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My account is disabled all the sudden?

Oleg7
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

Screen Shot 2022-01-18 at 11.15.17 AM.png

So why exactly did my account get disabled? My mother is having the same with her account. We both had AutoPay set up and did have a positive balance.

Switched to PublicMobile last month, need to get this solved ASAP as this endangers my mother and will cause me a lot of problems as I'm waiting on calls.

52 REPLIES 52

softech
Oracle
Oracle

@Oleg7  and thanks for providing the details note from CS Agent earlier and we understand what will happen after (assuming no one step in and help)  🙂

Anonymous
Not applicable

 @Oleg7 : Yup. And we just had another one a few minutes ago. No one should have to go through what you did by no fault of their own. It's an outrageous insult to good paying customers.

Oleg7
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

@darlicious @softech 

I just decided to wait for a confirmation from the CS, which I recently did that both accounts aren't suspended anymore. I really didn't want to try anything by myself after seeing how quickly an account is just gone/disabled. Received some "compensation" which should cover the gas, "a month on us" does feel degrading after what we went through although.

But yeah, their error was solved and both accounts & numbers are functional again. Really hope they fix that as I honestly see this happening many more times in the future.

 

I do appreciate all the help although and glad there's a good community here, but I'm not impressed by PMs error to begin with. 

darlicious
Mayor / Maire

@Oleg7 

Did you get a new credit card replacement when you did the chargeback or do you have the same card still on file for autopay? If it's a new card I would say it's safe to attempt a payment using "other" amount as suggested. Just keep in mind the payment system only allows two attempted payments before you have to wait an hour to try again. If its the same card number then if possible you may want to replace the credit card on file for autopay before you attempt a payment.

 

 

 

 

 

To contact customer support click below:

https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/notes/composepage/note-to-user-id/22437

To pre-verify your account include your full name, address, email, phone # and 4 digit acct pin #.

@Oleg7   Is your Self-Serve My Account showing status Suspended?  There is still a credit card there?  maybe try a manual payment now and see if it goes through?  I suggest you to use "Other amount" instead of amount due and then enter the Plan Amount +$1 and see if it goes through

 

Oleg7
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

So far I've gotten access to both accounts restored, don't know if the restrictions have been fixed and if I'll still have to use gift cards/vouchers to pay although. This shouldn't have happened to begin with and has taken nearly 24 hours to get halfway resolved so far. Hoping not to exprience major issues like that in the future and that this gets fixed and doesn't happen to other users.

Oleg7
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

Thanks, all of this could've been easily avoided if PM had given a call first or a warning about their charges being named Koodo or something simple like that. Going straight for the "Disable account" route doesn't make sense.

Hoping to get things completely sorted out today as soon as possible. Not having phone service has been more troublesome than losing a phone in the past, if that makes any sense as a comparison.

darlicious
Mayor / Maire

@Oleg7 

I am very sorry for this situation that you and your mother have found yourselves in thru no fault of your own and the great inconvenience that this has caused. If compensation is not immediately offered that certainly inform the CSA you expect it. Since Jade has responded to this thread it should be forthcoming ioce both of your services are completely restored.

 

@J_PM 

I'm sure you know I am in complete agreement with @Anonymous  on this as we have tagged you in all of the confirmed threads with customers in this situation. At the very least an announcement thread warning new customers especially of this regular occurrence of KOODO REAPPROV showing up as the first plan payment upon activation so that chargeback and credit card cancellations are prevented as prudent customers that practice good financial oversight are not terribly inconvenienced by a glitch on pm's side and so it doesn't cause pm to both lose customers and pay financial compensation that these customers are rightfully due. This is by no means an acceptable concession for a customer to ever accept when choosing a third tier provider that offers savings but no more than other second and third tier providers.

 

Previous to these KOODO REAPPROV charges to mostly new activations the problem of a chargeback from a customer was a rare occurrence and the temporary account deactivation policy made sense however with this new issue being 100% pm's responsibility perhaps it's time to review this policy and set up a different protocol for chargebacks that are the result of a KOODO REAPPROV charge and a courtesy email, text and even a phone call from pm sent out to the customer giving them a 24 or 48 hour grace period to pay the outstanding charge with the card on file or by voucher before temporary account deactivation is enabled is the very least pm could to help provide some appropriate customer support and service to affected customers.

