"Enter a valid Canadian Phone Number" error when trying to sign up/port over a Bell mobile number

[mh1983]

Hi, have been a PM member for awhile and haven't been on the forums lately. Hope you're all keeping well.

My father in law got a few nasty bills in a row from Bell, so he wanted to explore PM. I was telling him about the legion of benefits. Yesterday, he came by with a PM sim, his existing phone (with existing Bell # still active so we could port it over), and I intended to sign him up.

I started the process on activate.publicmobile.ca and got to the second step of transferring his phone number. Whenever we entered his existing Bell number, I got the "Enter a valid Canadian Phone Number" error. I tried in multiple browsers, incognito windows, rebooted, waited and tried again etc...nothing worked.

My understanding is this error can happen when bringing over a number from certain prepaid services (Koodo, for example), but why is it happening with my FIL's postpaid Bell number?

We'll try again this week sometime, in case it was a system glitch, but just wanted to ask here to see if anyone's encountering this and, if so, what the fix is. (He'd prefer to not have to sign up for a temporary PM number and port over after.)

[darlicious]

@mh1983 

Well everyone has a reason I'm unsure why there's so much reluctance around activating with a temporary phone number? In some cases this is a requirement but additionally PM is known for SIM cards not provisioning correctly upon activation. If this happens when you have ported your phone number in upon activation you then have no services working whereas if the problem occurs with a temporary phone number you at least still have an active SIM card or landline or other provider service to rely on while you get the SIM card properly provisioned to the account.

The other advantage to choosing a temporary phone number at activation if you can choose it from anywhere. The last seven or eight activations I have done I have chosen an Alberta phone number as a temporary phone number. This has allowed my referral to only have to pay GST on their initial plan and represents a savings of between 7 and 10% depending on the province/area code of the eventual permanent phone number. I've done this regardless of whether they need a new phone number or they are porting in their phone number they then just log in after activation and change their phone number to whatever they like or initiate the port request of their own phone number.

[dust2dust]

And there are a couple questionable usernames using agent in them one way the other.

[dabr]

@hTideGnow    Yes, I've never understood why names similar to customer support have been accepted.  I'm sure quite a few customers have not only sent these users private messages, but probably shared some personal/sensitive info as well.  

[hTideGnow]

Hi @computergeek541 PM should force them to change username.  These user names are as bad as those use inappropriate words.  LoL

[computergeek541]

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@hTideGnow wrote:

Hi @mh1983 the moderators team you tagged was not the right one.  Should be @CS_Agent 

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Moderator_Team1 isn't a moderator of any kind. To everyone, please do not send any private or account information to that username as that person does not work for Public Mobile.

[hTideGnow · Accepted solution]

Hi @mh1983 the moderators team you tagged was not the right one.  Should be @CS_Agent 

Yes, I saw one or two posts from. yesterday with the same error message 

Cs Agent won't reply here, if you like , open ticket with them

to open ticket with CS Agent:

at : https://publicmobile.ca/chatbot. Follow this to get to ticket open screen quicker:

1. start by typing : Contact CS Agent
2. then Click "Contact Us"
3. then Click "Other"
4. finally Click "Click here to submit a ticket"
   you will then direct to another page to open ticket.

After ticket is submitted, make sure to check your Community Inbox(top right corner envelope icon) periodically for response from PM's CS Agent

If you have problems submitting a ticket, you can also send a private message to the CS Agent (but this can take longer):
https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/notes/composepage/note-to-user-id/22437

[mh1983]

Hi @hTideGnow Thank you for your reply. Good to know it's a system problem. @ Moderator_Team1 (Not sure if that's the correct handle), can you provide us with an update on when this will be fixed?

Thanks for the suggestion. I mentioned in my above post that he'd prefer not to go that route. If it's a known system issue, we'll just wait until the issue gets resolved. 

edited by computergeek541:  the tagged user is not a moderator, CSA, nor anyone who works at Public Mobile

[Meow]

Check here for eligible phone numbers (koodo, PM, telus same company.

https://secure.koodomobile.com/checktransfereligibilityparrot/default.do?lang=en&appname=otherportal

I would suggest to open account first. Confirm everything works as expected and only THEN transfer number. Don't try to do everything in one shot...

[hTideGnow]

Hi @mh1983 there are some problem with that step in the last couple days, probably just a system problem 

You can have him to activate with a temporary number first, then open ticket with CS Agent and have them to help with the porting after the PM account is fully setup