Public Mobile Reviews 

I wish I had. Ever moved from telus to public mobile. Lack of coverage in the US and zip as support is very frustrating. Don’t use Public mobile unless you want zero coverage. Unfortunately probably back to telus

This company is a nightmare to navigate. It would take me a whole day to explain the hell that I have been going through with them since I lost my phone toward the end of the month of November 2022.

They have a system where they have to decide if you are worth giving an opportunity to chat with them. On two occasions, I was advised to be ready. Just like a gas company, they give you a window for when they will get in touch. I waited online and heard nothing from them. They have this email they love sending out to let you know, "OH WELL, YOU MISSED THE OPPORTUNITY WE GAVE YOU, GOOD LUCK NEXT TIME." I paraphrased, of course, but that was the gist of it.

Mind you, I never expected this lack of customer service at all in this day and age with so many competitors out there. It was only after I lost my phone that I realized there was no service whatsoever. In my search for help, I was led to their community board. By the way, you must start the registration process all over again to access their community board. The one you used to log into your account with them, does not count.

Once you get to the board, you are at the mercy of a bunch of eager beavers who are willing to write anything just so that they can appear to have contributed. This is because their community is a rewarding system meant for people who have nothing to do.

I thank God that I did not have my bank account attached to my phone. Can you imagine one of those Gen Z with their whole life on their phone?

I would still forgive them for the lack of customer service if they made an effort to offer real assistance to those who lose their cell phones. After all, it is an emergency situation where real help is needed.

Four months after I lost my phone, I am still not set up properly. My son spent 4 hours trying to help me when he realized I was not getting anywhere with the cell company. I could not receive or send texts even with a new SIM card. My son ended up setting me up with this public app called "SIGNAL." To this day, I am still using Signal, not the service I am paying for.

When it comes to receiving phone calls, they are not getting through properly. My family members are telling me that they are experiencing issues when they try to call me. Apparently, there is a message sometimes that tells my callers that this line is private. I have no idea what that means. I cannot count on my phone if I am stranded.

Anyway, after much frustration that led to insomnia and tears, I got a communication from a staff member, not from the eager beaver community nuts. Finally, I was hoping I could get help. In written communication, the idiot who contacted me stated that I should be prepared to provide proof that I am not in fact receiving my calls. This is due to their claim that their network demonstrated that everything was fine. They made me feel like I was making my problems up.

Needless to say, I did not get back to these "not-so-sharp" people. What is the point when their mind was made up?

Even today, we are in March 2023, and these witless people still do not realize that even my texts are not going through their networks.

I suspect one of the reasons the person who took my phone was able to do so much damage is that Public Mobile runs on the Telus network, and this man got his own cell phone from Telus directly. I got a lot of information on what he was doing with my cell phone through my account with Public Mobile. Although the phone was destroyed, he was using the SIM card and all my calls were being answered by him. In fact, I called my own cell phone two days after the fact, and he was answering my line. I asked him to return the phone to me, and he did. But even though he returned the phone, I purchased a new SIM card while using a new phone, the fraudster was still getting my call. Even resetting the call forward did not help.

My daughter-in-law had a similar problem with Public Mobile a few years ago. She could not receive her texts properly. So, my son set her up with the app signal as well. However, from this experience, my son felt it would be a moronic choice to join a company like Public Mobile since his whole life is on his cell phone.

This past holiday, Public Mobile offered me extra data, but I did not even bother to take it because of the pain and frustrations they put me through.

So I am at this point looking for a new company to deal with because this cell phone company is hazardous to your health. Just like my son said if you were born before the 1990s, stay away from Public Mobile.

I have had someone who was in the hospital in a coma and eventually died. Plus, I had to keep traveling back and forth between Quebec and Ontario to be with this family member. She is now gone, and I can finally say that things have settled down. So, I can start looking for a different company.

The nightmare is still so vivid. Most of the time, I travel without my phone.
Thanks for the opportunity guys. :)

I tried calling and there is no one to speak to. I have 3 kids under my plan, 1 of my kids is overseas for the next 6 months and I am unable to adjust the plan as I do not have access to her account and she does not have access to her account and no customer service rep to speak to at PM. There should be no issue with my account as I am doing pre-authorized payments. It is useless to try speaking to Simon. If you travel overseas, do not use this service provider. Incase of an emergency, there is no help.

I have been with public for years, accumulating hundreds of dollars in saving against comparable plans with other providers. I have not needed any technical support in these years and one does not need to be tech savvy to join public.

I understand (from other reviews) that customer service is poor, granted but do the other providers have good support? Not in my experience.. so save your money an go with public.

Cant use 1 account and share different plans with my family. AVOID. THE CUSTOMER SERVICE IS TRASH.

I just referral a friend to Public Mobile. I did everything to transfer her number from Fido to Public and put the referral code. But now Public said she didn't use the code and...

