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Account Suspended for No Reason

slurnk
Great Neighbour / Super Voisin

I was in the middle of a family outing when I needed to check Google Maps and call my mother, when I noticed my service was gone. No internet, and when I tried to make a phone call it said "No plan is associated with this account".

When I finally got home, I logged into the self-serve, and it said my account had been suspended. This was 1 day after, or even the day-of, when payment was due. Auto-Pay has been turned on the entire time. My CC is not expired and in good standing with lots of credit.

I paid the "overdue balance" to reactivate my account. The payment went through, as there is no issue with my credit card, and my account was immediately re-activated.

There was absolutely no reason for this suspension. And it happened at the worst possible time.

Did this happen to anyone else recently? And should I expect this to happen again as a customer of Public Mobile?

Thanks for any insight.

19 REPLIES 19

@Jaguar20 

         Very rarely an autopay failure occurs it can be an issue with pm system but lately it's been a slight change in billing from one or more financial institutions. Have you reactivated  your daughters service? We're you able to do pay for it thru the credit card on file? You may want to top up manually before the next renewal just to make sure the system is accepting payment.

       Public mobile does not send out emails indicating a payment failure. While the suspension of service is the only real indication of a problem the confirmation of payment/ rewards texts are also the clue to a problem. Public mobile always sends out two texts at 12 noon et  on the first day of your renewal. The first confirms the application of your rewards....which happens first during renewal. It then applies any balance in your account and if there is still an outstanding amount autopay is applied (once only) if that fails the service will then be suspended within the next few hours.

     As a result you will either get only the rewards applied text or none at all ( because service suspended before the rewards text is sent or it cannot be recieved due to suspension). If you do not recieve at least one text from pm by about 12:05 pm et then you know to log into your self serve account and check its status. ( if you only recieve the rewards text then you know your payment is still outstanding requiring personal intervention.)

Pawprints1986
Deputy Mayor / Adjoint au Maire

@will13am wrote:

@slurnk , I suggest asking the moderator team to do an account reset to make sure there are no hidden gremlins that could cause the autopay failure again in the future.  Maybe I have been very lucky.  None of my own accounts or those that I manage have ever failed to renew with autopay enabled.  I am not saying that it is flawless as there must be some sort of hidden flaw in the system.  An account reset could help to shake the gremlins out of the account.  


Was just wondering what you meant by gremlins?

Jaguar20
Great Neighbour / Super Voisin

Hello,

I have had a similar experience.  My daughter's Public Mobile phone account was suspended as the Auto Pay function did not work properly.  But I never received a message from Public Mobile that this was a problem.  The only way she realized that there was a problem was that her data stopped working.  It would be very helpful if Public Mobile can please set up an automatic email that informs me the day following the due date that the money has not been received.  I'm still waiting to hear from the Financial department to see why this happened in the first place.  I use Auto Pay for many other merchants with this same credit card, and have never had any problems.  I hope that I don't need to switch to a different phone provider.


@VicBot wrote:

Yes this is happening to my son. Hes on autopay and his account is now suspened/expired. Unable to add funds to reactivate


 If the phone features are still working right now...that means his account is about to be renewed tonight. As long as he has a valid credit card or Visa debit set to Autopay...all should be well in the morning.

If the phone is not working right now...let us know.

VicBot
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

Yes this is happening to my son. Hes on autopay and his account is now suspened/expired. Unable to add funds to reactivate


@slurnk wrote:

@will13am 
I will consider requesting a reset, though that can lead to special problems in itself.
I appreciate this help.

I have both my son's emergency phone, plus my mother's phone, with Public Mobile, so if this happens again, I will have to consider leaving. The reason is that even if I top-up each account, there is no way of knowing when an Autopay didn't go through, not without checking each and every month to see if the local funds have been used (and to then top-them up again, and then repeat ad infinitum).

 

@slurnk  If you top-up each account then Auto-Pay will not be used. Note that you will still receive the Auto-Pay rewards event if you top-up manually.

Public Mobile could have easily texted when that didn't happen. Without a simple text, there's very little piece-of-mind.

 

In my opinion it would be best if Public Mobile programmed a number of retries into their Auto-Pay system, Currently if Auto-Pay fails the account gets suspended. Using retries IMO would resolve the majority of the problems.

But worse, since I did receive a "Congrats!..." text, I got a type of false negative, which is even worse than silence.

 

The way the PM plan renewal system works is that rewards and credits get applied  to your account first (That  is what the "Congrats" text is referring to), then the amount in your funds automatically gets applied against the balance and if there is a difference Auto-Pay gets triggered to cover the remainder. Once the plan renewal is processed and completed then the (Thanks for your Payment text) is sent hours later. By making manual payments you avoid Auto-Pay completely.


I'll have to think about my options.

 

@slurnk  Your money, your choice. 🙂


Thanks again for all your help.


 


@slurnk wrote:

@will13am 
I will consider requesting a reset, though that can lead to special problems in itself.
I appreciate this help.

I have both my son's emergency phone, plus my mother's phone, with Public Mobile, so if this happens again, I will have to consider leaving. The reason is that even if I top-up each account, there is no way of knowing when an Autopay didn't go through, not without checking each and every month to see if the local funds have been used (and to then top-them up again, and then repeat ad infinitum).

Public Mobile could have easily texted when that didn't happen. Without a simple text, there's very little piece-of-mind.

