PSA: Am I headed towards account suspension?

[LovesToPM]

Seems I have a potential problem on my account. Check these dates:
My next Payment Due Date of "May 3 2019" doesn't match the AutoPay Date of "May 7 2019".

If I understand these dates correctly, my plan is up for renewal on May 3rd. And my AutoPay won't kick in until May 7th. So it looks like my plan will be suspended unless I have sufficent balance in Available Funds to cover the next bill cycle.

On my account, I believe these 2 dates used to both match up.
This looks to be a problem on my account caused by the last system maintenance on April 7 2019.
If this is the case, other customers may fall into the same scenerio.

Well after reading up on forum posts, I have come to the conclusion there is definitely a May 7th issue.
Btw this date is exactly 30 days following the April 7th maintenance. If you the same AutoPay issue, you're headed towards account suspension unless you have sufficent balance in Available Funds to cover the next bill cycle.
Or you need to make a manual payment.

Perhaps PM could send a text message to notify affected customers to TOP UP as needed.

If more people are headed towards suspension, this is bad news because brand loyalty will suffer. This especially affecting people who are hands-off and have been relying on AutoPay.

Since I am fairly new to Public Mobile, I'd like to hear feedback and suggestions from more experienced users.

[computergeek541]

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@Psygineer wrote:

Seems I am having this issue as well. Payment Due Date May 28th, Auto-Pay date June 6th. And because I love to live dangerously (I really don't) I am also changing credit cards soon (due to the old one expiring) I think the coming month is not going to be a happy one. I think I will do a large top up just to be safe. Then hopefully it will shake all the cobwebs out by the time it needs to bill a card again.

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I believe that some self-serve accounts are just showing a random date listed as the Autopay date and that Autopay really occurs whenenver a plan is renewed.  I've always thought of the date listed at the bottom as redundant, although you're right that  there shouldn't be 2 different dates listed.

If you are concerned about this, you could make a payment before your plan fee is due.

[hairbag1]

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@Psygineer wrote:

Seems I am having this issue as well. Payment Due Date May 28th, Auto-Pay date June 6th. And because I love to live dangerously (I really don't) I am also changing credit cards soon (due to the old one expiring) I think the coming month is not going to be a happy one. I think I will do a large top up just to be safe. Then hopefully it will shake all the cobwebs out by the time it needs to bill a card again.

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Like you, I changed cc's lately and was concerned how that will affect account stability. I also added $$ to Available Funds and the renewal process went perfectly. Think I might even do this on a monthly basis from now on.

Good luck.

[Psygineer]

Seems I am having this issue as well. Payment Due Date May 28th, Auto-Pay date June 6th. And because I love to live dangerously (I really don't) I am also changing credit cards soon (due to the old one expiring) I think the coming month is not going to be a happy one. I think I will do a large top up just to be safe. Then hopefully it will shake all the cobwebs out by the time it needs to bill a card again.

[DuncanJ]

I set up three accounts a few months ago, one of them has had this issue twice now and just this month the other two also were suspended and I had to go in and add funds myself.  What is the point of calling it autopay if it does not pay my bills automatically!  I am working with a moderator now to sort it out but I hope PM gets on to this bug.  Autopay dates and renewal dates should not ever be different, that makes no sense at all.

[shartomjam]

After reading through this thread, I checked my account.  Interestingly, I am on a 90 day plan, my Payment Due date is June 13 but my Autopay date is May 11.  Hmmm...I guess there is more to this issue than previously discussed?

[LovesToPM]

@lheintzman Thanks for your share. Glad it all worked out.

As for my account, I had already contacted Moderators and the issue has been fixed for me. It was all resolved within a few hours.

Here is the quick reply I got.

"I was checking this and noticed the discrepancy between the renewal and auto-áy dates. This an issue that we had earlier this week. We have flag this already and we are working on fixing this as soon as possible.

Right now, I just changed the Auto-Pay date on your account to make sure your service won´t be suspended. You can log in to your Self-serve and check it out."

[lheintzman]

So to update. Two accounts were set to expire April 12 and renew on the 13th. The larger one had no changes and some rewards. The other had fewer rewards and a scheduled plan change ($30 /1gb - - - -.> $25 /500+500MB). Both reported an Autopay date of May 7. Both had been topped up manually a couple days ago, following my usual practice (the full plan cost minus anticipated awards.). This had no effect on the Autopay date. 

Today both renewed normally, minus any drama, and both now show an Autopay date of May 12, as expected. Can't say what might have happened if Autopay had come into play, so it's not clear whether the goofy May 7 date has any significance. Why it popped up has become a matter of speculation and a cause of anxiety for some customers. (Coders can tell you that what appears in a UI doesn't always correlate with real operations under the hood.) But we can confirm that topping up early is likely to head off any problems and get the Autopay date on track. FWIT. 

[Anonymous]

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@LovesToPM wrote:

Agreed that some coding snafu is involved.

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Ya think? 🙂

[LovesToPM]

@lheintzman I should clarify. I have seen the "AutoPay date set as May 7th" issue for customers who had their plan changed EFFECTIVE between March 7 and April 7.

Agreed that some coding snafu is involved.

[lheintzman]

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@LovesToPM wrote:

@lheintzman, I am thinking you did not make any plan changes between March 7 and April 7. I hope that the bug was a one-time occurence and will not repeat itself. I believe one customer was already informed by a moderator that the issue will be fine next month.

