Starting my Public Mobile Account

[privatelandline]

Hi Community,

I just signed up for Public Mobile now with the recent $10 promo enticing me to switch over. I'm excited to a part of the community!

Live chat has been helpful figuring how to switch over but when buying the SIM card at a local shop, they gave me the option to activate at home or with them, so I agreed to do it with them expecting it to be like 5 minutes. Time dragged on with the process (like having to spell out my personal info over the phone to their support which would've taken mere seconds typing it in at home). I didn't have my previous carrier account number on mind or hand so they just charged me for the SIM + $40 voucher, which was apparently mandatory, and said I could only activate my account once I had the account number only with them and not by myself online. 

Later asking live chat, they said that I could do it online, and I did successfully right now. However, now getting into my account, it says that my plan has started a couple of weeks ago when I was in the shop but I haven't used or even opened my phone number/account until now. Is there any way to get those 2 weeks back from my plan? Maybe I'm being sour and pinching pennies but I feel slightly disappointed that I paid and had 2 weeks used up, didn't get the $2 from setting up the autoplan, or shared a discount using someone's referral code.

I'm also curious why they seemed against me doing it by myself once we started? Did they make a commission selling me the $40 voucher or gained a referral bonus signing me up instead?

Thanks 🙂

[treefrog]

I activated on this promo and  didn't recieve a confirmation email either. After contacting the moderators they told me they can only confirm if you used the correct email after you activate! That took a leap of Faith as I could remember for sure which one of my emails I had registered for the promo. I was told if I recieved an email after activation that would confirm I used the right email. So mine looks very similar to yours. I also checked my account and I recieved the $10 promo discount   on june 29th. Hope this helps....

[darlicious]

@privatelandline 

       I suspected as much......and thanks to @LovesToPM for recognizing the apple service number you are not personally responsible for the calls on your account as far as the moderators point of contention. The incoming are likely wrong numbers or to the previous holder of the temporary phone number and you cant really stop the iphone communicating with the servers/icloud once you had put the sim card in your phone. You should have a text from 611 (pm) with your pin # and one with your self serve registration 6 digit code.

      Since it was activated June 10th you are due to have the first months $10 credit applied to the account. I would open a new support ticket and plead your case to another moderator (hopefully a senior one) and see if you can't get a mutually satisfactory resolution. A moderator with more seniority will recognize that you hadnt used the phone and they may be willing to give you a half a months credit or you could ask for 1gb data add on ($15) instead of a credit if that would satisfy you. You can ask for your $10 credit to be applied as your almost at 30 days and you can ask them to apply your friends referral code for your $10 bonus credit.

          It's bothering me why go mobile repair activated you the way they did. Have you made a follow up call to the manager or owner to inquire about the unusual circumstances? I'm tempted to call myself since I recommend them all the time. I can't be doing that if this is their style of customer service.....im terribly disappointed.

[LovesToPM]

@privatelandline 

Those are calls forwarded to your voicemail.

Those texts to 474663 are sent by your iPhone to set up Apple services such as iCloud.

[privatelandline]

Thanks for your replies @fujiyama and @darlicious 

I had to create a password for my self serve account. 

I went in the store for the SIM card on June 10th. I presume now knowing from you and the community's replies here following up, that they must have activated it despite telling me they did not, that day. I do not know what they did for the process as the store clerk did not have me in the conversation between him and Public Mobile support on the phone.

The history is below: 

29/06/2020 6:15	Outgoing Call			7785804001	All	BC	0:00:07		Minutes	$0.00
27/06/2020 9:04	Outgoing Call			7785804001	All	BC	0:00:06		Minutes	$0.00
25/06/2020 3:11	Outgoing Text			474663					Minutes	$0.00
23/06/2020 9:50	Outgoing Text			474663					Minutes	$0.00
23/06/2020 9:50	Outgoing Text			474663					Minutes	$0.00
12/06/2020 4:58	Outgoing Call			7785804001	All	BC	0:00:43		Minutes	$0.00

edited by computergeek541: phone number removed

[darlicious]

@fujiyama 

Nice post....good links....very helpful!

@privatelandline 

As suggested do you recognize the calls/posts....are they incoming or outgoing? Not counting any incoming calls being forwarded and appearing as outgoing to voicemail. Two of the incoming texts should be from pm (611)  giving you your pin# and one with the code for your self serve registration. What day did you activate? Did they test your sim in store to make sure it was working?

[fujiyama]

Can you log in and check your usage history (link here) and identify those calls/texts? Check their Originating and Destination #'s. Are the destination numbers any of the numbers found here? 

[privatelandline]

I asked a PM moderator for help by creating a thread like you guys have suggested.

However, they said they can't help with the issues because: I've checked your usage and it looks like you placed 3 calls and sent 3 text messages on June 12, 23, 25, 27 and 29.

