Not Receiving Text Messages

[Ruthe]

Incoming text messages stopped working this afternoon yet outgoing text and incoming MMS work fine. I had a US Roaming add on end today which i see in an other post has sometimes caused this condition.

I have sent a private message to the moderator team but if anyone has any suggestions or tweaks to fix this it would be appreciated....could not have happened at a worse time.

[srlawren]

@Alan_K thanks for the update, and I'm happy to hear this is probably finally on the visible horizon.  I agree with @Anonymous that no gesture will make up for the experience that @Ruthe had, at least you are making an effort and there's something to be said for that.  Thanks for responding propmptly and for taking the matter seriously.  

[Anonymous]

 @Alan_K 

It's a business practice I've never really appreciated. There's a problem. It should be fixed. But here how about some compensation for your trouble.

No. Fix the problem so it doesn't happen to someone else.

I've experienced it in other places too.

But this problem has been going on for a couple years now. I get that fixes go at a snail's pace around here and that there's limited to no budget that your bosses are providing to you to fix problems. It's just goofy that this problem happens at all though.

[Alan_K]

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@srlawren wrote:

@Ruthe I'm sorry for your loss, and yes the timing is awful.  And yes I 100% agree with you that PM really need to fix this bug.  I wish I had the power to make them, but I don't.

@Alan_K @Dave_M please review this thread.  There has been a bug with the US Roaming Texting add-on since the day it was introduced going on 2 years ago, and it prevents people from receiving incoming text messages for about 12-24 hours after the add-on expires.  The majority of the time, this is a relatively minor inconvenience.  You can see from this thread that this instance has had a real and pround negative impact on Ruthe's life and family. 

There are a few things that make this bug quite bad:

1) It is consistent and repeatable and happens to just about all (if not ALL) customers using the US Roaming texting add-on or either of the bundles which include it

2) The person impacted has no idea they are missing messages unless someone reaches out to them to enquire why your customer isn't responding to their messages. People sending them messages get zero indication that it was never delivered and are left thinking your customer is flat out ignoring them.

3) Yes the issue will self-correct within about 24 hours of add-on expiry, but a lot can be missed in 24 hours--including life and death as we can see in this case.  A moderator has the ability to help by manually removing the add-on, but moderator response times (even to get to the identifiy verification step, let alone resolution) has typically far exceeded 24 hours on an ongoing basis the past sevearl months at least; this means the issue should already be self-resolved by the time they can respond, meaning your user can literally do nothing but wait, even if they are aware of the issue (due to point 2 above).

4) Possibly worst of all, messages during the window between add-on expiry and resolution are completely lost forever.  This compounds point #2 above, meaning not only does your customer and their friends and family not know why they are not communicating during the issue window, they will also never find out what was missed.  

I know Alan I have been repeatedly tagging you for glaring issues lately and you're probably growing tired of it, so I do apologize, but I think you and your team owe it to your customers to address this issue before we see more serious impacts like Ruthe has suffered on top of loss of a loved one.  

Your customers should expect their services to work as normal and to not be negatively impacted by needing service while visiting the USA.  This is not an unreasonable expectation, which PM has been failing to meet for approaching 2 years and counting.

Thank you for reading, if you made it this far.

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@srlawren Thank you for tagging me in this. I agree this is a suboptimal experience and it is scheduled with my team as one of our top priorities for our next update this year. 

@Ruthe We're very sorry that this happened- please share your account number with me in my private message and I'll see how I can help make things better. While this is a small gesture, I'd like to see how I can help you worry about one thing less while you're going through this.

[srlawren]

@Ruthe I'm sorry for your loss, and yes the timing is awful.  And yes I 100% agree with you that PM really need to fix this bug.  I wish I had the power to make them, but I don't.

@Alan_K @Dave_M please review this thread.  There has been a bug with the US Roaming Texting add-on since the day it was introduced going on 2 years ago, and it prevents people from receiving incoming text messages for about 12-24 hours after the add-on expires.  The majority of the time, this is a relatively minor inconvenience.  You can see from this thread that this instance has had a real and pround negative impact on Ruthe's life and family. 

