Loss of Rewards using Lost/Stolen glitch

[darlicious]

@J_PM and the rest of the community....

I am gobsmacked that I am posting about this again after getting a resolution over two years ago but I have had some resistance over that time period getting rewards applied for the bf who has lost, found, lost again, forgot, recovered, broken etc...a slew of phones since joining pm almost 3 years ago. I think we are on the 11th phone now.....

Going by his reward statistics his account has been suspended via lost/stolen 23/35 months so far and I have had his rewards applied manually every time since raising this issue about the lost/stolen glitch causing rewards to not automatically being applied upon renewal.

The original thread below....

https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Get-Support/Autopay-reward-Do-not-use-lost-stolen-tri...

I have also had to temporarily suspend my 50/50 legacy plan account  3 times after lending the phone to the bf and surprise, surprise he lost or forgot the phone somewhere. After rolling my eyes at the "we will do it for you this time response..." customer support has manually applied the rewards for my account. 

I suspended one more time in the spring to test a voicemail issue and then finally in May after filing my CCTS complaint on the 30% rate hike to my 50/50 plan my renewal approached....the first one after the unjust rate hike was imposed on my account and other subscribers contrary to my terms of service. While the CCTS had ordered pm to suspend the disputed charges even though that doesn't appear possible with a prepaid provider I was faced with a choice.....or should I say a dilemma?

1. Keep active service and seek a refund of the disputed charges and risk the consequences of renewal is that I am agreeing to the new terms of service that I am disputing? Despite the WCC citing that a provider cannot force me to waive my rights under the Code in order to recieve my services? 
2. Not renew or top up my account ensuring that I do not agree to the new terms of service that may or may not be effective? Since the new terms were not posted at publicmobile.ca/plans as per the terms of service I have no idea what I was agreeing to if I renewed since the CCTS complaint was still at its earliest stages of investigation and there had been no clarification on my options by the eve of my renewal?

I decided to play it safe and not renew so while I did not manually top up my account in fact I haven't done so in 2 and a half years I also couldn't just let payment fail.....because of the prepaid balance I was carrying on the account. The only option.....suspend via lost/stolen.

About 7 weeks later after an unsatisfactory decision by the CCTS that ruled that pm can change your terms of service whenever they want and however they want and not have to abide by them....only the customer has to.....a one sided contract not legal in any other industry but the prepaid provider universe?!! Anyhow once the CCTS closed the complaint as unresolved but without fault I renewed my service by waiving my rights and paying the new disputed price one day before it was effective by the original terms of service that I agreed to.... 29 days after being posted at publicmobile.ca/plans.

Well before I renewed tonight officially but begrudgingly waiving my rights again to recieve service this is the first renewal that the 30% rate hike is actually effective according to the original terms of service. So with all of change this month and still waiting for the May RAF credit to be applied to my other account I remembered I had yet to ask for my rewards to be applied from before my suspension. 

I asked the senior CSA who took over my RAF request (and re-opened another new ticket after it had been closed without proper cause.....) to please manually apply my rewards from my 30 days of service in April/May before I was forced to suspend via lost/stolen on day 30.

Well the CSA flat out refused to saying suspending via lost/stolen cancels the earning of Rewards and they had been applied in the past enough times that I can't expect it to continue to be done when using lost/stolen to suspend. Ridiculous especially considering the bf's record of suspension?!!

Since I know there is no point in arguing the point with this CSA I asked if they were refusing to apply my rewards then escalate my support request to the appropriate department. This is what it has come to.....having to get the escalations department involved to have my rewards rightfully earned to be applied to my account.

According to the updated help article on "old rewards" I have done everything correctly.....

https://www.publicmobile.ca/en/bc/get-help/articles/reward-rules

After my may RAF credit was incorrectly refused and request closed without ever informing me of that bonehead decision I await the reasoning on this one....? You may want to note the rewards rules on changing plans early and rewards being applied 24 hours after that takes place....as that's news to me?!! 