These dates start before I put in the SIM card into my phone the day I opened this thread the week or so ago. Also, I did not use my phone (it's my old phone) at all after putting in the SIM card; no calls, texts, data usage, didn't even press the home button. It's just been on my desk.

How does this happen? Does someone else have access to my phone? What do you guys think? 

@darlicious @LovesToPM @Carniam @benfatto @Naepalm 

Thanks again in advance for the help!

[privatelandline]

Hey @darlicious 

Sorry I was off for some days just logging back in now. Thanks for your reply.

Haha, great, that's nice! That's good to know that they have a good deal/process and they normally explain it -- perhaps I just had a bad experience of the clerk having a bad day and forgoing the usual protocol.

Thank you, public mobile neighbour! Hahaha. 

[privatelandline]

@LovesToPM 

I'll contact the PM moderators, thank you for the link!

Sorry, haven't checked back to the Community page for a few days but getting back to dealing with this now haha.

[darlicious]

@privatelandline 

       Sorry i meant to reply to you before now....once you mentioned go mobile repair it started to make sense....and if your self serve was already created then they did you a solid. They only failed to explain that your account and plan had been activated.

     I am familiar with them because that's my hood too! I've never been in there but they have a good reputation and I can usually convince London drugs a couple of blocks away to give a free sim with activation because they are in direct competition with each other despite the colossal difference in retail size. Go mobile repair has offered a free sim with in store activation for several years now and will give you a referral code if you need one.

    By not following the usual process (theirs)maybe they were making sure you were following the steps of an online activation. They did not offer you a free sim, the retailer referral code nor did they let you pay directly with a credit card triggering the merchant number to be associated to your account. Hopefully youll have the credit applied in a couple of days....welcome to public mobile and welcome to the hood! It appears we live in the same neighbourhood!

[darlicious]

@privatelandline 

After receiving that email (on the date you activated?) Did you have to create your self serve account or was it already created? Did you just have to sign in with your email and password?

[LovesToPM]

@privatelandline

Along with other fellow customers here, I suggest that you contact PM Moderators

https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Knowledge-Base/How-to-Get-Help/ta-p/251745

They should be able to help you get the referral added to your account and to complete any port/number transfer.

As far as I know, all PM support is done online. There is no phone number to call PM for support (Telus does have a support number for porting that they share with PM and Koodo).

If you have comments regarding the in-store service, you can open the store locator page, find the shop in question and add your review comments.

[privatelandline]

Hey @benfatto,

Great, that's what I understood it to mean so far, thank you for that. Okay, yeah it was not registered for autopay for the first cycle. I wanted autopay for the first cycle and that's why I was questioning why the $40 voucher was mandatory. I have turned on autopay for my next payment now though. 

[privatelandline]

I bought the SIM card and voucher from GoMobile Repair as they were the closest store to me from Public Mobile's store locator https://www.publicmobile.ca/en/on/store-locator

They charged me through their terminal. The store clerk had a Public Mobile support staff over the phone, so he communicated with him over the phone as the middle man and the store clerk told me to tell himself or put the phone down and told me to to speak into the phone, to give them my information to complete the process.

I want the $35/month plan. I never got an email confirming the promotion from Public Mobile, however, I did get an email as yours attached. 

Let me know what that means and how I should go about it from here. Thank you very much!

[LovesToPM]

---

@privatelandline wrote:

Hey @benfatto,

My self-service account says:

• Available Funds: $5.00
• Payment Due Before: Jul 10, 2020
• Payment for Next Cycle: $35.00
• Amount Owing: $30.00

Let me know what you make of that.

---

@privatelandline Based on the info you gave, you have $5 credit on your account (which coincides with the amount leftover from your $40 voucher purchase).

Your renewal cycle is every 30 days and your next scheduled renewal is on July 10th.

It does not look like any referral code was used during your activation because you have not received any $10 credit.

BTW on your account, you can see whether you are registered for AutoPay.

[Carniam]

@privatelandline Ya they definitely activated the plan a few weeks back, though doesn’t appear they used there own referral code.

[privatelandline]

Hey @benfatto,

My self-service account says:

• Available Funds: $5.00
• Payment Due Before: Jul 10, 2020
• Payment for Next Cycle: $35.00
• Amount Owing: $30.00

Let me know what you make of that.

[darlicious]

@privatelandline 

   Which retailer did you use to originally buy the sim card and voucher ? Did they give you a temporary number? How did  you recieve your sim card and voucher if you did this over the phone? Unfortunately the service you recieved from this retailer (authorized dealer) wasn't exactly professional and could affect the promotion ($10 off/6 months?) you are expecting....as one of the requirements is to activate online along with using the email that you registered June 9th - 11th  to be eligible for the promotion. If this was done correctly you would have recieved a confirmation of activation email from public mobile. ( BTW did you want the $35/2gb plan or the $40/5gb plan?)

