I'm done with PM

[Matthew2]

I travel somewhat frequently, and after nearly a year of waiting for PM to fix the bug where you don't get texts after a roaming add-on ends (Day-10 bug?) - I've gone back to Freedom.

I was with Wind since very early in its arrival in Alberta. A little over a year ago, I was tempted to try PM back when they had big promotions for new customers, and I figured the network would be the main difference that would make life better for me.

Turned out, it was the opposite. The complete lack of any type of real support, aka "just tag a mod and wait", is what was the biggest difference. It's made my mobile experience awful. I brought the bug up several times, and I've seen others do it countless times as well - and every time it's the exact same response: "Oh, we see that two days ago you had a problem, but it fixed itself, so everything is great! You're welcome!".

This is a known bug. But PM absolutely refuses to do anything about it - and I kept paying them for me to not get the service I asked for. 

Then, I noticed that Freedom no longer charges for texts and calls on their AWAY network, and that I could get 8GB of data for $40 / mo. for the next year? Also, they have 1-800 and in store support? Seriously? It's a no brainer. 

I realize this bug doesn't affect everyone, but it has been known for over a year now, and PM doesn't care, because the customers don't care enough, and keep paying. I mean, it makes great business sense: if you can save money by being crappy to your customers and they keep coming back, why try harder? In my expereince, that's PM's motto.

I realize PM will still be fine for many, and if you're not getting downtime you have no reason to want to leave. I wish that was the case for me, but it's not. I guess I just wanted to vent about them not caring enough to do anything about a known bug, one which really affected me. 

[Dogbert]

PM is good for personal use.

For business purposes, where time is more important than cost savings; PM parent company is the way to go.  Let's not fool ourselves by thinking we're PM customers are getting the same identical service as their parent company.

All the major service providers all have multiple brands under the parent brand.

[stonechucker]

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@Matthew2 wrote:

Public wins in that scenario sure, but try roaming with them somewhere south of the border, and then coming back.

It's known and expected that you won't get your texts for a day once your roaming add in ends. I mean, you pay for service, and it's a known bug, but it'll happen every time.

And, if you need help, you can message someone and wait two days for them to reply that they're doing nothing about it.

Your scenario woks for you,b as someone who travels south frequently, the value Freedom offers in its roaming add ons is pretty decent.

Plus, I even receive all of my text messages upon my return, and if I need help, I can actually talk to someone. Both scenarios are fantasy with public Mobile.

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Well, in that example maybe Freedom has the win.  But as you also said, you travel south of the boarder, whereas I have no need for that.  Believe it or not, I want to travel my country when I have the time to do so, and have no desire to go to the land of the free who elect Donald Trump.

[Andrea-N]

That is upsetting and I’m sorry you had to deal with all that. It’s sad and upsetting. 

Ive personally have been with PM since before Telus came to PM. I’ve had an issue here and there but always gets dealt with and I get compensated for anything that effects my services. Sorry there was no help for you. 

Good luck on ur travels stay safe

[Matthew2]

Public wins in that scenario sure, but try roaming with them somewhere south of the border, and then coming back.

It's known and expected that you won't get your texts for a day once your roaming add in ends. I mean, you pay for service, and it's a known bug, but it'll happen every time.

And, if you need help, you can message someone and wait two days for them to reply that they're doing nothing about it.

Your scenario woks for you,b as someone who travels south frequently, the value Freedom offers in its roaming add ons is pretty decent.

Plus, I even receive all of my text messages upon my return, and if I need help, I can actually talk to someone. Both scenarios are fantasy with public Mobile.

[stonechucker]

Again, personal experience.  I’m currrnetly vacation in a very well covered area or furan Ontario, and my Public Mobile service is rocking 4/5 bars of service on both 3G and LTE services.

A friend with freedom is tethered to my device for service.

To each their own.

[Matthew2]

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@kav2001c wrote:

To each their own, but you WILL have outages on Freedom network

It is nowhere near prime time and this is even after years of improvements

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Oh, I don't know about that. I'm sure, based on what I've read, that others have had issues. But I was with Wind for years before trying Public, and the only issues I had was when leaving the city.

Now that I'm back, and a couple months into Freedom, I haven't experienced any dropped calls or missed texts... which is more than I can say about Public.

[kav2001c]

@Matthew2 

To each their own, but you WILL have outages on Freedom network

It is nowhere near prime time and this is even after years of improvements

IMO it is more hassle on Freedom when you realize you have no calls / texts / or data for a few hours vs the Public txt outage (since you can easily use a stopgap fix, such as a texting app while waiting to get back on network)

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@Matthew2 wrote:

I'm sorry, but complaints about Freedom service, no matter how bad, cannot compare to a complete lack of service like we have here at PM. 

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[will13am]

I spent lots of time with Wind twice.  The network was garbage back in the day.  I cannot comment on recent developments on the network as I have no personal experience post LTE rollout.  

