Public Mobile as a reoccurring bill?

[uymai]

Hey -- i get 2% cash back on my credit card for reoccurring bills, but my auto pay public mobile payments  show up as  "Other"  -- anyone have any idea which vendor code public mobile falls under?  should they be considered recurring bills?

[darlicious]

@randnev 

Does tangerine consider a recurring etransfers to another bank a reoccurring Bill? You can get a minimum 2.5% cashback for your payments to public mobile by setting up an account with koho. Soon You will be able to set up a high interest savings account that you can also earn cashback on but currently you can set up a chequing account with a minimum 0.5% cashback plus an extra 2% for paying your public mobile bill because they are a retail partner with koho. Additionally any referrals you make will earn you an extra 1% for 3 months as well as using a referral to set up your account. So you are guaranteed 3.5% for your first 3 months. (You could also top up your pm account before that first 3 months ends before it drops back to 2.5% or just before any of your referrals expire.) I believe you can have up to 10 referrals so you can potentially have up to 13.5% cashback for your first 3 months. If tangerine recognizes a reoccurring bank transfer as a bill that will be icing on your cake!

[randnev]

It's not about the company itself, it's how they structured their bills with some combination of rolling 30s with prepaid, etc. Due to the code used by PM, their monthly bills are not technically being labelled as "recurring". 

And, yea, that would be a PM decision. And it can be changed by them. 

I've been happy with PM. As has my family. It is only a minor annoyance, but one that doesn't seemingly need to exist except to save them money (? I haven't actually seen the details of why it's designed like this).

As noted, they are owned by a very large company that has collected and done their fair share of grilling Canadian pocketbooks. PM is in itself a response to how little the major companies were doing for Canadians. 

[Anonymous]

 @BrentKilboy 

Things roll at a snails pace around here. There've been things suggested and talked about and mentioned time and again over years...crickets...mostly.

[BrentKilboy]

Here we go again. Please see my previous comments about how none of that matters. This is all in how Public Mobile transfers the payment request to the credit card companies. I have given examples of how this is done, as I have done this myself as part of the work I do to sent payments files, which doesn't matter about the cost being the same or how frequent the payments are. But of course these are always ignored.

[Anonymous]

---

@randnev wrote:

Did anyone at Public Mobile ever respond to this?

Some of the community answers don't hold much weight. Koodo can be month-to-month (I switched from them) and I still got my 2% from Tangerine, which I don't anymore from PM. 

Is it really a financial problem for PM to do this?

---

Is it the merchant that gives this money?

Public Mobile is not classified as a recurring payee so therefore any bonuses derived from recurring bills would not apply here.

I think it's due to the 30 days not monthly. A monthly bill is the same day each month. This place is not.

[kb_mv]

@randnev I am at a loss figuring out how Tangerine not giving you 2% back is PM's problem. My Avion card gives me my rewards on purchases here. Perhaps you need to ask Tangerine why Koodo was eligible for the rebate and not PM as they are essentially the same company.

[randnev]

Did anyone at Public Mobile ever respond to this?

Some of the community answers don't hold much weight. Koodo can be month-to-month (I switched from them) and I still got my 2% from Tangerine, which I don't anymore from PM. 

Is it really a financial problem for PM to do this?

[BrentKilboy]

I now have some first hand experience with this. I work for a small city government as a web developer and we've been setting up online auto pay for utility bills, so every 2 months we upload a file to Moneris for them to process the payments for people. In the file, one of the fields is payment type. We had it as just normal payment at first, but then changed this field to reoccuring, and now my Scotiabank sees it as reocurring and give the higher reward for it. It doesn't matter that the amount we bill is different each time (Depending on how much water you use), or that we don't bill every month (We bill every 2 months). So I think this proves that all they need to do is change the data in the transfer that they send to their credit card processor. 

[Anonymous]

---

@dwestcott wrote:

I am having this same problem with Tangerine for 2% back, which I alwalys got with Koodo. They said Public Mobile has to change the payment so it shows as a recurring payment and not as a "normal payment" please change this asap!

---

 @dwestcott 

This thread seemed to have a reasonable explanation from someone.

Basically saying it's not recurring because the day floats around.

[dwestcott]

I am having this same problem with Tangerine for 2% back, which I alwalys got with Koodo. They said Public Mobile has to change the payment so it shows as a recurring payment and not as a "normal payment" please change this asap!

[stonechucker]

This type of program has a cost for the merchant.  I do not see Public Mobile incurring additional costs, without transferring those costs to subscribers in some fashion.

Im surprised they take AMEX at all, as the transaction fees are higher than VISA and MasterCard.

[soundrock]

I would like to ask a Public Mobile employee about this as well. My credit card company told me the same thing. They offer rewards on certain purchases, but they said the merchant (Public Mobile) has to be "a registered merchant for Mastercard rewards".

Is it possible to ask Public Mobile to register themselves?

[BrentKilboy]

Oh I tried. They gave me the same runaround about it being the banks fault, not theirs.

[stonechucker]

@BrentKilboy, well you're certainly entitled to send a private message via the Moderator_Team and hope they can get it somewhere.  We no longer have the Public Labs forum, which was available for just this type of question and idea discussion  - but it was unruly, and way out of date.

