setting up PM account??

[keyhawk22]

Hey I am setting up a new PM account for my daughter. Thought it would be easy..but does not seem so. We have the unlocked phone..the new public mobile sim and a PM prepaid $20 with PIN to get her started. She only needs the $15 plan which is perfect for her. I was told at the store kiosk that no credit cards were needed. Shes going to school and does not have a credit card. The guy at London Drugs said you can buy as many top up cards as you want..he activated the $20 one right away and sold me the sim card. He said to go home and set up account online(he couldnt do it in store). Sim activation and personal info setup was at first straight forward until you get to payment.. no place to add the $20 prepaid voucher!?..only credit cards which we were told you didnt need? Also you can not actually go into your account settings at this point where we have just set everything up with sim and all personal info in first three steps..not until payment is made..really? I am hoping we have done something wrong..the guy sold us on PM and that it needed no credit cards , just the sim card and prepaid vouchers?! Was he wrong?Please help, thx. Paul

[darlicious]

@J_PM 

Is this public mobile's objective with this ridiculous requirement to have a credit card in order to activate an account and an inability to easily remove it? It's a discriminatory practice and now you can see what it does to public mobile's reputation and it's perception in the eyes of a consumer. This will be the first of many lost potential customers even one who's already paid for a voucher and a SIM card. It's pretty terrible when chatr has a better reputation now than public mobile! Is this what Mr Darren Entwistle and telus wanted to achieve with this unfathomably short-sighted and just plain old stupid policy?!!

@keyhawk22 

Frankly, I'm embarrassed by the policy myself and your honest opinion of what you think it makes Public Mobile look like is refreshing. I don't recommend chatr but good luck!

[keyhawk22]

Thanks for all the helpful solutions by everyone. Yes London Drugs sold us the sim and the voucher. We have decided to go with Chatr instead. Honestly wnen researching  I realized Public Mobile has no actual Customer support phone contact and only virtual chat suggestions and this community support member forum. Helpful indeed I found out(quick feedback from all of you!) but a bit concerning when one has to provide credit card up front and then can only edit but not remove it from account settings without having to create a ticket of some sort and submit it to whom??! If one can not delete credit card in account settings easily thats a big red flag for me and sounds just a bit sketchy actually! Thats when I said no way and decided to go with a more reputable company. But thanks to this community support anyway..you have been great..cheers!

[darlicious]

@keyhawk22 

London drugs sold you a sim card? Well that was lucky I suppose? Public Mobile apparently removed all retail sales of public Mobile SIM cards except for Telus and Koodo corporate stores. Or online from public mobile. So I am surprised that you managed to get a SIM card from London drugs obviously that London drugs didn't get the memo so they also wouldn't know that you cannot activate with a voucher anymore either.

You can set up the account using your credit card and then contact customer support to remove the credit card or replace it with a no balance credit gift card. If you need one of those I can give you the information because I have many that I can give the details from and then your daughter can just purchase vouchers to pay for her plan. Just send me a private message if you need one.

Make sure you use a referral code so that she benefits from the additional $25 ($5×5 months) credit along with the regular $10 bonus referral credit. If you don't have a referral code of your own to use you may message any community member you like and ask them for their referral code through private messages. It can also be entered by a customer support agent after you have activated if that is necessary.

Tell your daughter "Welcome to public mobile" from us.

[Outdoorsman]

@keyhawk22 hi yes is was wrong recently  they made changes and you can no longer use a voucher for activations you will need to use your cc for that, the vouchers you can use to pay for the following months,also when setting up the account I found out last week that you must ust the same name as is on your cc in order to get past the payment part of your activation,if you like you can change to her name afterword in the profile section of her account

[Timer]

@keyhawk22 

if like you to use your credit card to activations,

or you can purchase vanilla prepaid, visa credit card to activations,,,go to any Stations or Shell to purchase

for vouchers after activations line 

then add to your account by call *611

once connected press (1) then (1) again and enter the 12 digit PIN #,

or use browser from computer,and clear cache and cookies and use one page inPrivate mode,

To Login Page

and go to payment,,, to add vouchers.

to use for next cycle.

[dust2dust]

Yes unfortunately for some inexplicable reason they removed the voucher option for sign up in the recent system updates.

You were unfortunately misinformed.

So use your credit card to sign up and then if you have empty credit card gift cards handy then you can put those on after and then you can use all the vouchers you want.

[HALIMACS]

@keyhawk22 

Try dialing *611 from your device and add the payment voucher using that option.

EDIT:  i may have misunderstood... seems the activation WASN'T completed at the merchant.   I thought I read that they activated the service.    Please follow @esjliv  & @dust2dust info.

[esjliv · Accepted solution]

@keyhawk22 unfortunately the recent changes do not allow activations via vouchers.

But there is a workaround that you should be able to do.  Contact Public Mobile Representatives (CSA) to help them activate the SIM card for your and apply the voucher payment, by submitting a message(ticket) to them here: 

Private Message to Public Mobile Customer Support Agents (CSA)