On the Fence About Switching

[mitch1001]

Hey All,

I am desperately searching for cheaper mobile service and was hoping to find it with Public Mobile but....  the more I look through the forum here I notice that there are a ton of people having issues with billing, plans and feature inaccuracies, data usage issues etc.... 

I do alot of travelling for work and need a reliable cell phone system..I'm not talking about the Telus network (I know that is reliable) I am talking about the Public Mobile system that uses the network.  With the numerous bad experiences people are posting up everyday I'm apprehensive at best to make the switch.

Are  we only hearing from the bad experiences on here?  Is the majority happy with the service.  Having been with Telus, Bell and Koodo I have never had a single issue or interuption in service.  And I dont want to afford the time or the patience to deal with an intermitent cell phone service.  

Maybe I am seeing things wrong here, looking for input from Public Mobile users

Regards

[crtowns]

@mitch1001 I’ve been with PM for a few weeks now and no issues thus far! I think the board looks like there are lots of issues because people come here for help. But there are hundreds of thousands of customers who never post on here. 

[will13am]

As much as the forum paints a gloomy picture of the service, it is actually no different that than any other cellular provider.  If every phone call Telus received in their call center was recorded and posted in a forum, there would be a flood of posts, probably many with very colorful words.  I manage the plans for the household and many of my friends, never had an issue with activation or renewal.  The service was never disrupted.  My biggest issue so far was having lost referrals restored.  At the moment, my biggest gripe with the service is the lack of promotions to put some life into the service. 

[computergeek541]

I haven't had a single issue with billing, activation, or number porting.  There are some people who do have problems with the Public Mobile system incorrectly believing that some phone numbers are out-of-province long distance when they really aren't, while I would say that he many of the issues happen at the time of activation.

[srlawren]

@mitch1001 pardon me if it's been said already, but I saw you mention that you travel a lot for work.  Are you talking about inside Canada?  Into the USA?  or elsewhere in the world?  

If it's outside of Canada and the USA, you will definitely find PM limiting as there is zero roaming options outside of Canada and the USA.  If you travel to the USA a lot, you can use the US Roaming Add-ons, but they are all fixed at 10 days and not stackable so they are a bit of a pain to manage for longer trips, and a bit expensive for short trips (2-4 or 5 days basically) or if you need to use a lot of data in the USA.  If you travel within Canada, stick with a Canada-wide talk option in your plan rather than Province-wide, to save yourself some grief.

[koimr1]

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@mimmo wrote:

@koimr1 agreed all providers can have issues. But being prepaid if payment fails you are out of service.also when asking for help  there is a delay between sending a message and getting the issue fixed which can be made longer with the one way private communication instead two way with online chat or on the phone.

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Oh yes, I understand that which is why I suggested a 30-day "trial" first. Wish they still had ten-day ones but I digress...

For the other concerns, I would hope @mitch1001 is aware of them too - I still believe that these are in the minority and WILL get solved - even if the time needed is more than other carriers, we still have the benefit of usually-lower cost that for me makes up for it. Again, the OP needs to take this into account and good on him/her for doing research first here. 🙂

[Michael77]

When I was with PM I only had a couple of issues. Other than that everything worked well and reception was good. If you require your phone for work and you don't mind not having a call centre or stores then maybe you could take a chance. Just keep in mind that if something goes wrong you would have to send a private message to the mods or try to get help from the PM Community.

[mimmo]

@koimr1 agreed all providers can have issues. But being prepaid if payment fails you are out of service.also when asking for help  there is a delay between sending a message and getting the issue fixed which can be made longer with the one way private communication instead two way with online chat or on the phone.

[koimr1]

My thinking: As of the end of 2013 PM had 222,000 subscribers (this was just before being bought by Telus). My gut tells me that right now they are around 150-175k.

With that number in mind, take a real good look at the forums - how many new threads do you see on a daily basis with problems? Honestly, there's not THAT many. Really! Go look! 🙂 Sometimes people make it sound like there's hundreds a day. Look at the initial post date, not the last post (because people often continue commenting even the next day or two later).

Even if it turns out there's only a tenth of that 2013 number left (22,200) the number of posts here would still be a very small percentage. Also, a lot of posts are what I would consider pretty easy to sort and not specific to PM - APN settings, network locks, etc.

Of course, many people with problems might immediately cancel first or bypass the forums and go to the moderators right away - I'm willing to bet the ones that went with moderators got their issue(s) sorted out.

Issues you mentioned: "billing, plans and feature inaccuracies, data usage issues etc" - these are all things that can and do happen at any carrier. I am not aware of any that have not been solved by either forum or moderator help though.

You've also mentioned that you need reliability. The quick answer is that you can sign-up for a 30-day plan and try it out. DON'T port your existing number, just use the one PM supplies you, even forward your existing number to it. See how it goes. If you decide to go with PM then you can transfer your number over and choose a better/different term plan if you want.

[mimmo]

If you need 99.9% I would not recommend PM.  There Really many ongoing issues that should have been solved long ago.  Typically from reading posts errors occur during

1) activation(pm portal issues) 

2 porting (customer error)

3 plan changes (portal)

4 auto pay issues (portal)

5)credit card validation

All the above can be mitigated by user awareness and proactivity ie topin up manually before renewal.

Murphys law: things will fail when least opportune, and you can expect a wait time to get things solved.  But again this can be mitigated by providing as much info as possible to mods when asking for help.

[Vickel]

You don't see many positive experiences here cause people with no issues usually don't post.

This is the same for many reviews. 

I know a couple people signed up for public but didn't bother to sign up for the community

[wetcoaster]

IMHO you see 95% posts with problems here because this forum is the starting point for getting help. While not denying that Public Mobile has problems flaring up that should have long been fixed and are unexcusable for an online only provider, I also think that there is a considerable amount of user errors.

If you're relying on immediate phone support and/or use the phone as means to make money this service might not be the best choice for your needs.

Also have a read here: https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Getting-Started/BE-PREPARED/m-p/112014#M20827

I'm a relative newcomer to Public Mobile (signed up in April 2017) and after my port from SpeakOut got sorted (the quirk is that SpeakOut doesn't have account numbers... I got conflicting information on how to deal with that, which lead to a failed port which needed moderator intervention. Counts for user error in my book.) everything has been running smoothly.

[edmonch2013]

Here is place that looking for answer of problem and most people don't have problem with their service and for Public Mobile service is realiable, but may have some problem when you enroll or make change on your plan, same with other service provider but different is, they charge more because there are agnets help you to deal with problem but public mobile is self-serve, that's why price here  are better that others, but once everything setup, you shouldn't have any problem.

[NDesai]

@mitch1001 I understand your concerns, but let me tell you something. The reason you see tons of issues here is because this is the only place users can get help. PM do not have call center so we can't call them for account related issues. New users with issues directly come here and post for help. PM have mods who get in touch via private messages to provide support. 

If you actually search with positive keywords, you will find many users who posted their positive feedbacks. Alot of them about how good the network coverage is and how much they are saving with PM. 

Personally, I have never had any account related issue for over 2 years I have been with them. I am sure there are others with the same experience. 

Let us know if you have any further questions.