Payment/service issues related to auto-pay renewals

[Spudster]

There are a number of customers with payment issues this morning relating to failed auto-pay renewals.  

It would be nice if Public Mobile or the @CS_Agent might post an update to this thread to inform the many users experiencing this. 

No need for anyone else to reply with recommendations (I'm not experiencing an impact) -- unless you have direct insight as to cause. 

[EDIT:   Oracles, please kindly do not relegate this to the Lounge - thank you]

[dust2dust]

@sherry6- Good of you to search for things. The contents of the message you're replying to is now outdated and has to do with dealing with the credit card. But are you talking about a failed plan change? Credit card entry?

[sherry6]

Thank you but my account indicates that I have paid for such service yet my plan o account still shows that my old plan is still in effect.

[RosieR]

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@jaime_peralta56 wrote:

im need to give my new visa cart

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Hi @jaime_peralta56 

Log in your self serve account https://selfserve.publicmobile.ca/

Here's is an image showing where you can find Manage my card, click Payment tab on overview page

There are some glitches in the website and at times, you won't be able to change your credit card yourself on self serve.

Try calling 611.

Main Menu

• To make a payment using a Public Mobile payment voucher or a credit card – press 1
• To buy an Add-on – press 2
• To review a summary of your current add-on usage – press 3
• To check your account balance – press 4
• To add or remove autopay – 5  (you need your 4-digit pin code for this)

If still doesn't work, contact the Moderator_Team to help you.

Two ways to contact the moderators:

• Preferred way – Click the chat bubble at the bottom right of the page or click this link  >> type “talk to human" >> "account-specific question" >> "no, I need a human now" >> Click here to submit a ticket!
• Alternate way – Send a private message to the Moderators_Team here.  You have to be logged in to your Community account for the link to work. 

It may take from 1 hr to 2 days (faster response these days) to receive a reply from the moderators.  Keep an eye on the envelope icon on top right for a number to pop up. That would be the moderator’s reply.

Moderators are available:

• Monday to Sunday: 6 AM to 10 PM EST

Good luck

RosieR

[esjliv]

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@jaime_peralta56 wrote:

im need to give my new visa cart

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@jaime_peralta56 

Have you registered for a Self Serve account, you do that here: https://selfserve.publicmobile.ca/self-registration/

Then, once registered, you log into your Self Serve account here: https://selfserve.publicmobile.ca/

When you can get in, go here to change your credit card details:

[jaime_peralta56]

im need to give my new visa cart

[darlicious]

@fredfor 

Yes and win that dispute with your bank in regards to pm and you will be paying by voucher ever after.

Edit: And you are missing my point....read the small print of your other service agreements with other service providers that you have set up pre-authorized payments.

[darlicious]

@softech 

Considering rogers has phone support it has still experienced autopay issues and system failures. While dated their community also not exactly a go to place for their customer support....

https://communityforums.rogers.com/t5/forums/searchpage/tab/message?advanced=false&allow_punctuation...

[Canlan54a]

Hopefully PM will not play the public holiday card to use as an excuse for neglecting to resolve these issues that they were well aware of for some time, as well as others as they are uncovered...

[hairbag1]

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@Lonetreejim wrote:

Everybody knows $hit happens.  It has/will happen to everybody using every service.

What bothers me the most is a company that has no phone support has such crappy online support.  It took me an hour and a half this afternoon waiting for the self-serve website to trickle me my account pages....Normally, you have immediate access to account info / status Today is one of those rare occurrences when the website is ...dysfunctional. 

I'd disagree with your statement about crappy online support. You post a question to this Community and you have crowd-sourced info in a moment or two at the most. Today...well things just aren't "normal"...sorta like 2020/21 itself eh.

Frankly, I like not having to interface with service reps.  Less chance to be lied to.  But in this day and age having a decent web server should be a no brainer.

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[Lonetreejim]

Everybody knows $hit happens.  It has/will happen to everybody using every service.

What bothers me the most is a company that has no phone support has such crappy online support.  It took me an hour and a half this afternoon waiting for the self-serve website to trickle me my account pages.

Frankly, I like not having to interface with service reps.  Less chance to be lied to.  But in this day and age having a decent web server should be a no brainer.

[darlicious]

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@fredfor wrote:

@darlicious 

"I'm not apologizing for public mobile I'm just stating that customers need to have reasonable expectations of a third tier prepaid service that does not offer a traditional pre-authorized autopay system. All other providers require you hand over authorization to bill your credit card at their discretion. Public mobile does not do this."

False.

I entered my valid credit card info when I signed up for autopay, Public Mobile keeps it on file, and Public Mobile bills it every month for whatever they feel like charging (depends on referrals, loyalty bonus, etc.). Up until now, Public mobile has always charged the correct amount.

@darlicious 

"I'm not saying its acceptable....its not but it happens at every provider! So its not just a pm problem its an industry wide problem."

Ummm, no. Businesses want to make money.Taking money from their customers is a vital function for any business.