 

Or just fix this issue ASAP!!

 

 

 

 

To contact customer support click below:

https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/notes/composepage/note-to-user-id/22437

To pre-verify your account include your full name, address, email, phone # and 4 digit acct pin #.

esjliv
Mayor / Maire

@Oleg7 - Wow, so sorry you are both going through this, by no fault of your own.  😣

I hope Public Mobile does you both right and credits your accounts for the extra $'s you had to put in, and then some.

 

For moments like these, I feel a phone call from the right person to fix this should be called for. JMHO

 

I sure hope you get this sorted soon.

Oleg7
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

In my situation the closest location was a Walmart that's roughly a 35 minute drive from us, with current gas prices with the awful weather plus all the stress from today which is still ongoing I'll look for a compensation once both phones are working at the very least. Then I'm hoping to get both accounts fixed back to normal too. I'll give PM a 2nd chance as I did have the company recommended by a friend and this is an odd error from PM's side.

@Oleg7   Buy online might not be cheaper.  There is a service charge for service like recharge.com

 

I would say, if you want to service restore back quick, get a voucher from SDM/7-11/Shell as their voucher work instantly.  Once your service is back, you can try to discuss if PM willing to compensate a bit for the situation. 

Oleg7
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

I was hoping that they would, but I simply didn't want to take any risks for today. Buying it online instead of driving to the store would have definitely been more convenient and cheaper. This is definitely the worst exprience I ever had with a phone service provider over the years and at the worst possible timing ever too. Still waiting for a proper full resolve.

Oleg7
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

I did get vouchers, I just never heard of the term or used it so I just can't stop seeing them as gift card as they're the same concept. It's a legitimate agent, but being told to go and buy vouchers has definitely surprised me today. So far they had gotten my phone number working, not the account itself with the restrictions. Some inquiries will be made for my mothers phone number & account supposedly so I'll have to wait on that.

dabr
Mayor / Maire

@Oleg7    I wonder if PM would accept a voucher from recharge.com which charges a fee but you will get PIN emailed to you (I think as I've not used them).  And PM should reimburse any fee charges considering the error lies on their side.  This whole issue is really unfortunate for the customer and really poor response/resolve, to date, from PM..

Anonymous
Not applicable

 @Oleg7 : To be sure you're working with a customer support agent, it needs to say Customer Support Agent next to CS_Agent.

You mention gift cards. These are not gift cards. They're vouchers. If it's a legit agent and they're saying to go buy gift cards then that's a problem. You need to buy vouchers. I imagine you are in fact buying vouchers but the term is not gift card if that what is what they're saying.

So if the username isn't followed by Customer Support Agent then that might be a scam artist. If you're buying gift cards then that also should not be.

Oleg7
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

@J_PM 

The conversation with customer support so far has been useless and this is starting to feel like a scam at this point. Someone gets a credit card charge they don't recognise and cancels their credit card. Then PM cancels their service with no warning. Then the solution PM offers to restore service is to go to a store, buy gift cards and text or email the PIN codes from the gift cards to someone? This is exactly how many scams run, convincing you that there's been a financial error and the fix is to buy gift cards and send the PIN to the scammers. Obviously, I understand that PM isn't a scammer and these gift cards are legitimately paying the account, but honestly, the optics are really bad. The news is constantly filled with people losing money to gift card scams, YouTube is full of videos of people revealing how the scams work... This just has the look and feel of people being scammed out of their money while desperate for phone service. 

Oleg7
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

"Hi Oleg,

 

******s phone should be working - able to make and receive calls - correct? It's just the self-serve or *611 that's not working, right?

So no voucher is necessary for her account at this point. 

Please ask her to restart her phone and test the service, and let me know if it works.  

 

The voucher received here will be used to restore your service within the next 24 hours. 

 

I'll be waiting for your reply.