It's really hard to compare freedom to Public Mobile.  Their weaknesses are different.  The Bellus network is second to none.  Public Mobile's tolerance for long standing problems is also second to none.  If I were at the helm, I would have asked those responsible for fixing the issues why they are still showing up for work.  Maybe that crucial conversation has taken place and there's nobody working on the problems anymore.

As consumers, the best way forward is more competition.  The mere fact that carriers are so bad is because of the lack of competition.  

[Matthew2]

Just like I did.

Lots of people who never have a real problem will obviously find the service adequate.

But God forbid you have an issue which actually prevents your phone from working. If you need real, urgent help and are ok with waiting a few days for a reply, then you're definitely in the right place.

[ChuckYeah]

Perhaps my expectations are different than yours but I've found the support of the community and @CS_Agent to be fantastic. I'm a new user, but I think I'll make my judgement based on my own experiences. In the end, whether I stay or go will depend on my own experiences.

[Matthew2]

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@kselmak wrote:

'Makes me angry': Big telcos' $10 service fees concern wireless customers and the CRTC

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???

This artcile mentions neither public mobile nor Freedom - I'm certainly not making a switch to Telus, Bell, or Rogers.

It also says the fees are for making simple changes that you can do online - they're not charging for actual technical issues or non-basic requests - which is what PMs bug really is.

[kselmak]

'Makes me angry': Big telcos' $10 service fees concern wireless customers and the CRTC

[Matthew2]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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With all the rewards...it's free for me. No other provider offers that. If I *needed* to be able to talk to someone then I'd use a different provider.

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That's awesome! And is a great deal if you're actually getting service. But, I wasn't.

To me, the ability to communicate is the main point in having a mobile phone. I'd rather pay $40 / month to FM and get what I pay for, than pay $40 / month to PM, and get neither mobile service I'm supposed to, nor customer service.

What PM offered me was, frankly, garbage. Is FM perfect? No. But I'm quite happy. And compared to being quite unhappy with PM, I'll take that any day.

[Anonymous]

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@Matthew2 wrote: 

I wouldn't come back to Public Mobile if it was free.

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With all the rewards...it's free for me. No other provider offers that. If I *needed* to be able to talk to someone then I'd use a different provider.

[Matthew2]

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@CellGirl wrote:

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Freedom Mobile is one of the worst providers in existence. Despite being in their coverage area, I could rarely get a strong enough signal to make/receive calls in my house. I've never had that problem with other providers. Freedom Mobile's customer service also sucked, they didn't provide me with any suggestions, despite me opening a ticket, which remained unresolved. As I've always said, I'd never go back to them, even if they offered me permanent, free service.

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That's fair. But I was with them for years, and my wife even longer. Neither of us had any complaints other than roaming charges which are now gone.

But how you feel about Freedom is exactly how I feel about PM. It's not worth it knowing that, if there is a problem, your only source of "help" is two days away. 

I wouldn't come back to Public Mobile if it was free.

[kselmak]

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@Matthew2 wrote:

I was with Wind / Freedom for years. I'm not a stranger to their network, which has been just fine for the past few days. Definitely in line with my expectations.

I'm sorry, but complaints about Freedom service, no matter how bad, cannot compare to a complete lack of service like we have here at PM. 

For instance, I had sent a private message requesting help with my bug 2 days ago. I finally got a reply today, telling me how happy they would be to help me.

seriously, if this has been a real issue, I would have gone two days without any help whatsoever. you can't convince me that the service I'm going to get it Freedom, which I've never had problems with in the past, would be in any way comparable to what we see here.

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They hang up on you after an hour of waiting. I had unlimited roaming i was not supposed to have any issues, but they wouldn't let me roam for a year and MONTH after month of complaint and tickets. You still got a decent civil response and not 'whatever bye click' 

At least public mobile lets you know before you sign up, they tell you it may take 2 days specially if it's not urgent, they don't promise1800 number and then just wish you didn't exist

[CellGirl]

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@Matthew2 wrote:

I was with Wind / Freedom for years. I'm not a stranger to their network, which has been just fine for the past few days. Definitely in line with my expectations.

I'm sorry, but complaints about Freedom service, no matter how bad, cannot compare to a complete lack of service like we have here at PM. 

For instance, I had sent a private message requesting help with my bug 2 days ago. I finally got a reply today, telling me how happy they would be to help me.

seriously, if this has been a real issue, I would have gone two days without any help whatsoever. you can't convince me that the service I'm going to get it Freedom, which I've never had problems with in the past, would be in any way comparable to what we see here.

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Freedom Mobile is one of the worst providers in existence. Despite being in their coverage area, I could rarely get a strong enough signal to make/receive calls in my house. I've never had that problem with other providers. Freedom Mobile's customer service also sucked, they didn't provide me with any suggestions, despite me opening a ticket, which remained unresolved. As I've always said, I'd never go back to them, even if they offered me permanent, free service.