I've never had a company that had my credit card info on file that fail to take my money (many have taken the wrong amount, but that's a different question).

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@fredfor 

You give pm permission to attempt to charge your card the amount owing for plan renewal minus any account balances or rewards....once and only once per renewal. They cannot charge your card for any other reason at any other time. If a payment is disputed or reversed and you owe after the fact they still cannot charge your card on file instead they will suspend your services and demand payment via voucher or in extreme cases by money order. All other providers with normal pre-authorized payment systems can charge any amount erroneous or otherwise to your pre-authorized card on file. Read the small print in your service agreement.....so no the wrong amount charged in not another matter....or I should say its only another matter for other providers who can exercise this privilege that you have given them permission to do so.

Edit: Edited for clarification for @fredfor .

[softech]

@darlicious  I would said because PM is a 100% online service business (as in no helpdesk to call), having a bulletproof system is even more critical.  For Rogers/Telus/Bell, I call call and very often, they can do some workaround.  For PM, there is no workaround.   Also, any system issue would need a ticket with mod and it takes time.

Also, don't take it wrong, I am not mad like other poster the other day,  XXXXX the whole post towards PM.  I still think they have a decent system and call/data service is reliable.  I just hope to see improvements and I think they can do better.  I accept that there can be system issues but activation, autopay and system slowness definitely still have room to make it better.    

I hope to see Telus will still do something to improve the system.  Last thing I want to see is Telus to keep the current system as is.. that would be a sign that they are planning an "exit" for PM soon... 

[sherry6]

Not impressed with this failure in auto pay.  I lost my service for a day and was not able to file a ticket as I continued to get a message that the account had been suspended.  Finally after many hours I was able to manually pay but ended up paying more than my original monthly charge.  Not sure why.  Great inconvenience!!!

[HALIMACS]

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@softech wrote

No official statement from Mod so far.  From experience,  i don't think any official apology will come out from PM, they won't do anything.

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@softech 

There's been no official statement, however, there was an earlier reply from the Moderator_team on a related thread (which I posted above in this ever-growing thread)

It's the closest thing to acknowledgement I could find...  maybe that's all we're gonna get?

Agree, they should provide more.

[darlicious]

@softech 

I'm not saying its acceptable....its not but it happens at every provider! So its not just a pm problem its an industry wide problem.....and yes I left each of the providers( for their habitual billing errors for 6+ months) except for the billing issue with telus optik tv because there was no alternative and they gave me considerable credits to make up for it.

[softech]

I agree with @Canlan54a . 

Its Tier3 providers does not mean its acceptable to give us Tier 3 systems.  We expect full online support because we paid less but we shouldn't accept to use a system that will work only 75% of the time and we need to "pre-PrePaid" ahead of time just because we worry autopay will fail.

Autopay is a definitely a core system to PM, this is how they get their money.  Yes, if it does not work and if we need the service,   we will pay manually.   But to PM, the autopay system also assures PM a constant and predictable inflow of money.   This is certainly bread and butter to the company and should never fail. 

Don't under estimate how many customers lost because of autopay failure,  they missed important calls and decide to run away from PM.  Because if this poor experience,  I can tell you most ppl left because of this issue will avoid Koodo and Telus completely.  Telus should understand its the corporate confidence they lost altogether if they loss a PM customer from this kind of system issue.

What I dislike about PM is that they have been kept quiet with all these major system issues.  This autopay system has affected quiet some customers.  We, their cheap and almost free Level 1 support, has been trying to put out the fire the whole morning.  No official statement from Mod so far.  From experience,  i don't think any official apology will come out from PM, they won't do anything.  They will fix the system eventually and will pretend nothing have happened.   

System has been slow.  Self-serve took 30 to 60 sec for page change.  Activation page timed out and  left new customers wonder if they did activated,  some tried again and got charged twice.   We have been saying this out loud but no one seem to care.  I guess they just reuse servers and systems retired in Telus network.

[darlicious]

@Canlan54a 

I don't disagree with your thoughtful and and well written reply. In a perfect world none of this would ever happen. On a whole and for the price and for the business model public mobile promotes itself on the system works pretty well but there is always room for improvement. At pm that includes the autopay system, self serve etc....and in some areas there are promised changes coming.... eventually?

If I consider all of the service providers I have dealt with over the years from Rogers negative billing practices, major billing errors and quite frankly what I consider fraudulent billing charges that took six months or more to be sorted out if it all.....from shaw, fido and telus. I would spend hours and hours on the phone each month attempting to straighten out my billing only to open my bill the following month and have the same errors if not more and interest charges for unpaid amounts that I didn't owe for in the first place.....and believe me if they had charged to a pre-authorized credit card can you imagine trying to sort out that nightmare on a payment already made?!!

