Closing my account

[Malch]

I stopped AutoPay today. I presume that closes my account.

I am happy with Public. I bought two phones, one Telus [main] and one Public [backup].

This was done because these were my first cell phones and I did not know how to use them.

I now use a Iphone 8 for Telus and no longer need my Iphone SE for backup.

So goodbye and I will pop into community once in a while.

[CountyDownIeUk]

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@Malch wrote:

I stopped AutoPay today. I presume that closes my account.

I am happy with Public. I bought two phones, one Telus [main] and one Public [backup].

This was done because these were my first cell phones and I did not know how to use them.

I now use a Iphone 8 for Telus and no longer need my Iphone SE for backup.

So goodbye and I will pop into community once in a while.

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@Malch 

Please re consider what you are doing.

I and my wife had been on Telus prepaid for 13 years or so and the last years were on a loyalty rate. I can only tell you that Public is far more superb!! And pricing too!!!

I have never had an issue with the phone network not working. I have had a couple of glitches for rewards not given but once again....superb service from a CSA to fix. Yes, it is all online....a bit of a change...and compares to being forced to do your own check out at the supermarket. The freebies and rewards program....once again superb!! 

And if you are wanting to sell off the SE...PM me, but only if you are in the BC lower mainland. 

Also, I believe you said you are hard of hearing. We have that issue in helping my mother in law...ask us for ideas. Wear a hearing aid?....will it connect to phone by bluetooth? No hearing aid? try a head phone or bluetooth ear buds. And use SIRI to make your calls. 

[Anonymous]

 @popping : The Jabra's (from a company that is more known for hearing aids) can also do that. The onboard mics along with some equalization (and of course amplification) can be of some assistance.

I think the Samsung's can too but not sure. Samsung phones also have a rudimentary hearing test.

They call the idea OTC - Over The Counter in the states. Personal Sound Amplifiers would be the same idea.

But we don't yet know how much loss Malch has.

I got my first (still current, though soon going about getting new ones) through employee benefits.

Costco makes this approach easier. Getting them from hearing centres is brutal. If no benefits then still Costco is better for price. You might not get the great service from a full-on expert but the products are full-on name brand or the Signature line are re-badged full-on name brand. The spouse likes Costco. I don't like them. But the hearing aid deal is very good.

[darlicious]

@popping @Anonymous @Malch 

https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/governments/policies-for-government/bcea-policy-and-procedure-manual/health-supplements-and-programs/medical-equipment-hearing-instruments

[popping]

@Anonymous 

I heard that people are programing the latest version of white sticks for minor hearing loss.  But the rechargeable battery will not last for the whole day.  It is still cheaper to buy 2 pair of white sticks than a pair of HAs.  

Do you know any HA subsidy program in BC?

AB pays 75% of the first hearing aid for senior over 65.

For a $2000 pair of HAs = AB gov pays $750 for the first HA + senior pays $1250(first $250 + second $1000).  No tax for medical device.

I read an article on Hearing Loss and Dementia.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4075051/?xtor=AL-32280680.

I don't know whether there is any relation between them.  I just put it here for information only.

 

[Anonymous]

 @Malch : Have you tried hearing aids? If you're not stone deaf then I would think they would benefit you. You can get them fully in the ear. In the ear entrance. Over the top of the ear with a little attached speaker going into the ear. Of course there are also implants but I'm not sure of the hearing level and criteria to get them.

There's no stigma when you consider people are perfectly fine walking around with white sticks sticking out their ears. Or the black ear entrance ones. What stigma?

Hearing aids come in many colours too. I have black.

[Malch]

@AE_Collector

partially both ears

The medical system in B.C. uses phone-not text and not email.

[AE_Collector]

@Malch 

Are you completely deaf? I am completely deaf in one ear but relatively normal in the other ear so it only causes minor problems for me. But wouldn’t text messaging be a big part of your communications? I have a friend since 1984 near San Francisco who is deaf and text messaging opened up a whole new world of convenience in communication for her.

AE_Collector

[Malch]

@popping 

I got the SE because the medical system in B.C. uses phone and not email.

I dont have HAs.

I now have a Iphone 8,on IOS 14.7. The SE is retired.

I now have no problem with the cameras.

[popping]

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@Malch wrote:

The cell phone was for hospital stays. Hospitals are very like jail.

I am deaf. I quit my landline 15 years ago.

The SE was my first cell phone, bought in 2021.

I did not know the intricacies of payment plans and still dont.

I taped the cameras off because it was annoying when I accidentally turned them on.

I send and receive phone calls about one a month, some months it's more like three calls.  

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@Malch 

In order for you to communicate with you family and friend during your stay in hospital, did you purchased your iPhone SE for your hospital stay?

Are you currently using hearing aids(HA) to help your hearing?

If yes,

1.  What is the make and model of your HA?

2.  You can go back to your audiology clinic to ask whether your HA can be connected with your iPhone SE.

If your HA has the telecoil function, it will work with your iPhone SE.

The telecoil, a small wire coiled around a rod located inside your hearing aids, works as an antenna to pick up magnetic signals and streams them as sound into your hearing aids. 

You can enable the telecoil function on your iPhone SE.

To activate Hearing Aid Compatibility on an iPhone with iOS 13 or later, go to Settings > Accessibility > Hearing Devices. On these iPhone models, Hearing Aid Compatibility modifies the phone's acoustic settings to improve compatibility with hearing aids set in "T" or telecoil mode.

The new HA came out in 2021 can connect to your iPhone SE running a HA app streaming audio sound directly to your HA.  The drawback with the telecoil is that you need to put your phone next to your HA.  Therefore, telecoil function works only on phone call.  With direct audio streaming, you can stream music or TV audio to your HA in addition to during phone calls.

