Adds

[Norasj]

I'm new to public mobile and have noticed I have adds popping up on my cell phone now, I never have before. I had done a factory reset prior to inserting the SIM card. Is this normal? 

[Korth]

@Norasj

Public Mobile does send SMS/MMS notifications from a group of different numbers. Here's a list of the ones I've observed:

https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Discussions/quot-Public-Mobile-here-quot-numbers/td-p...

If you're new to PM with a new number then you might have inherited one the spammers still have targeted (they successfully scammed a victim at that number, or whatever reason). If you're not especially attached to your PM number then login Self-Serve and request a number change - it's free (once per month) but might take a day or two to complete.

The phone might have malware, spyware, junkware, adware. Not just malicious stuff but simply unwanted payloads installed by the phone vendor (which will likely persist after hard resets) or by other apps/services/components you've routinely installed.

Clean everything up and evaluate all the things you use or don't use (along with alternatives) with a critical eye. Trust nothing.

Probably not necessary, but changing all your PINs and passwords for cloud sign-ins, emails, voicemails, accounts wouldn't hurt.

[Anonymous]

lol

And yet everybody goes bananas when a spam arrives in their private message inbox that is an innocuous invite. Not some blatant ad screaming at you - buy our product!!

First world problems.

[lorca01]

I also got several ads by text when I got a new number with Public. They were from stores the previous holder of the phone number was getting special offers from. Some told me what to do if I didn't want them anymore, like text 1 if you want to cancel text offers, and one I just had to text STOP and they thanked me and said I was removed from their text offers.

[Luddite]

@Norasj If you selected a good looking new number rather than porting your old number, I had the same issue. Died down after couple of months, when combined with adding every such call to my block list. 

[ddeep91]

There could be multiple reasons for the ads to appear on the phone.

If you have tried to install an application outside of "playstore/appstore" that app itself can bring ads to the phone.

to fix this: go through your recent installed applications and see if you can locate the app

If you visit the website and a popup appeared saying Content to be "Allow or block", and you clicked allow that will push ads to your phone.

To fix this: try to clear your browsing history/catch on the browser.

Cheers

[iPhoneUser]

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@Lowufo wrote:

Have never seen an ad on my phone so not sure were you are seeing them?

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Me too no ads. 

Only texts for payment soon due. 

Can you send some screen prints of them?

Did you port your number or take a new one?

[ChuckYeah]

If you have accepted notifications from websites they will produce ads too. Clearing your browser may help that.

[gjong26]

The ads can come from the apps you have downloaded on your phone as well. You can disable notifications by going through your app settings. Some apps use push text messages but these can be turned off 

[Dunkman]

@Norasj 

More details would be helpful.

Do you mean spam phone calls?  spam texts?  emails? Text messages from PM?

Did you register a new phone number? or port over a number from another carrier?

[Lowufo]

Have never seen an ad on my phone so not sure were you are seeing them?

[gblackma]

@Norasj by adds, do you mean the message from Koodo? Telus owns both PM and Koodo . And they sometimes send out upsell messages.  If you are referring to spam messages. Block them, we all get them.

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@Norasj wrote:

I'm new to public mobile and have noticed I have adds popping up on my cell phone now, I never have before. I had done a factory reset prior to inserting the SIM card. Is this normal? 

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