Open letter to Public Mobile, Telus

[stonechucker]

Hello Public Mobile, and by extension Telus, the owner of Public Mobile.

I am a subscriber of your prepaid service since July of 2016.  I have been a very happy customer, and I’ve enjoyed the service provided to me via your plans, the Community, and the Moderators and other staff who interact with the subscribers of this service.

I write you today, as it has once again become rediculous the way new subscribers are having problems activating new services, existing subscribers are having failed AutoPay renewals, failed plan changes, and everyone is having difficulty figuring out how long they will need to wait for their issues to be dealt with successfully.

It is beyond belief that there is no communication on a daily basis at this point, about what is going on.  There are problems with the website interface in the Selfserve portal, the forgotten password process has been ineffective for the better part of my time with your service, and the current delays are creeping up daily.  I would not be surprised if folks are now waiting in excess of 96 hours for initial response to support requests to the Moderator_Team.

You really need to stop offering these fantastic promotions until you get your technology fixed.  This is insane.  I’m happy I’m here, but I can’t recommend my friends to come here until you get your ducks in a row.

[stonechucker]

@dickwong, have you asked the community for support?  The community can take a crack at it if it's not strictly account related.  Sometimes, there's a new work around.

[dickwong]

my two PM msg are on two separate and unrelated issues/questions came up at different time.

[harman1189]

Okay, from my experience, as per mods you should just send the message and wait. The more messages you send the more you've to wait. If you look at my last post here, this is exactly what I was against, but then it is how their system works, you're stuck. 

[dickwong]

I can tell this being useless.  I have PMs to moderators a month ago and another one 2 weeks ago.  No reply on both.  NOT A SINGlE WORD from them......  What the fake support.

[mimmo]

@irisou  sorry to hear about your troubles.  7 days seems a bit past the norm.

the first thing to do is typically start your own support thread and not attach your issue to some other unrelated thread.

in that new thead it helps if you post a screenshot ov yourself serve overview page and your payment history.

Assuming you either have an active but not working plan or fund balance but expired status try the following it seems to help many people. this following tricks seems to help many people

https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Paying-for-your-service/SOLUTION-My-plan-has-enough-f...

[irisou]

Hi,

I've been without service since Friday October 26th because I changed plans on my renewal date. I communicated with a Moderator on Monday ... but haven't heard anything back since.

We're Thursday now ... going on day 7 tomorrow without service ... on a 30 day plan.

Not sure what to do anymore ...

[janbow50]

I’m still waiting for my promised rebate from London drugs where I got my SIM card. I have phoned them they say not their problem up to public to give me that. Signed up in August still no rebatec or credit 

[harman1189]

I agree, the bugs should be fixed. I finally got my connection to work today (Friday around 3:30 PM) and my very first message was sent on Monday (10:15 PM) and during this time I had no Service. 

Since reliance is so much on self-serve and then mods, both needs upgrade, the system should be fixed so there's less burden on Mods and then if the customer base is growing they should add more members as Mods. 

If there are promotions and they expect more people to join, they should improve their services. I personally don't think I can recommend this to anyone because of my own experience. 

[stonechucker]

I hate to say it @ÐooubleTap, but still sounds like you're playing super rude guy today.

Why bash the company further?  Sell the SIMs or don't sell them.

[popping]

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@bridonca wrote:

Respectfully, I already tried the obvious things in reaching Koodo!  Wait times are close to an hour when calling!  I have used the call back system twice, never got a call back!  I decided to use the Facebook route because there would be documentation. 

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I used Koodo AI support to schedule a call back..  It showed me a list of call back time slots for me to pick the time for Koodo rep to call me.  The call back is right on time.  Very convenience.  But available call back time slots usually is next day.  I am fine with one day delay instead on hold for an hour during the PM to Koodo migration promo.

[lemew07]

I am not making excuses for Telus judo or PM. This is the business  model they all use. Employees cost money. The less employees one has the bigger the profit margin. As a customer I 2ant it all customer service and great value for my buck. Hence why I am with PM it is the cheapest mobile phone service I could find. I dropped my Koodo plan 300 minutes anytime and 300 GB of data for 33 a month. I realized I used the data hardly ever switched to the PM 25 dollar plan with no data and I save 120 a year. I live on a pension so I now have a extra 120 to spend elsewhere. Cheers ADA 

[bridonca]

Respectfully, I already tried the obvious things in reaching Koodo!  Wait times are close to an hour when calling!  I have used the call back system twice, never got a call back!  I decided to use the Facebook route because there would be documentation. 

What annoys me the most is, I have to call Koodo for simple stupid stuff that should never been wrong to begin with!   If Telus wants to cheap out on their staff, pay someone good money to streamline their services!    Make the billing simple and services simple, instead of this conlvoluted mess it is right now!

[mimmo]

@bridoncakoodo has official support methods including calling 611.  they even have a set up a call back feature, you select a time from options given and you get called back at that time.

[bridonca]

Koodo is not much better.  Second month in a row where the bill is messed up.   Contacted Koodo via Facebook, got an automated message, and then nothing.  Will put in another CCTS complaint today.  Seems to be the only way to get  a response.

[stonechucker]

@Souky123, customer service is excellent and provided by the community, and the moderator team terrifically.  The lack of official support resources is what needs to improve, and the promos need to be held off, until backend systems, customer-facing systems, and general customer knowledge is improved.