[jsotelo]

I see, well i think that make sense.

Thanks for the clarification.

[BrentKilboy]

I mean I know this is just community support but there must be a way to escalate an issue up to an actual technical person that works at the company who is in charge of how the file gets transfered to the credit card payment companies.

[stonechucker]

@BrentKilboy, well it's a decision beyond our ability to make happen unless someone was to get a petition going to make it so.

Telus makes the rules around here, not the subscribers.  I've been asking for the SIM cards to be available at regular Telus and Kodoo owned/rented/leased properties to deal with the screw ups at the 3rd party vendors on activation of plans, but I'm sure it's not going to change anytime soon.

This is a no-frills type of cellular service provider.  The costs are better than I paid elsewhere before, and it does the job I need it to.  I can hope and dream all I want, but most of the time that's all that will happen.

[BrentKilboy]

I don't see how that answers the question at all. I would be getting the $2 credit for auto pay from Public Mobile, and my credit card company would be giving me back 2% for it being a reoccuring payment. I wouldn't have to choose between the two.

[stonechucker]

@BrentKilboy, okay, I remember this discussion now.  I see what you're asking about.

I see the convenience of the $2 reward credit to your mobile plan with Public Mobile as a better benefit, as you don't even need to use a credit card to actually get the $2 reward.

You can pay cash at a voucher vendor, preload the voucher before the payment date, and with a credit card added for AutoPay, get the reward without actually charging the card.

I don't cashback rewards on my prepaid credit card, but I do get points towards movies and other things via payment with that prepaid card here.

[BrentKilboy]

Someone earlier in this thread gave an example which still has not been acknowledged by Public Mobile:

"

I have a PRESTO card (for Toronto transit) and have it conifgured to top up $20 whenever the balance goes below $10.  It gets topped up to $20 on a irregular basis, not monthly, not 30 days, just whenever the balance goes low.  I've been getting reoccuring payment cashback bonus on my VISA from PRESTO whenever the top up occurs since they have my credit card on file in a pre-authorized manner.

The vendor, Public Mobile in this case, who is charging the credit card needs to do something on their end to signify to the credit card companies that they are pulling money in a pre-authorized fashion so we can get these bonus"

[stonechucker]

The issue here is, it's not a bill.  You're buying a service before you use it, not getting a service, and receiving an invoice.

Postpaid service is what you would need, not prepaid.

[BrentKilboy]

Scotiabank told me that this is something that Public Mobile needs to fix on their end. The payments have to come over to credit card company with the flag saying it is a reoccuring payment, but Public Mobile refuses to acknowledge it is their issue and keep saying you need to talk to your credit card company.

[jsotelo]

Hello there

Sorry, but I am not familiar with other pre-pay cards. I use my normal credit card for transactions. My credit card offer 2% cash back for recurrent payments so I want to know if my Public Mobili montly payment is elegible for this 2% reward.

[Anonymous]

---

@Carld123 wrote:

@Anonymous

This is what they are after..

---

Ah. Thanks. Helps if I read the thread 🙂

[Carld123]

@Anonymous

This is what they are after..

[Anonymous]

---

@jsotelo wrote:

Hello everybody

I didn't see any latest update on this question. Can a Mod or somebody advise if the question about Public Mobile is consider a recurring bill payment?

Thanks in advance.Juns.

---

 @jsotelo

This has recently become of interest to me.

I'm interested in using a prepaid/gift card type of "credit" card.

I tried the MyVanilla Mastercard and it didn't work for the autopay here. Another user says a Canadapost Visa gift card does work using any address. So I'm going to try that next.

What exactly are you trying to do?

[jsotelo]

Hello everybody

I didn't see any latest update on this question. Can a Mod or somebody advise if the question about Public Mobile is consider a recurring bill payment?

Thanks in advance.Juns.

[aa12345]

This page explains Merchant MCC Codes:
https://www.ratelab.ca/credit-cards/merchant-category-codes-in-canada/

It explains:

• Recurring Bill Payments. Any monthly payment automatically billed to your credit card. There are some restrictions on the definition of “recurring payment.” Card holders should check with the merchant in question.

Looking closer at the MCC Codes available here:
https://www.web-payment-software.com/online-merchant-accounts/mcc-codes/

As far as I know reoccuring payments apply to things like TV service, utility bills, telephone bills etc.. Here's the MCC Codes for these kind of services

4814	Telecommunication service including local and long distance calls, credit card calls, calls through use of magneticstrip reading telephones and fax services

4899	Cable and other pay television (previously Cable Services)
4900	Electric, Gas, Sanitary and Water Utilities

If I had a guess Public Mobile probably did not register themselves under MCC code 4814. Hopefully they can fix this...

[BrentKilboy]

I asked ScotiaBank and they said Public Mobile needs to make a change on their end to mark these as re-occuring payments for this to work. Can we please get a mod @Moderator_Team to request this change?

And of course it doesn't matter if the amount is the same each month for it to be reoccuring, my gas and electric bill count as reoccuring payments even though the amount is different each bill.