multiple charges on credit card upon activation..

[tiff3]

Hi there,

• I recently transferred from Koodo keeping my same phone number, I have two separate charges of the same amount from public mobile and one from koodo of the same amount...  Can anyone explain? I went with the $25/month plan and the 3 seperate charges are for $28.25.  I did encounter an error code a few times with the browser I was using, so I'm thinking it's a mistake.. how do I contact a service rep? 

[darlicious]

Dang it. I wish I had tagged this post when I was still able to....this not being able to tag post in the get support board makes no sense to me?!! This is where you need to tag posts and you are even encouraged to tag your posts by Tiana in the community terms of service announcement. But you can tag announcements and lounge posts....?

But you can't bravo lounge posts which don't count anyways and the lounge being the one place in the community where you should be free to bravo whatever post you like be it community discussions, phone reviews, funny jokes, pretty pictures or how to save money on your next device purchase. You know all those phone, public mobile and community related topics that are not supposed to be in the lounge but are because they are not directly support related where half a dozen members tell the customer how to contact the CSA's to fix their issue because they can't be bothered to make the effort to actually help the customer solve the issue themselves?

This whole community is becoming an oxymoron of itself?!! @J_PM is this what you envisioned when you began the grand redesign of the community? Public Mobile needs to go back to its roots and get actual feedback from the members that use the community for its original purpose..... To get help, give help and share ideas.

It's been nearly two years since pm came up with an innovative and exciting opportunity to gather real, practical and honest feedback from the workhorses on this community on how to make the community function better, foster co-operation and community spirit and better serve its customers with its online support model.

Ever since pm abandoned its core principles and started to rely on richly compensated marketing "gurus" to tell them how to sell themselves to their customers and potential new customers instead of relying on their nonpaid, passionate and loyal volunteer sales, marketing and customer support team of community members who were happy to recieve a total pool of community rewards that wouldn't cover the restaurant bill of an executive power lunch and the opportunity to get couple of bonus referral credit promotion drives a year to help cover their phone bills for a month or two. Instead pm has taken their most valuable resource and pushed them to the side ignoring our concerns and generally making the community feel underappreciated and treated like every other mobile provider's subscribership feels.....and that is not a good feeling.

Maybe somebody from pm will fulfill Tiana' s promise to hold a true community feedback forum in the big smoke to make up for the one that was abruptly cancelled due to the pandemic. And show a little appreciation for the members of the community that are still trying to provide actual help to customers rather than just pointing out the directions to Simple--Simon or their private mailbox.

Seems to me that unlike telus that has cute mascots like red pandas, frogs and bunny rabbits promoting their mobile services pm would have an ostrich. If it doesnt have its head buried in the sand ignoring all of its problems its running full speed in the opposite direction. If pm allows its community to continue down its ostriches' path it will find itself in a real desert....bereft of any real community driven support and more reliant on having to recruit outsourced salaried employees to provide customer support.

To contact customer support click below:

https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/notes/composepage/note-to-user-id/22437

To pre-verify your account include your full name, address, email, phone # and 4 digit acct pin #.

[darlicious]

@tiff3 

Welcome to public mobile! ....and to one of many glitches that can occur.

On occasion when a customer goes thru the activation process an error occurs during the payment process and it looks like the activation failed....which it has partially. If the customer checks their card for the plan amount and the charge appears on their current billing statement then their account has been created but not completed properly.

If the sim card has been activated then sim card may work if put in the phone. If it doesn't work then it has not been provisioned to the account and this is where the problem you have occurs. Unless you know to check your credit card for the payment charge the logical conclusion is an error occurred and you have to start over. Since the sim card did not provision correctly the activation portal let's you start over and this is where multiple charges start to appear on your card.

Recently pm removed the fail safe for this issue. Previously if you started an activation and you did not complete it you would have to wait one hour before starting over otherwise you would get a warning message saying invalid sim card. This meant the sim card is already in use or was used previously on an account that has had the card swapped out or the account has been cancelled and the card deactivated. In your case the sim card is "in use" or activated already just not correctly.

With the one hour lock out most customers would turn to the community to get help where they would be told to check their payment card for a charge from public mobile. If there was a charge shown pending or posted the community would direct the customer to contact customer support to have a CSA complete the account creation and provision the sim card to the account. This prevented multiple activation attempts and thus multiple payment card charges.