But worse, since I did receive a "Congrats!..." text, I got a type of false negative, which is even worse than silence.

I'll have to think about my options.
Thanks again for all your help.


There really isn't anything to fear with an account.  We know that the number of failures is low relative to success.  So if there are gremlins that affect certain account, a little of house cleaning could get rid of the problem.  You won't know unless you try it.  

@slurnk  You should always get both of these texts....if you only get the congrats one you know there's an issue with your renewal.....Screenshot_20200524-202858_Messages.jpg

@slurnk 

    What's the point of asking for a text to tell you you're payment didn't go thru that you will not get til you make a payment? At that time you get the congrats text. Manually topping up your account pretty much guarantees your payment will go thru because its already in your account. A renewal fail is exceedingly rare...you might as well buy a lottery ticket for that to happen. This is how I look at it.

    If I haven't done already....when I get the reminder text for the three accounts I manage I log in, have a look around, make sure everything looks good (like I do with my credit card statement or any other bill I get). I top up the account making sure I have an extra dollar or two. I take a screenshot of my payment history and my overview page. I log out. Done. But I'm a bit paranoid so the day of or after my renewal I log in again just to make sure my rewards were applied, the plan data reset, check the payment history and again take my two screenshots just in case and log out.

      It takes a couple of extra minutes each month but I catch any issues right away or if something happens mid cycle I have screenshots of before and after my renewal. It takes the same amount of time as logging into my bank account to pay my other bills. Of course after this month both of my accounts will be free but i still have to manage the bf's.

geopublic
Mayor / Maire

@slurnk  Unfortunately Auto-Pay will fail so next time it happens just dial *611 and reactivate it by making a one-time payment with the cc on file instead of waiting to get home and using selfserve. Another strategy is to make payment a couple of days before your plan renewal that way the funds are already in your account avoiding having  to use Auto-Pay.

Anonymous
Not applicable

@slurnk wrote:

The reason is that even if I top-up each account, there is no way of knowing when an Autopay didn't go through, not without checking each and every month to see if the local funds have been used (and to then top-them up again, and then repeat ad infinitum).


Keep in mind that renewals always look to Available Funds first. Then, if insufficient, it will go to a registered payment card for what else it might need.

Indeed, the vast majority of customers renew without a thought. Alas. So you could think of it as paying a repeat bill. Do you autopay all your bills?

There's 98% of PM'ers who have never experienced the "Autopay glitch" like you have. Most have uneventful renewals...as it should be, I know. Let's hope you don't feel the pain again. Just keep an eye on things right after your future renewals...and good luck.

Not everyone can (or wants) do this..but I manually add $$ to my account a few days before renewal and that seems to make that process happy. I have a credit card on Autopay so I still get the Autopay reward at renewal.

Hang in there.

 

Naepalm
Mayor / Maire

@slurnk I have been here for almost 2 months and we get plenty of people saying auto pay has failed. I would caution and even implore you to top your account up each month a few days befoe your due date to make sure you have the funds so your account will not go into suspension. Its kinda strange my sister has been on auto pay for a year, she introduced me here. And she says it never fails. 

slurnk
Great Neighbour / Super Voisin

@will13am 
I will consider requesting a reset, though that can lead to special problems in itself.
I appreciate this help.

I have both my son's emergency phone, plus my mother's phone, with Public Mobile, so if this happens again, I will have to consider leaving. The reason is that even if I top-up each account, there is no way of knowing when an Autopay didn't go through, not without checking each and every month to see if the local funds have been used (and to then top-them up again, and then repeat ad infinitum).

Public Mobile could have easily texted when that didn't happen. Without a simple text, there's very little piece-of-mind.

But worse, since I did receive a "Congrats!..." text, I got a type of false negative, which is even worse than silence.

I'll have to think about my options.
Thanks again for all your help.

will13am
Oracle
Oracle

@slurnk , I suggest asking the moderator team to do an account reset to make sure there are no hidden gremlins that could cause the autopay failure again in the future.  Maybe I have been very lucky.  None of my own accounts or those that I manage have ever failed to renew with autopay enabled.  I am not saying that it is flawless as there must be some sort of hidden flaw in the system.  An account reset could help to shake the gremlins out of the account.  

slurnk
Great Neighbour / Super Voisin

I've never received a "thanks for your payment" text. Unless you mean the message that looks like this:
"Congrats! Rewards have been applied to your account...(etc)"
And I received one of those this month (on the 23rd), despite Autopay not working.

darlicious
Mayor / Maire

@slurnk 

You've experienced the dreaded autopay failure. It happens occasionally. You did everything correctly to reactivate your account. You can always manually top up your account ahead of time to avoid this but otherwise it's just something that can happen. If you don't recieve a "thanks for your payment" text by noon et the next day you'll know something is up unless you've tried to use your phone before that. Now that it's happened to you you're probably good for another couple of years.....

 

Edit:  double ninja'd by the martial twins!

JoyLuck
Mayor / Maire

Sometimes autopay fails. It is best to keep some funds in your account to pay for the renewal and to leave the cc there for the autopay reward.

gblackma
Mayor / Maire

Kudos in getting it fixed @slurnk . Autopay will fail sometime. And as you found out at a rather inopertune one. To prevent this some people deposit the amount of their plan 2 days in advance. Stay safe. 

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