Let's see what the escalation department has to say about my rewards....?🤔

[pm-smayer97]

Just FYI, every time the CCTS has to process a claim, the company DOES automatically get "penalized" by having to pay the CCTS a processing fee. So, if enough people submit enough claims on an issue, it can hurt a business... and serve as a corrective measure in and of itself.

[darlicious]

@softech 

Part 1...exactly why I originally sought a resolution.

Part 2....to clarify. The CCTS not the CRTC investigated my complaint or rather the portions of my complaint covered by their scope. Price hikes are not one of them so the portion of my complaint they dealt with involved the terms of service or "contract". Which we agree to every 30 days when we either manually top up our accounts and/or renew the service. When I agree to those  terms I expect my provider to also adhere to them as by accepting my payment/renewal they are agreeing to uphold them.

That is where the issue stems from....while CCTS decisions are not precedent setting what they are saying which is contrary to provisions in the WCC and the CCTS procedural code is a prepaid provider can change your terms of service during the length of your contract even one as short as 30 days and as long as they inform you any way they want they can enact those changes whenever they want.....even retroactively.

Furthermore if they enact those changes without informing you they are free to do so unless you go through the ardorous task of filing and following thru with a complaint to the CCTS where if they are found to have breached the code they face no punitive measures for doing so....they simply need to restore you to your previous position and then enforce an immediate change. Each and every customer must do this on their own in order to ensure their provider doesn't get away with abusing your precious few rights under the code.

Do you find this acceptable? If you wake up tomorrow and find out your plan now costs $150 that they renewed thru autopay are you ok with that? While an extreme example it can occur. So its not whether its $3 or $30 or $300? It's the principle of the matter. 

For Mr Entwistle do you think if his phone bill increased by $3000 (When comparing an equivalent yearly income.) he would be okay with that? Do you think he would just pay it or complain about it?

[Korth]

My first Public Mobile account had malfunctional Rewards. They worked perfectly until I asked PM whether I could retroactively apply a referral. One of the great old Mods said yes and made some sort of manual adjustment to my account. That Referral Reward had to be manually adjusted again and again on subsequent months - and other Rewards began to fail as well.

Whatever they adjusted looked fine in Self-Serve, for a while, but evidently circumvented the normal automated processes in unanticipated (buggy) ways which break stuff.

PM's locked-in-their-scripted-boxes CSAs apparently can't adjust things like this anymore - but at least that means they apparently can't break things either.

[softech]

HI @darlicious   First, I agree you should be getting back your rewards.  i do not recall seeing any fine prints anywhere about loosing the rewards if you suspended your plan via non-payment or Lost/Stolen. 

And if they need to add this term (about losing rewards), it "might be ok" to take it from non-payment as people chose to suspend the service themselves, but  it is definitely unfair to take the rewards away from Lost/Stolen.  After all, suspended by Lost/Stolen is a safety protocol when a phone was gone missing.  Putting it on Lost/Stolen will avoid further financial lost of out it, your phone is now your "key" to your online "safe"  (to access your banking) and your online "passport" (to access your mail or other websites).  So, I don't see it justified to penalized people to  "play it safe" when a phone was lost..  And  why rub salt into the wound?  Someone already lost the phone and need to suffer financially  to get a replacement, and you are not helping but now asking them to loss more every month (the removal of rewards amount)

On the other hand, I think CRTC has made the right decision.  You mentioned a one side "contract"  The truth is, prepaid service means no contract.   Or if there is one, the contract is just a short one that lasts 30 days.  You have  no obligation to stay here for lengthy period and PM also is not bounded by any contract to provide the service at the same price "for life".   The only thing that PM is bounded by is to provide "acceptable" wireless service to its subscribers during the 30 days cycle you paid for on Day 1.   On day 31, it is another 30 days service agreement between PM and its subscribers, PM  can set a new price and subscribers are free to accept it (by continue to pay) or refuse (by suspending the service via non-payment).