[Matthew2]

I was with Wind / Freedom for years. I'm not a stranger to their network, which has been just fine for the past few days. Definitely in line with my expectations.

I'm sorry, but complaints about Freedom service, no matter how bad, cannot compare to a complete lack of service like we have here at PM. 

For instance, I had sent a private message requesting help with my bug 2 days ago. I finally got a reply today, telling me how happy they would be to help me.

seriously, if this has been a real issue, I would have gone two days without any help whatsoever. you can't convince me that the service I'm going to get it Freedom, which I've never had problems with in the past, would be in any way comparable to what we see here.

[kselmak]

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@TheGx wrote:

Me and everyone I've refered to Public has left freedom and chatr etc because of Public having lower prices and because of bad experiences with the customer service representatives at freedom and chatr etc - especially when the customer service talks down to you.  We all never to go states, probably never will, so the roaming issue didn't effect us - we just choose not to spend our money in america, and rather spend it in better places.

I hope Public fixes the bug you're talking about, or at least compensates those effected, I really like Public mobile and want to see them succeed in being the best value to all it's customers.

I've had phones with all the cell phone companies in Canada at one point or another since the 1990's, and they've all had service interuptions or outages or bugs etc over time, but never heard of one that lasts years till now - so hopefully you've brought more attention to this issue and it'll get fixed faster.

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Yes customer service can be u unbelievable in freedom, the people who work in stores are always great, but most often people on the phone are total opposite. They lie, i was in a store and on the phone once. The person who was working there couldn't believe his ears, he was saying 'omg i can't believe she's lying through her teeth'. On another occasion a customer rep on the phone told me ' what do you expect, it's freedom mobile' i believe it was much better while it was wind. I really wanted to like it there, but i couldn't.

I'm really happy with pm. The only other provider that i liked this much was mobilicity.

We'll see what happens when i run into an issue, maybe I'll change tune too. All issues i had so far are small or i didn't even notice them, just woke up to a changed account one day. It just happened that i didn't use texting those days so didn't notice, and they just refreshed my plan, and as i was half way through the plan i basically got extra 15 days. 'sweet' i thought

[TheGx]

Me and everyone I've refered to Public has left freedom and chatr etc because of Public having lower prices and because of bad experiences with the customer service representatives at freedom and chatr etc - especially when the customer service talks down to you.  We all never to go states, probably never will, so the roaming issue didn't effect us - we just choose not to spend our money in america, and rather spend it in better places.

I hope Public fixes the bug you're talking about, or at least compensates those effected, I really like Public mobile and want to see them succeed in being the best value to all it's customers.

I've had phones with all the cell phone companies in Canada at one point or another since the 1990's, and they've all had service interuptions or outages or bugs etc over time, but never heard of one that lasts years till now - so hopefully you've brought more attention to this issue and it'll get fixed faster.

[kselmak]

I actually left freedom because of roaming. I had roaming included in Canada and USA. The USA worked perfectly, Canadian I didn't need till I moved. I spent a year without service, if I need to call I have to get on a highway and find a good spot. At home I could sometimes have connection but only if it's sunny and I'm on 2nd floor and it would last for couple of minutes that's all. I go someplace and hit a good coverage I get 50 texts and missed calls. I basically relied onl VoIP at  home and the office phone. And all of this while I had unlimited roaming. But because I was in the area of crappy coverage and not in the area of no coverage it wouldn't kick in. And I spent hours with customer support and it resulted in nothing. The price was great while it worked it did kinda start getting better, but then I realized I'm paying 50 month and I only get to use about 200m of data and usually less than 50 minutes of talk, the texts would be faster and more responsive if they were emails off of laptop. Nope price is not that good after all. My only regret was that I didn't go through with cancellation the 2nd month when I called to cancel so they connected me with the support instead.

Well I do hope it works out for you, they do also have great prices and as I said when it works, it's great.

Best wishes

[srlawren]

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@Matthew2 wrote:

I realize this bug doesn't affect everyone, but it has been known for over a year now, and PM doesn't care, because the customers don't care enough, and keep paying.

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@Matthew2 actually, it's much worse than that.  The US Roaming add-ons were introduced in the fall of 2016 (if memory serves me), and this bug has existed since introduction.  So it's more like 2.5 years and counting, with no sign of resolution.  There's literally a list of a half-dozen or more stupid bugs like this that the community has been begging PM to fix for YEARS with no upside in sight.  

[stonechucker]

As someone who doesn't use this feature yet, and really I don't plan to either, it's not for me.  However, as someone who loves the PM Service, and wishes others would enjoy it as much, I totally agree with your stance, and your decision to go back to Freedom.

I can't believe that Freedom's service is that much better here I live, and I don't know where you are, but PM does the job for me, as Freedom and Rogers never could for me.