There are a few things that make this bug quite bad:

1) It is consistent and repeatable and happens to just about all (if not ALL) customers using the US Roaming texting add-on or either of the bundles which include it

2) The person impacted has no idea they are missing messages unless someone reaches out to them to enquire why your customer isn't responding to their messages. People sending them messages get zero indication that it was never delivered and are left thinking your customer is flat out ignoring them.

3) Yes the issue will self-correct within about 24 hours of add-on expiry, but a lot can be missed in 24 hours--including life and death as we can see in this case.  A moderator has the ability to help by manually removing the add-on, but moderator response times (even to get to the identifiy verification step, let alone resolution) has typically far exceeded 24 hours on an ongoing basis the past sevearl months at least; this means the issue should already be self-resolved by the time they can respond, meaning your user can literally do nothing but wait, even if they are aware of the issue (due to point 2 above).

4) Possibly worst of all, messages during the window between add-on expiry and resolution are completely lost forever.  This compounds point #2 above, meaning not only does your customer and their friends and family not know why they are not communicating during the issue window, they will also never find out what was missed.  

I know Alan I have been repeatedly tagging you for glaring issues lately and you're probably growing tired of it, so I do apologize, but I think you and your team owe it to your customers to address this issue before we see more serious impacts like Ruthe has suffered on top of loss of a loved one.  

Your customers should expect their services to work as normal and to not be negatively impacted by needing service while visiting the USA.  This is not an unreasonable expectation, which PM has been failing to meet for approaching 2 years and counting.

Thank you for reading, if you made it this far.

[Ruthe]

Thanks for the workaround which may have worked(had I known) since we were back in canada for the last 5 days of the add on. But to me this is serious enough to switch back to my previous provider. (**death in family today and folks think we are ignoring messages**)

What sucks is i will not be able to get the same plan back at Koodo that i had when I left..I strongly recommend that anyone that occasionaly roams avoid PM 

[srlawren]

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@geopublic wrote:

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@Ruthe wrote:

thanks for the reply but i feel this is not acceptable ...if this is a known problem there should be manual intervention behind the curtain to make sure that customers are not aware of this problem..ie manual intervention 7/24 until fixed permanently

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@Ruthe  I agree 100% hopefully they do fix it soon.

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@Ruthe @geopublic to put it in perspective:  this issue has existed since the US Roaming add-ons were introduced, which if memory serves me correctly was in Nov of 2017.  PM has not shown any public interest in fixing this bug, so I would advise you to not count on it being fixed any time soon.

@Ruthe I do have a partial workaround for future use.  It won't work all the time, but if your trip is shorter than 10 days, then as soon as you land in Canada (or perhaps when you get on the plane or near the border in the car), send a private message to the Moderator_Team and request them to manually remove the add-on right away.  If they can get to your request prior to the add-on expiring at the end of the 10th day, then the issue does not crop up (I have done this and confirm it does work if done in time).  

[geopublic]

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@Ruthe wrote:

thanks for the reply but i feel this is not acceptable ...if this is a known problem there should be manual intervention behind the curtain to make sure that customers are not aware of this problem..ie manual intervention 7/24 until fixed permanently

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@Ruthe  I agree 100% hopefully they do fix it soon. My guess is that it's not an easy fix and that is why it's still ongoing. As a workaroung, next time I would send the moderator team a message just before I come back with the approx time of return and ask them to remove the add-on at that time.

[Ruthe]

thanks for the reply but i feel this is not acceptable ...if this is a known problem there should be manual intervention behind the curtain to make sure that customers are not aware of this problem..ie manual intervention 7/24 until fixed permanently

[geopublic]

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@Ruthe wrote:

Incoming text messages stopped working this afternoon yet outgoing text and incoming MMS work fine. I had a US Roaming add on end today which i see in an other post has sometimes caused this condition.

I have sent a private message to the moderator team but if anyone has any suggestions or tweaks to fix this it would be appreciated....could not have happened at a worse time.

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@Ruthe  The only remedies that I know of are:

1. Contact the moderators to remove add-on from your account.
2. Wait up to 24 hours for the condition to clear on it's own.