[Souky123]

Customer service needs to improve and all promos need to be online only

[stonechucker]

@caulenback, I’m sorry you’re experiencing issues here.  I really hope you discover that once you’re in, this is a great service to be on.

I stand by my original post, I truly think that offering these promotions is hurting the reputation of Public Mobile, and that they need to fix their systems before subjecting their subscribers to such long delays for any support.  Telus holds the purse strings, and the shareholders want big profits, and don’t give a hoot about the customers.

I used to rave about Public Mobile, and the few friends I have referred here love it too, but also do not recommend the service due to the poor service levels that have been experienced now since the summer.

It’s about two months since I posted this, and there has been no change.  I still can not receive the change password system email.  Apparently, the system doesn’t know my email, but I receive every other email that Public Mobile sends out.

[hairbag1]

Problem - free for 2 years myself. No evidence of crooks that I can attest to. Good luck wherever you go.

[ShawnC13]

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@caulenback wrote:

I am dumbfounded that you have been with this service for 2 years. I have been with them for 2 months and if they would not have taken so much of my money for no reason I would already be using another service. This is the worst phone service I have ever had. I do not recommend getting twisted up in the mess of a cell phone service. Extremely disappointed can't wait for next month service to finish so I can get away fr these crooks

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I have been here 2 years as well without major issue.  I am not sure what problems you Ran into and sorry to hear that you have but I would not call on crooks there are many happy customers.  As this is your first post we don't know what your problem was or how you went about to try and resolve it

[caulenback]

I am dumbfounded that you have been with this service for 2 years. I have been with them for 2 months and if they would not have taken so much of my money for no reason I would already be using another service. This is the worst phone service I have ever had. I do not recommend getting twisted up in the mess of a cell phone service. Extremely disappointed can't wait for next month service to finish so I can get away fr these crooks

[alnerdo]

Wow, I wish I had read this before I tried to port my number over. I didn't even come for a promotion or a referral discount, just a cheaper phone rate because I want to downsize my data plan. Didn't think it would be this hard to get started. So, in my case the promotions wouldn't really have swayed me one way or the other, the standard plan is still cheaper than the competitors I looked at that have similar network coverage and similar plans. Hopefully it all works out in the end. I suppose PM is at least transparent in terms of "less for less" so the experinece so far matches my expectations. 

[dickwong]

Public Mobile's response to customers experiencing issues is extremely slow.

[srlawren]

@DianneFowler I suppose that could be useful for something like a system outage.  I'm guessing they were probably already on it when they got your message via Facebook, but regardless I'm gald you were able to get in on the promotion.

That said, for future reference if you need any help with your account, there is only ONE way to get help, which is detailed here:  https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Knowledge-Base/How-to-Get-Help/ta-p/251745

[mimmo]

@DianneFowler  thanks for sharing.  yes i agree they should refer any requests to the forums.  but glad you were able to get help and the service you wanted.  great to see activity in the forums.  Welcome  🙂

[DianneFowler]

Oh well, I am new to Public Mobile so I was trying to contact them any way I could since the promotion was going to end very soon.  I did not realize there was some sort of specific order and a specific place to only ask for help.  Now I know.  Public Mobile should not be answering people on Facebook.  They should be referring them back to the Community.  

[DianneFowler]

This past week the activation postal was down at my local Walmart and I was unable to buy and activate my phone during the Flash Sale for over an hour.  I posted the Walmart location and the problem on the Facebook page and it was resolved very quickly and I was able to buy and activate my phone before the Sunday deadline for the promotion with the free sim card and free month of service had expired.

[mimmo]

@DianneFowlercan you say what type of help you received from facebook and when?  a while back PM moved all support to the forums to ensure everyone had the same experience (a single queue) and to avoid people from posting the same issue to various platforms.

[DianneFowler]

I have had good success in having problems resolved quickly when I post the problem to the Public Mobile FACEBOOK page.  The response is very quick.

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[DianneFowler]

I have found that posting something to the Public Mobile FACEBOOK page gets a very quick response.  Try that if you need quick help if you don't get help from posting to the Community.

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@stonechucker wrote:

Hello Public Mobile, and by extension Telus, the owner of Public Mobile.

I am a subscriber of your prepaid service since July of 2016.  I have been a very happy customer, and I’ve enjoyed the service provided to me via your plans, the Community, and the Moderators and other staff who interact with the subscribers of this service.

I write you today, as it has once again become rediculous the way new subscribers are having problems activating new services, existing subscribers are having failed AutoPay renewals, failed plan changes, and everyone is having difficulty figuring out how long they will need to wait for their issues to be dealt with successfully.

It is beyond belief that there is no communication on a daily basis at this point, about what is going on.  There are problems with the website interface in the Selfserve portal, the forgotten password process has been ineffective for the better part of my time with your service, and the current delays are creeping up daily.  I would not be surprised if folks are now waiting in excess of 96 hours for initial response to support requests to the Moderator_Team.

You really need to stop offering these fantastic promotions until you get your technology fixed.  This is insane.  I’m happy I’m here, but I can’t recommend my friends to come here until you get your ducks in a row.

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[Mugsy]

How can you remain competitive when your problem solving is slower than molasses in January? Are you deluding yourselves into thinking that low prices ALONE will retain customers? Look at your competition;  they're thriving by offering customer service and low prices! Personally, I cut up a PM SIM because I was getting Nowhere solving a problem with porting in phone number. I'm 199% certain that I'm not the only customer came over for the low prices and subsequently, who has completely dropped a line. How competitive is that?