    The referral code can easily be added by the moderators but you may have a problem getting your intended promotion due to know fault of your own but a retailer/dealer more concerned about receiving a commission than acting in good faith as an agent of public mobile. You may have to escalate your situation to recieve the promotion you intended to activate online originally by yourself. Did you recieve an email like the one below?

[benfatto]

@privatelandline  Maybe you've confused date you payed for the SIM and voucher activation date. Login to your self serve account and check the date for your next payment. 

[privatelandline]

Hey @Naepalm,

Thanks for that! Everyone has been welcoming so far in just these few hours. Sounds good, I'll try to integrate myself in and hopefully, help in addition to being helped. I'll connect with those oracle members! 

😀

[Naepalm]

@privatelandline 

Glad you have had a great experience so far. I would encourage you to stick around and plug into the community. Always looking for more people to help out and encourage new members. A good start is to even follow what the oracles or retired oracles say and ask them any questions as they are the legends around here that have lots of experience. They are customers like you and I. But spend some extra time here helping others out, making corrections where needed and generally mentoring those that are new. 

Here are the oracles that you can reach out to 😀;

@mimmo @ShawnC13 @will13am @NDesai @Luddite 

[privatelandline]

@kselmak 

Yeah, that's right.

Okay, I'll contact the moderators. Sounds good, I already entered in my card info to activate my autopay for the next cycle! 

Thanks again 🙂

[privatelandline]

Hey @computergeek541,

Ah okay. Thanks, I'll get reach out to the moderators and support. 

I gave the payment information because it was needed for the activation of my account. We didn't fully activate my account because I didn't have my previous phone carrier account number but also I didn't want to start the monthly plan and payment process and because I wanted to start my plan before the promo deadline (26th I think it said I needed to activate the account by) and switch over my phone number only until then since I still have call/text credit with my previous carrier that I have still have been using, and switching over the number empties the balance. I didn't understand activating the account to start the payment plan instantaneously. For my previous carrier, I activated my account and by default it's just pay per talk/minute THEN I can add credit and/or select my monthly payment plan. 

[mimmo]

@privatelandline   if you have a referal  (or ask some one here if you don't) give it to the moderators and ask them to add it.  as well as asking them to complete your port.  

[privatelandline]

Hi @LovesToPM,

Thanks for also replying so quickly. Wow, this community is supportive and responsive, haha. Okay, I wasn't aware of submitting tickets and that's helpful to know, I'll do that. Previously, I would try to wait for the online chat which is just work hours, and sometimes for some reason, the live chat button doesn't show or the queue is so long I don't get to connect with someone.

🙂🙌

[privatelandline]

Hey mimmo. Thanks for responding so quickly!

Sorry, the in-shop clerk that sold me the SIM card signed me up. 

And no, I only see the $5 left from the $35 plan being deducted from the $40 voucher credit. 

[kselmak]

Wow it looks like they activated you then and now you just registered for your selfserve.

Not all is lost, you can still contact moderators to add your referral, just explained what happened and give them your friend's referral number.

You can also register autopay, you will get extra data and also start getting $2 from the next cycle. It should show up on your reward section. You don't really need to use autopay to get rewards, many pay w vouchers but are registered with autopay for the rewards.  You only lost your initial $2 which you could also ask mods if they would be kind to grant it to you

Welcome to public mobile

[computergeek541]

@privatelandline There isn"t anything that the members here can do about this. This sounds to be a misundrstanding between you and the salesperson.

However, I am confused why payment information was entered into the account the account to be activated yet. The payment step is after phone number selection. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to have come to mind what the salesperson was doing and why it took so long.  Not wanting to yet activate, this should have been a quick sale of sim card and voucher.

To open a ticket to the moderators, you'll need to proceed to https://publicmobile.ca.ada.supoort/chat .

[LovesToPM]

Hi @privatelandline 

You'll have to contact Moderators and give the same explanation to them. Hope they can help!

To submit a ticket to Moderators: Click the green question mark at bottom and enter your question into SIMon. Answer the prompts until you get to the Contact Us button, click it and a Submit Ticket button should appear.

If you encounter problems with submitting a ticket, you can send a private message to Moderators, but this alternate contact method may have longer response time.

[mimmo]

@privatelandline   I did not understand who signed you up the live chat or some online retailer  where you bought the sim?  

to Port your number I assume you still need todo that you  need to contact the moderators (use the chatbot the question mark on the bottom) and type port number

as for the two weeks,  your account was activated that day,  unfortunatly there is no proration,  /refunds.  if however it was the live chat then I would try pushing it more as they give you bad information.

do you see a $10 credit in your funds? if so yes they used a number of their own  as a referal and I would complain to moderators.   if there is no 10$ credit then ask mods to add a referal after the fact.  not sure if you get he $10 credit.

edit: as for teh $40 voucher yes they make commission selling sim cards, activating accounts and selling vouchers.   I thought you could enter cc info at signup at retail locations (but I cant confirm this)