Well, a reasonable guess but somewhat off the mark, at least in this case. The plan change was requested March 14, just after the last renewal, and is set to take effect April 13.  Would agree that the May 7 AutoPay date is mystierious given that it seems to have come up so oftren, regardless of various expiry/renwal dates.  Obviously some coding snafu but so far, I don't think there have been a lot of reported problems linked directly to this little oddity.  With luck it might turn out to be a teapot tempest, easily corrected.  Fingers crossed.

[LovesToPM]

@Anonymous, It's interesting that you had reserved a plan change.

By all means, there may be other criteria involved in deciding who got assigned the infamous "May 7th" AutoPay date. Only Public Mobile knows for certain how many customers were impacted.

[Anonymous]

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@LovesToPM wrote:

@Anonymous, I am thinking you made a plan change between March 7 and April 7? This may explain why your AutoPay date was not set as May 7th.

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 @LovesToPM 

Nope. I had reserved one but removed it before renewal.

[LovesToPM]

@Alex888, agreed that this issue was caused by recent system maintenace.

@lheintzman, I am thinking you did not make any plan changes between March 7 and April 7. I hope that the bug was a one-time occurence and will not repeat itself. I believe one customer was already informed by a moderator that the issue will be fine next month.

@Anonymous, I am thinking you made a plan change between March 7 and April 7? This may explain why your AutoPay date was not set as May 7th.

[LovesToPM]

@geopublic, Exactly! You confirmed what I was thinking.

Basically I said during the system maintenance of April 7th, if you did NOT change your plan during the last bill cycle, your AutoPay date was set incorrectly as May 7th.

@CS_Agent  I suspect this issue will impact considerably more customers in the upcoming weeks, especially those who rely on AutoPay and haven't been consulting Community forums.

Public Mobile should be notifying these customers via text message. I am also notifying friends and family to check their accounts.

@geopublic, I agree with your solution to TOP UP to fix the issue and contact moderators only if absolutely necessary.

The soloution to avoid possible suspension was marked in this thread above and is as follows:

Notice: Any Public Mobile customer who has setup AutoPay and their Account Payment Due Date is before May 7, 2019 should be proactive and manually add the required funds into their accounts before their Paymnet Due Date to avoid possible account suspension. This action will also resolve the descrepancy between the two dates and make them the same. For those that are unable to fund their accounts manually, they  should contact the Moderators to fix the date descrepancy.

[LovesToPM]

I do not agree with your theory about the plan switch or change last month causing the issue because in my case there wasn't a plan change or any type of change during that period and I still experienced the problem.

@geopublic, Exactly! You just confirmed what I was saying.

Basically I said during the system maintenance of April 7th, if you had no plan changes in the last bill cycle, your AutoPay date was incorrectly set to May 7th.

I suspect this will impact considerably more customers in the upcoming weeks, especially those who rely on AutoPay and haven't been consulting Community forums.

Public Mobile should be notifying these customers via text message. I am also notifying friends and family to check their accounts.

@geopublic, I agree with your solution to TOP UP to fix the issue and contact moderators only if absolutely necessary.

The soloution to avoid possible suspension was marked in this thread above and is as follows:

Notice: Any Public Mobile customer who has setup AutoPay and their Account Payment Due Date is before May 7, 2019 should be proactive and manually add the required funds into their accounts before their Paymnet Due Date to avoid possible account suspension. This action will also resolve the descrepancy between the two dates and make them the same. For those that are unable to fund their accounts manually, they  should contact the Moderators to fix the date descrepancy.

[geopublic · Accepted solution]

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@lheintzman wrote:

@LovesToPM

A number of people have seen the May 7 autopay date on their accounts. It seems to be completely unelated to the timing of the last renewal. I have two accounts expiring tonight (12th) and both report a May 7 autopay.

Since I rarely rely on Autopay , both accounts have been topped up manually. I'm going o ride it out and see what happens. Actually, one of them has a plan change scheduled, so it could be interesting. 

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You should be fine check here for more info

[Anonymous]

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@lheintzman wrote:

@LovesToPM

A number of people have seen the May 7 autopay date on their accounts. It seems to be completely unelated to the timing of the last renewal. I have two accounts expiring tonight (12th) and both report a May 7 autopay.

Since I rarely rely on Autopay , both accounts have been topped up manually. I'm going o ride it out and see what happens. Actually, one of them has a plan change scheduled, so it could be interesting. 

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I got renewed last night. No May 7 before. All fine in the end. I also had sufficient funds.

[lheintzman]

@LovesToPM

A number of people have seen the May 7 autopay date on their accounts. It seems to be completely unelated to the timing of the last renewal. I have two accounts expiring tonight (12th) and both report a May 7 autopay.

Since I rarely rely on Autopay , both accounts have been topped up manually. I'm going o ride it out and see what happens. Actually, one of them has a plan change scheduled, so it could be interesting. 

[Alex888]

@LovesToPM  That was caused by a bug in the system from their recent maintenance. You will need to contact the moderators to get it fixed, you can send them a private message here: https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/notes/composepage/note-to-user-id/22437

[LovesToPM]

I have a theory on what caused the May 7 AutoPay date.

On April 7, if you made a plan switch or change last month, then your AutoPay Date is correct.

Otherwise if you kept the same plan as last month, then your AutoPay Date is now May 7.

The change happened on system maintenance of April 7, exactly 30 days before May 7.

Perhaps I am wrong. Please check your account(s) to confirm.