Compounding the problem of the removal of the fail safe is the activation system sometimes randomly having the plan charge on the payment card be listed as a KOODO rather than PUBLIC MOBILE. Since most customers would think this is a mistake and since the sim card has already had a provisioning not completed a third attempt at activation is made. This time the activation process completed and was indicated as being successful as has the third attempt at sim card provision.

Depending on when you review your payment card charges you may then discover multiple plan amount charges posted to your billing statement. These may or may not appear in your account's transaction history as a credit and show in the available funds of your balance. Unless the extra charges on your card will cause financial hardship it is easiest to just leave it to pay for upcoming renewals.

However if you prefer a refund or the extra plan charges do not show in your account balance then you must ask a CSA to process the refund to your card. This can be done within 3 to 5 business days if you catch it early before it's posted or if it's on your current billing statement. If your statement has already been processed and billed to you then the refund can take much longer....up to 30 days. Asking for a credit (for charges posted and billed to you but not in your pm account balance) is recommended so you are not waiting longer for a refund for an amount that could just pay for your next renewal.

As previously mentioned contact customer support for a credit or refund depending on your preference. Welcome to the community! We are always happy to help!😊

[esjliv · Accepted solution]

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@tiff3 wrote:

Hi,

They are actual charges.. and ok! Ty. So confusing navigating where to talk to someone...

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@tiff3 

Credit cards companies can show both Pending and Authorized charges. Sometimes there are multiple Pending charges show during activations, but when the payment gets authorized the incorrect  amounts will fall away, then the real one will stay.

If these end up being Authorized charges and the extra funds are not showing in your Available funds area then contact CSA. There are 2 ways to reach them, found here:

https://www.publicmobile.ca/en/on/get-help/articles/contact-a-moderator

[HALIMACS]

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@tiff3 wrote:

Hi,

They are actual charges.. and ok! Ty. So confusing navigating where to talk to someone...

---

Here's what I'd recommend @tiff3 

If they are charges, you'll likely see the 'extra' payments resting under your Available Funds section of your self-serve account.

If they are there, just keep them there as they'll be used toward future renewal payments (or any add-on purchases you may choose to make). 

By keeping your payment card associated with the auto-pay (assume you are on auto pay?) you'll still benefit from the $2.00/cycle auto-pay reward just for having the payment card attached to the service.

[tiff3]

Hi,

They are actual charges.. and ok! Ty. So confusing navigating where to talk to someone...

[Anonymous]

@tiff3 

sign in to Self-Serve, to review your account, if you found at Available Funds: $$ has the amount left, leave it for next bill cycle the will take it from there automatically,

or you need to Contact Customer Support Agent by CS_Agent ,and Explain your issue to 
them can solve your issue, they are nice service Team the will help you 100%.

Here’s How To Contact Customer Support Agent by CS_Agent,and Submit a Ticket,

• Get help with your account the easy way by starting a conversation with our virtual assistant, SIMon. It’ll take you to relevant help articles, or if it’s something more urgent, it can help you submit a ticket to Customer Support Agent by CS_Agent,Click Here link,to get started. Type,, Ticket ,, Click ,, Contact Us ,, Select your issue ,,
  Click here to submit a ticket↗↗.

• or you can send a private message to Customer Support Agent by CS_Agent, by Click Here link,

• please include in your message,
  
• phone number,
• account 4 digit pin,
• Email address,

• Customer Support Agent by CS_Agent, will Response to your inbox by private message 
• During business hours, we strive to answer customer messages swiftly. You will often get an answer within an hour. During peak periods, you may need to wait up to 48 hours.Customer Support Agents are available:
  • Monday to Sunday: 6 AM to 10 PM EST
  • Note: For public mobile No Support by phone call or Email.. only by CS_Agent, private message..
  
  Check your private message inbox (click on the envelope top right of your screen)

         Good Luck...

[Dunkman]

@tiff3 

Are the payments pending or actually charged? Looks like you might have be charged with the errors. 

Click on the chat bubble icon on the right lower corner of website to start ticketing process to contact CSA.  Type: Payment issue  Follow the prompts to submit ticket.