 

Kind regards"

 

Nothing has been fixed so far and another $40 down the drain what it seems if I don't count the gas & time, this is starting to seem like a dead end support wise. I didn't expect a company to have so little options when it comes to support. I agree with you although, having the problem solved first would be nice although...

Anonymous
Not applicable

 @Oleg7 : Seeing as how it would seem @J_PM isn't short-cutting anything for you, you should be asking for some compensation for your time and stress. I hate the compensation route because it gets the company off the hook for something that should not happen. At all. But they should also feel some "pain".

 

I wonder where the CSA's are physically. Philippines? Toronto? Pretty sure Jade is in Toronto.

Oleg7
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

Just sent one code and currently waiting at the Wal-Mart parking lot to see how things go. I need this taken care of ASAP...

Anonymous
Not applicable

 @J_PM : Can you get this customer going without jumping through these ridiculous hoops? This was not his fault. And you've known this problem for a few weeks now. Just fix it. You're losing customers. Is that your intention?

Or have a big giant red pop up at activation payment saying "Warning! The charge may be from KOODO REAPPROV. Please don't be alarmed."

@Oleg7 

 

Thank you for bringing this to Community. We'll escalate your situation to see what's going on.

 

Kindly, 

Jade  

Anonymous
Not applicable

 @Oleg7 : If we ever hear from @J_PM or you do ...but yes that seems to be the SOP. You could also go to recharge.com and buy sufficient value of vouchers and send them the PIN code or whatever they call. It's marginally more expensive. Again, you should not be having to do this. It's terrible treatment to do to customers.

 

Edit: How about @Melinda_H too.

And send them in a reply in private message if that wasn't obvious.

Oleg7
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

So I'm supposed to get two PublicMobile gift cards & send them to to customer support? Guess we're heading off to the store, this will be a troublesome day.

Anonymous
Not applicable

 @J_PM : Stop this! This customer should not be getting the run-around when it is all not their fault.

@Oleg7   I think in this particular case for reactivating, you need to reply the message with the 12 digit pins and PM support will manually apply it for you and reactivate your account

 

For future, it would be via *611 and you can do all yourself.

 

Again, i hope Jade could step in and work out a better solution for you.  Again, it is a bit unfair in this case as you are new and not aware of the Koodo - PM relationship.  

Oleg7
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

"Thank you for the reply. 

 

I'll attach a picture with voucher locations in a separate message. 

For this time we need the voucher 12 digits pin for the $39.55 owed on your account to restore service. For future plan renewals on both accounts you can make payments with a voucher by calling *611 from the respective phone, and follow the prompts(to make a payment using a voucher press 1, etc.)

 

I'll be waiting for your reply."

 

*611 doesn't work on either phones and I don't understand why are we supposed to drive to a store and buy gift cards? Complete nonsense so far but me & my mother just want to solve this and leave PublicMobile with our phone numbers at the very least, which we've both had for nearly 15 years. 

softech
Oracle
Oracle

number 6 but I was never aware of the tough term of the 1 year restrictions.  

 

I am pretty sure Community Manager Jade will come to the recuse and this will end happily  🙂

Anonymous
Not applicable

 @Oleg7 : You're number 6 if I remember right. There could be more that we don't know about because maybe they don't come here. Maybe they walk away in disgust. Who knows. It has been a terrible idea for the company to use a payment system that is tagged as being Koodo but using it for Public Mobile charges. Terrible. For this reason.

@J_PM   can you assist @Oleg7   

 

OP is totally innocent from what I see.  Not everyone is like some of us ( 🙂 )  who stays on the Community 24/7 and understand Telus owns both Koodo and PM.  The restriction is unfair. Many subscribers are unaware of the relationship and I think it is absolutely normal for some subscribers to stop the charge thinking it was wrong (also, some might through PM will also charge afterward and hence a Koodo charge could be duplicated)

 

thanks again for you kind attention and I hope this could resolved happily and @Oleg7  can start enjoy the beautiful service again soon  🙂

Oleg7
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

Sounds like this has been an issue that has bothered a lot of people so far. 

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