of a public mobile plan.

[Pawprints1986]

Is PM currently working on auto pay issues? 

Kinda wish post paid was an option, pre authorized setup tries several times over a week or so worst case. Nobody would have to worry unless their card expired. I'd even be cool with a credit check lol... I know prepaid itself isn't cheaper, at least at the other big guys, by the time you add everything you want it's the same cost as post paid, just in a different way. At least in my plans case

[geopublic]

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@Luddite wrote:

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@geopublic wrote:

Until it works 100% then it's better to be safe than sorry. Even if it works 99.9% of the time it's little comfort to the those that get their account suspended to no fault of their own.

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You could even pay for 6+ months and worry even less frequently. 😉

Or, have a backup plan; TextNow app over wifi for example.

Or, some other more dependable service; though who knows where that would be at PM prices?

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@Luddite  Paying 2 days before plan renewal or paying 6 months does not make a difference, the result is the same. The only thing that paying 6 months in advance is that it locks you in for the long run which is not a good idea IMO. 

I have many backups (VOIP.ms, Google dialer) paying two days in advance is not a big hassle for me and worth it if it means not having the account go into suspension.

Public Mobile should address this problem and fix it.

[Luddite]

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@geopublic wrote:

Until it works 100% then it's better to be safe than sorry. Even if it works 99.9% of the time it's little comfort to the those that get their account suspended to no fault of their own.

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You could even pay for 6+ months and worry even less frequently. 😉

Or, have a backup plan; TextNow app over wifi for example.

Or, some other more dependable service; though who knows where that would be at PM prices?

[geopublic]

Until it works 100% then it's better to be safe than sorry. Even if it works 99.9% of the time it's little comfort to the those that get their account suspended to no fault of their own.

[Anonymous]

All this talk of pre-paying before autopay...always keep in mind that there are many thousands of customers renewing without issue month after month, year after year. It's not a wide-spread problem.

[Staliger]

@manolid Just want to mention that Autopay can sometimes fail, and your account will be suspended. So I personally prefer to do manual payment even with enabled Autopay to have $2 off and prevent such suspension issues.

[gblackma]

@Naepalm , @gpixel To clarify what I said about the $1 when I activated, I did a manual one time payment of a $1 to test the credit cards We have gone through 2 paid cycles and to date autopay hasn't failed. Knock on the board.

[Naepalm]

@geopublic good practice, I am all paid up for next month so I will do that going forward though! 🙂

Thank you for the much-needed wisdom!

[geopublic]

@Naepalm  Two days before plan renewal I make a manual payment of the amount owing into my account. Once the funds are in my account the plan renewal will automatically use the funds to renew my plan thus protecting from a possible Auto-Pay timeout failure.

[Naepalm]

@gpixel 

yeah, I actually just paid for the full amount as you said. 

I am glad this topic came up in discussion as I would not have known that it fails sometimes 🙂 

[gpixel]

@Naepalm @gblackma you might as well just pay the full amount if you have to go in your self serve. either way it's probably a good practice to handle your account that way

[Naepalm]

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@geopublic wrote:

@Pawprints1986  My guess is that it's a timeout issue so when that occurs it will fail. It has nothing to do with one's credit card.

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So I just used it and it was fine, one thing one may want to check is that they are using the drop-down menu and selecting either an amount or selecting pay balance. 

[geopublic]

@Pawprints1986  My guess is that it's a timeout issue so when that occurs it will fail. It has nothing to do with one's credit card.

[Naepalm]

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@gblackma wrote:

@Naepalm  I tested my auto pay with a manual one time payment of $1. 

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So you just added a 1.00 to your account, this is a great idea! When I signed up I paid with a credit card and set up auto-pay and it worked so should be fine but I'll do what you have done. 

Great advice if I could give you 10 Bravos for this I would. 

[geopublic]

@Naepalm  Auto-Pay works 99 % of the time. Unfortunately PM does not have a retry feature so if it falls it requires manual intervention.

Many here make a manual payment a couple of days before plan renewal just to be safe. As long as Auto-Pay is enabled you get the reward.

[gblackma]

@Naepalm  I tested my auto pay with a manual one time payment of $1. 

[Pawprints1986]

So, for those having issues... If it accepts your credit card initially at activation and charges correctly, why would the  autopay with the exact same info have issues? 

That's the one part I don't get at all, assuming card and expiry are the same... 

[hairbag1]

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@Naepalm wrote:

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@manolid wrote:

Had a payment due a few days ago and Autopay did not charge my credit card. Just tried to pay the balance through self serve and keep receiving the message...

Unable to Process Transaction Sorry, we are unable to verify your credit card information, so this purchase could not be completed. Your credit card has not been charged.

Is the payment system down? Is there another way to make a payment?

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Is it just me or did no one actually answer whether the system is down?

If you have auto-pay it should automatically charge. I don't think any of us want to be looking for alternate ways to pay if we have set up autopay. Can a MOD speak to whether or not autopay is working or not? 

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Occasionally the autopay process fails. One way to avoid the problem is to manually load $$ into Available Funds, a day or two before renewal. As long as you have autopay enabled, you'll still get the autopay reward. By adding funds to your account ahead of time, the process doesn't touch your on-file credit card.

It's not the best...but it seems to make the renewal process happy.

[Naepalm]

oh boy. Well, I guess account suspension for a couple of days isn't too bad. LOL

So further to that

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@geopublic wrote:

@Naepalm  Known issue and yes your account will get suspended.

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, you sign up for autopay but it doesn't work do you still get the autopay discount? 

[geopublic]

@Naepalm  Known issue and yes your account will get suspended.