You can remove the camera app icon from your iPhone SE home screen and the bottom tool bar.  You will not be accidentally turned on the camera. 

Which iOS version are you using on your SE?

Ask if you have any question.

[darlicious]

@Malch 

You're welcome. Any question anytime we're here to help.....tune in on the 4th of January there are big changes coming to the community. You can learn what they are along with all of us! 

[Malch]

Sounds good. Thank you

[darlicious]

@Malch 

Well then message me when your pm account has been suspended for 70 days and you have about 30 days left on your telus plan and I will start to hunt around for some stacking promotions and we will see if we can get you a good promotion to activate a new account and if not you can still port your telus number into your existing account.

[Malch]

I dont care about my PM number.

[darlicious]

@Malch 

You can port your telus number into your pm account if you don't care about your pm number. Or make a new account if there is a really good promotion....but they are mostly around black Friday and Xmas but I can also keep an eye out for you on that too....

Your timing on your telus account expiring and needing to reactivate your pm account is just about perfect.....

[Malch]

Still got about 4 months on my Telus account. I will consider your suggestion closer to the reactivation. Is it possible to use my Telus phone number if I use PM again?

[darlicious]

@Malch 

Hospitals are horrible and I have spent far too much time there myself both in the bed and beside it.

That aside I think you may want to consider some of the options pm offers that telus does not. On the surface the telus plan seems to be a better deal and if you have already forked over the $100 with it being prepaid I don't think you can back out now as I believe the 15 day buyers remorse (30 days for PWD) only applies to postpaid services but I can double check that.

The telus price will stay the same but the pm price will get lower with little effort in your part. The $15 plan is $13 with the autopay reward of $2. You are 6 months away from your first loyalty reward of $1 which will bring it to $12. Eventually those two rewards will bring the plan down to $8/30 days. Hang out here in the community and learn about pm and all the things you can do with your iPhone and you could quite easily earn a $1 or $2 community reward further lowering your bill. (I was completely technologically challenged when I switched 2 1/2 years ago from telus and freedom.)

There are some very knowledgeable iPhone using members (sorry I went from flip phone to Android) but @AE_Collector , @Luddite , @CountyDownIeUk and others are all die hard Apple devotees that are happy to help you master your device. @popping and @Anonymous can offer advice and suggestions for the hearing impaired and how your phone can be a great assistive aid not just a phone.

The $15 plan offers so much more service if you ever need it for only a couple of dollars more to begin with and eventually a couple of dollars less. There are never any overages, extra billing or fees at pm that can occur at almost every other provider. At pm if it works its included like 250mb of data with the $15 plan but if you run out it just won't work no worrying about a depleted balance from extra billing.

You don't even need data to send MMS picture texts you just need mobile data on and all texts are included in your plan. You get free incoming calling and 100 Canada wide outgoing calls....and if you need more minutes the $5/500min Canada wide calling add on is a one time purchase that never expires. It just stays on your account rolling over every 30 days until you finally use all of the minutes up....it took me 22 months to use up the first one I purchased!

We get freebie gifts from pm every year like the recent 2gb data add on and the 500 international long distance calling minutes add on for Christmas. You get 10 voicemail messages instead of 3 and you can get them sent to Youmail that will transcribe them and email them to you. If you suspend your service via lost/stolen before your renewal you can retain active voicemail without even paying for your plan.

So if you dont need your pm service you can suspend up to 89/90 days before needing to pay and reactivate or your account will get cancelled and deactivated. But this way if you can manage with wifi calling with a voip app you can save some money by not paying for service when you don't need it. Technically you could pay as little as $39 for 360 days of service by suspending every 89/90 days and reactivating for 30 days and so on.....

The community is a treasure trove of information, tips, troubleshooting to help you learn....it sure helped me! I wasn't kidding about not knowing how to copy and paste.....

[Malch]

The cell phone was for hospital stays. Hospitals are very like jail.

I am deaf. I quit my landline 15 years ago.

The SE was my first cell phone, bought in 2021.

I did not know the intricacies of payment plans and still dont.

I taped the cameras off because it was annoying when I accidentally turned them on.

I send and receive phone calls about one a month, some months it's more like three calls.  

[darlicious]

@Malch 

I'm curious why you chose to go with telus prepaid rather than pm? Reviewing their 3 talk and text only prepaid plans only the $100/365 day plan comes out cheaper but with bare bones service with an average of 33 incoming and outgoing calls and texts per month for $9.33+ tax per month. The extra charges you could accidently incur at $0.50/text, $0.15/min local calls, $0.60/US+Canada long distance calls and $0.20/MB that's a whopping $204.80/1GB. And you even pay for some call centre services such as phone swaps and service reprogramming.

So I am trying to see what made you choose telus over pm? It cant possibly be phone support? Well you have 89 days from your last paid day of service from pm to change your mind.

[popping]

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@Malch wrote:

Pre-paid no data

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Telus prepaid is the way to go if you need call center support.  My sister was with Telus prepaid before switching to PM.  

Hang around at PM community to learn how PM support works without call center.  If you are comfortable with this self-serve support model, you are welcome back any time.

Happy New Year everyone.

[Malch]

Pre-paid no data

[Dgraziani]

goodbye, hope to see you back soon.

Out of curiosity what is your plan with telus?

[Anonymous]

Good bye to you too. 🙂

[Malch]

Ok I removed my card as you suggested.

[Anonymous]

 @Malch : Also remove your payment card.

If you have sufficient balance to cover your plan cost then you could either use the service for another term or use the Lost/stolen function to suspend the account before the renewal date.

Then in 90 days after your renewal date the account will fully deactivate taking everything with it...balance, rewards, SIM, number.