Need help activating with Public Mobile?

[Jeremy_M]

Hey Community,

If you have any questions or issues when activating an account with us, please reply to this topic with your question or issue, and our awesome Community members and moderators will be able to assist you.

Note: Please do not share any personal account information in your reply

Thanks,

Jeremy

[hslmdjim]

I have tried activating on a MC, Visa and AMex. Every single one failed because of PM. Called MC and Visa banks (both a big 5) and there are 2 charges on the MC and 3 charges on the Visa, all for plan cost before tax. All charges were approved by the bank. I tried so many times because I asked to port my number in the process, I really hope this doesn't make me lose my number. It's a little ironic the online-only company has a broken online system. 

[echf]

@Jeremy_M 

Not sure what happened. When first tried to activate SIM card on my Windows PC, I got the "Alternate Phone Number Regex Help" error on the porting page, can't display "Location" on the new phone number page. The error exists on any broswer of my PC (Chrome/MS Edge).  

No problem when activating on Mac. Can you please have a look, this could be very frustrating if you don't have access to another computer.

[lilstarangel15]

Sounds like the exact same problem I had on Monday. Maybe try what i mentioned above. When you go to 'my account' on the public mobile website to create a new account, type in the phone number you registered with, and it leads you to a second step that asks for verification (which if your service is inactive, the verification text probably won't show up on your phone). Then remove the PM sim card you had in the phone and reinsert it. Restart your phone.

Also try private messaging MODs or tag them in your posts.

[Jonny]

Hello, I tried activating my account with Public Mobile for the $40 promotion and successfully reached the very last page of the activation process, however I received an error on the final account summary page saying that my activation had failed. Trying to remake the account fails due to my sim number appearing invalid. I have not received any email confirming the creation of my account or a receipt for payment.

Any help with this would be appreciated. Thank you.

[splashable]

Nope, no phone call but I wasn't expecting one!!  lol

[Bolado]

Roll call: Did anyone here get a phone call from public mobile?

[mkanthala]

I tried to port over from chatr, everything went ok but at the end got activation failed message and when I retry I get invalid sim message. Any help would be appreciated

[lilstarangel15]

Hope this helps someone! Not sure if anyone mentioned this, but try creating a new account again with the same phone number you signed up with, then take out the PM sim card from your phone and insert it again, restart your phone. It worked for me. I didn't have service for 5 days after a failed activation. I think it needs to be done in sequence, because I've tried both, not not right after one another. Just my experience! Good luck and thanks to everyone who replied to this forum.

[rashmo]

Hi Everyone,

I trying to activate my new sim I recieved in the mail. I keep receiving a "Invalid SIM" message on the activation page. I've verified the SIM number more then once 🙂

[anele26]

I put the sim card in my phone and tried to call someone. It says that voice calls are not part of my plan

[Bolado]

You can check if your SIM card is partially activated if you insert the SIM card into a phone and look for your phone number.

[rehmanabbasi]

You know.. Patience is a virtue 🙂 , i agree ,try again in an hour and use FireFox.

[Bolado]

Unfortunately your SIM card is now partially activated. You should email and also have a mod assist you. @Mary_M @Jeremy_M. Expect one week waiting times. Good luck.

[Shanman]

I had the same issue. I had to wait for 30 minutes to an hour before I tried again. I would make sure I'm using a current version of Firefox too.

[anele26]

HI. I tried to activate my sim. Everything looked fine. I was able to choose a new number. When I hit the last button I got an error message saying my activation had failed. I tried doing it again but now it says invalid sim. Please help.

[Shanman]

Yes, Firefox is what I recommend too.

[bcsteeve]

Thanks, that worked

[clearly that question has been asked.  I appreciate you answering rather than telling me I should have read dozens of pages to find it]

[Bolado]

Try different browser or clear cookies.  People say opera and Firefox is best.

[bcsteeve]

Trying to activate sim... stuck on Step 2: Choose Phone Number.

I have two choices.  the first is "Select a New Number" and that's what I want.  Below that it says "Select  your calling area" and that drop down is completely blank.  Can't continue.

[Tian]

FYI for all, just want to let you know I managed to complete all the steps and get ported out from Koodo to Public Mobile a few minutes ago. What a crazy and interesting experience it has been.

• It looks like Public Mobile website servers are overloaded. I believe this is just coincidence, but switching from Google Chrome to IE worked for me
  • Perhaps wait until late at night to do the self-serve is the best time
  • I suspect this weekend will be a busy one for the mods and Public Mobile in general due to the remaining folks with their SIM cards trying to activate them before end of Nov 20th! 
• Don't bother with IMEI and PIN fields. Use Account Number.
  • These fields should be removed as they cause confusion.

Shoutout of thanks to @rehmanabbasi, @splashable and @Rockdaddy22 for your tips and advices... combined together, they helped me out alot!

I echo what others are saying: the mods are likely overwhelmed right now. TELUS/Public Mobile should have put on more people to moderate the community board next time they want to run a promo like this one given the fact that some of these issues (e.g. server overload) could have been resolved more quickly than expecting customers to struggle through these issues for the day.

[jakeman01]

Hi,

I just activated my SIM yesterday 7pm EST and ported my Chatr phone number over without providing account number, only EMEI/ESN #.    I am able to make outgoing but not incoming.

This afternoon, I called Chatr to restore my service and need to try porting again, this time providing my account number.

Please provide contact info.

Thanks.

[oyunyuno]

My number still haven't ported since Nov 1... Still waiting. Old number already not in service since Nov 7. Still using temp number as of today Nov 18. Messaged mod about this a few different times with the same response saying it will take 48hrs or they're working on it... It's almost 3 weeks and I wish my old # was still working so I would at least get important phone calls.

[Sasa1115]

Hello,

I have activated my account successfully last night, until now my phone is not working.

Please assist.

[splashable]

Did you try restarting your phone with the new SIM card in it?  

Just a thought.

[splashable]

I'm not sure of how helpful this will be but I think that if you got as far as the payment that all the stuff before was good.  Maybe check your credit card information?  Sometimes it's the simplest things that get hung up.  Maybe try another payment method.  

I'm sure that things will resolve, keep at it.

[dtty87]

Just an update for all to see. 

My request went  to a Mod (thanks @Mary_M) on Saturday - this was to get my Koodo number ported over. There was a glitch on the self-serve system so couldn't do it on my own. Anyway, the number was ported last night and all is working fine so far. 

So hopefully this helps with people who're wondering about the wait time for a response from PM. Hopefully the wait times will go soon, as things return to normal. 

[Rockdaddy22]

Please use account numbers instead of imei or pin.

[splashable]

I had the same response yesterday.  A couple of things that I did prevented the activation;

• my address autofilled incorrectly on the first screen.  I went back and entered it again.
• my Rogers account number had hyphens in it so that's how I entered it.  I took out the hyphens and it worked!

After I fixed those two things, it activated perfectly.  Keep trying, it's worth it.