Having autopay fail if ever....once in a blue moon and the maybe 10 minutes it takes you to make a payment and reactivate your service is a small price to pay to avoid having to deal with billing errors experienced at other service providers. If you have never had to spend a couple of hours at least on the phone and/or sending emails to sort out a billing issue then you lived a pretty charmed life.  Payment and billing issues exist at every provider they just differ in their nature and almost everyone experiences them at some point in time.

[dianecreative]

hear hear!

[Canlan54a]

Point taken. My point is that whatever their billing system is (and PM is not the only business to use this method of billing) as I have had 2 other services using this same method for some time without any issues related to this, they should ensure that is properly debugged and ready for prime time before they roll it out and not just wait for it to consistently cause issues that they continually need to attend. Hiccups do happen, I get that, but this is something that the end customer should not have to concern themselves with or even need to discuss, never mind having to do their own work arounds to fix something that is PM's problem. From the customers point of view, it's not their problem what PMs administrative decisions or operational issues are they just  want a system that works for them at a price they can afford and are willing to pay. We know one of the sacrifices of subscribing to a budget service is that  we have to lean on each other for support to sort out what are the most routine set up and account maintenance issues, we should not have to constantly worry, troubleshoot and discuss never mind accept what operational issues PM from time to time encounters. Yes, any system encounters glitches from time to time but they are generally pretty rare, brief and almost always remedied, usually at least to attempt to ensure they don't recur.

When Microsoft releases a new operating system which I know from many years of experience is never completely debugged (usually not much past beta) their business model is to sell it to the customer and let them complete the debugging process for them free of charge in the manner of having your machine send continuing bug reports and then patching them.

My point being that at least when they receive the feedback from the customer, they fix the problem. PM has chosen the business model of allowing the customer to provide their own support and a method to also facilitate reporting issues which may be customer specific or possibly as in this case inherent system issues. For heavens sake if a customer does them the favour of reporting a fixable system problem that should be addressed at least thank them and address the issue.

In summary, yes as a budget service we can accept routine support is through the forum between ourselves, but PMs obligation is to at least to provide and maintain the service itself they are selling us, budget tier or not.

[darlicious]

@Canlan54a 

I'm not apologizing for public mobile I'm just stating that customers need to have reasonable expectations of a third tier prepaid service that does not offer a traditional pre-authorized autopay system. All other providers require you hand over authorization to bill your credit card at their discretion. Public mobile does not do this. You only hand over authorization for them to attempt a one time payment only of the amount owing to renew your service. That's it.

I have never given any service provider pre-authorization to bill my credit card at their discretion. The only reason I gave pm the ability to an attempt a payment is because it is one time only. Seeing as my two renewal payments are essentially $0 my card on file for both accounts has a balance of $0.27 as I don't rely on autopay to pay my bill and when I did I always manually topped up my account ahead of time so as to never experience this issue. I did experience an exceedingly rare renewal failure ( funds were already in my balance in my account) but I didn't get bent out of shape about it. I always prepare for the worst and hope for the best.....by having a second account along with the fongo and textnow apps.

If the zombie apocalypse occurs.....or more likely on the westcoast a destructive earthquake or tsunami you would want to know me to survive the aftermath....I am prepared.

[esjliv]

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@PMOttawa wrote:

It was an autopay issue. But managed to do a manual payment. I might get charge twice... Will find out later but at least service was back. 

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@PMOttawa , Public Mobile Autopay should only take what is owing. So if you paid manually, there will be nothing for Public Mobile to charge you for the prepaid service.

So I think you will be all good. 😀

[Brian_J]

@PMOttawa Once your bill is paid I don't think PM will attempt to take another payment, but never say never

[PMOttawa]

It was an autopay issue. But managed to do a manual payment. I might get charge twice... Will find out later but at least service was back. 

[Canlan54a]

by cc and no they have not so far and likely not fix it without my having to make a manual payment

[Brian_J]

@PMOttawa I'm curious, was your auto-pay issue a preauthorized payment by Credit or Debit Card, and did PM fix it without you having to make a manual payment?

[Canlan54a]

Yes, the PM apologists are out in full force😂

[darlicious]

@Brian_J 

Public mobile's autopay is not set up like most pre-authorized payment systems that allow for a payment to be attempted more than once. While todays widespread system failure is obviously a technical system failure and has affected many customers autopay failures not caused by such issues as billing info changes, expired cards, multiple charges, dual charges ( at the same time for separate accounts), fraud detection alerts etc....are exceptionally rare. But they happen at all mobile providers you just don't hear about them because customers call their provider to fix the problem whereas pm customers come to the community first to ask how to solve their issue. 

With a minimum estimated 10,000+ autopay renewals on every given night and maybe at most on average 3 autopay failures a day that is approximately 0.03% of all customers experiencing this issue

[PMOttawa]

FYI, a Moderator got back to me fairly quickly within about 4 hours. And confirmed that my issues have been fixed.

[Brian_J]

@hairbag1 IMHO, today's complaints, supported by the crashed website and others' attempts to pay via 611 points me to believe most if not all were caused by PM.