How to stop autopay from overseas?

[wologman]

I have a pre-paid account with an autopay setup, but I did not set up an account log-in before I left Canada.

So now I have left Canada to the UK and want to turn off the auto-pay, but I can not create an account login because that requires a text to confirm the phone number.  PM has no coverage in the UK so I can not receive a text.

This seems like a problem a human could easily solve, but I can't find a way to do that either.

Any suggestions?

[wologman]

Thanks for the suggestion, but the payment has now been conveniently stopped by the Admin team, so I won't be needing more exotic ideas.

I'm not sure about the hyperthetical effect on my credit rating.  Actually I come from a country (NZ) where nobody cares about such a thing.  Many of us stopped using credit cards altogether years ago.  It was one reason I chose PM in the first place, because they didn't need a credit card, unlike most of the others. 

I personally have four debit cards and can't remember if I ever had a credit card.   So it was a bit of culture shock coming to Canada and hearing all this fuss about my credit rating, and being told I couldn't even rent a car, use a phone or have food on WestJet.   

I could nievely hope that by the time I came back you folks might have followed us down this spiritual journey 🙂  But that seems a wee bit unlikely.  

Anyway, thanks again for all the suggestions.

[funpig]

Wologman, did you find a solution to your problem?

How did you set up autopay? If you used credit card, i wonder if you could call credit card to put stop payment on future renewals.  You mentioned a bank account.  I wonder if you could put also contact stop payment or empty account just before renewal as you suggested.  This is a pre-paid account, so if you do not pay, your service and account would be suspended.  I would think that the worse that could happen is that you would eventually have your sim de-activated after 90 days. I do not believe there would be any money owing to affect your credit rating. If that were the case, the hundreds of posters who have had their accounts suspended accidentally or on purpose would all have bad credit ratings.

[GinYVR]

@wologmanIf you intend to come back to Canada for live and work for the next 5 years.. I would not suggest to let your back account go into negative as it will reflect poorly in your credit report.

[wologman]

That is also a cunning suggestion,  with regards to mailing it back.  I might go for that one if I get desperate, though it will still mean losing $25 for this month.

Definately not keen to just keep paying out $25 per month.  I'm actually a kiwi,  I have no immediate plans to come back to Canada at all though it is plausible.  The only other trick might be to empty the remains of my bank account, so that the fee gets declined, which would happen in 8 months anyway.  But I suspect that scheme may cause unintended trouble.

Obviously this all would have been much better if I had gotten around to doing it before I left.

[wologman]

I'll try it out of curiosity, but right now as I'm travelling, that isn't trivial to find a suitable phone test the theory.  Maybe tomorrow after I have more immediate concerns sorted.

[funpig]

I hope that there is a solution by moderator.  If not, you may need to mail sim back to Canada and have a friend pop it into a phone to deactivate the autopay by dialing *611.

Or you just have to suck it up and pay until you return.  When we travel, we are still paying for tv, internet, home phone etc.  How long is your trip?

[Anonymous]

---

@wologman wrote:

Great suggestion, thanks, but I don't think North American toll-free numbers work from outside North America.   The moderator sent me a message, so hopefully that will start something useful.

---

Nice response from the mods.

While awaiting further instruction...would you be able to try 00 1 884 4public from a local phone.

[wologman]

Great suggestion, thanks, but I don't think North American toll-free numbers work from outside North America.   The moderator sent me a message, so hopefully that will start something useful.

[Anonymous]

---

@wologman wrote:

I have a pre-paid account with an autopay setup, but I did not set up an account log-in before I left Canada.

So now I have left Canada to the UK and want to turn off the auto-pay, but I can not create an account login because that requires a text to confirm the phone number.  PM has no coverage in the UK so I can not receive a text.

This seems like a problem a human could easily solve, but I can't find a way to do that either.

Any suggestions?

---

I don't know if calling toll free numbers work from outside North America but you could try the +18554PUBLIC if you can. In there, you can toggle off autopay.

[RobertQc · Accepted solution]

---

@wologman wrote:

This seems like a problem a human could easily solve, but I can't find a way to do that either.

---

. Click this to send a human a message.