The referral scheme just a scam. Shame on Public👎👎👎

this is absolutely tghe worst network in the world. i didnt enable the automatic payment but when I try to reactivate my account nothing is working. Public mobileis the worst network in Canada. I wish I could have given 0 star intead of 1. Even Zero star is toio good for you

No customer service. Add ons don’t work.

Ordered SIM (actually came out as 2 - whether my mistake or systems). After over a month never received it. No support without activated account (SIM). Posted on two of the company's Facebook pages.
If this difficult before service, one can only imagine the quality of service if needed once activate.
Two thumbs down.

Been with them for about 3 years. Really no problems until this last year. What just transpired is atrocious. My wife and I have been in the U.S. for the last month. She has an Iphone SE. I have a Iphone 13. Purchased identical us roaming packages with a 15 day duration. The first package worked fine for both phones. When they expired. We repurchased the next day. My wifes works but mine did not. Since I am not retired I need it for work. Contacted public mobile which can only been done by email. Angelo told me Public Mobile does not guarantee roaming. I told him the package just worked. Nothing they can do and no refund. I told him I wanted to communicate with his supervisor. He refused to connect me or refund our money.

Been with them for over 3 years. With my accumulated points my $40/15GB/4G speed plan is down to $32/30 days! Mind-blowingly cheap in comparison to Bell/Rogers. I have never needed customer service so no complaints. Free seasonal giveaways of data and international minutes don't expire either and I haven't used any of them yet. If you like money switch to Public Mobile.

Real question, are these bad reviews fake? $32 versus $100, who can throw away $ like that?

You guys have evolved to, for lack of a better phrase, a company forming core values around the operations of a dog's digestive system, ultimately achieving the result of your service being absolute DOG SH T
I was able to put up with it for a few years leading up to this one but lost me

There were issues with my international minutes. 300 minutes were there, then it said I didn't have time left. Next time I looked they were gone. Couldn't get more minutes, instead went to error page 404. All the 'help', especially from the bot is completely useless. Ultimately got hold of an agent. Extremely cumbersome verification. Only PIN I had didn't match. They asked for 6 pieces of verification on a site I had to verify myself multiple times to get into. The whole thing is absolutely ridiculous. Public Mobile doesn't even issue proper bills.

I want to find out what are roaming charges for Mexico and can’t find the answer and can’t speak to someone. I’m going for 1 week.

Support is absolutely useless. It's garbage. When you try to submit an online ticket through their online AI helper "Simon", you'll get caught in a login loop. The only person you'll ever manage to talk to is a sales person in an online chat trying to sell you the service, but they won't be able to direct you to any meaningful help. After they have your money, if you have an issue, it's go to hell, we don't give a rat's ass about you, talk to the bot, can't login? Too bad, try again X 4000. They ask you for a "community name", but if you can't remember it, you're screwed! It's disrespectful at best. Customer service sucks! I'm hoping once it's set up, it'll be fine, but so far, if I could, I would just ask for my money back. I'm doubtful I'll get it. "Simon", the useless AI piece of garbage, won't give it to me. I can only imagine the combined incompetence it took to make it all happen. The QA team alone would have had the combined skill level of a bag of rocks. User experience is crap. Infuriating. Stay away. It isn't worth the aggravation. All I wanted to do was to ask Public to resend the transfer request to my old cellphone provider, but there was no easy way to do this. Uselessness, giving a link to more uselessness so that you can't even login to the supremely useless is just plain useless. This is time I will never get back. I am forever disappointed. Zero insight went into developing their customer experience and it shows in spades. Whoever developed this experience should be put in jail. Public Mobile, go back to Cellphone Service Provider School!

Please do not waste your money with this company. I was going to switch to this company as they had a Boxing Day deal, but you must first buy a SIM card. I chose to order online, as I was told by an agent that it would take 3-5 business days. They had no shipping estimate on their website. There was no listed end date on the deal, so I was worried the deal would end before my SIM card arrived, but the agent assured me that I would still get the deal if I ordered the SIM card when the deal was active. The confirmation email said 5-10 business days to ship, but I was ok as it would still arrive before my current plan ended at the end of the month. But it never arrived, and there is no tracking for Public SIM orders (which they don’t tell you). Now, I have no service because my plan ended, so I was going to drive a long way to buy a SIM in person so I could have service, but I wanted to return the one I ordered online if it eventually arrived. But in trying to find out if I could return the SIM card (which you can’t) I read that you can only get an offer if you activate your SIM while the offer is active. So basically I was lied to by the agent, and because the SIM has no tracking I had no idea if it would arrive before the offer ended. So I had no service, no SIM card, and would not be able to get the offer. To top it off, if your SIM never even arrives they will not refund you for it. This company is literally a scam, because you can buy a SIM and never receive it with no refund and you will not get the plan that they advertised. Your ability to buy the advertised plan literally depends on the weather conditions, postal company, and if your postal service loses your package or not. Additionally, this company has atrocious customer service so you have no one to contact if you have an issue, or you will have to wait days for a reply from an agent who will tell you lies and end up screwing you over like the agent I talked to. So please, please, do not buy a SIM card online because if they say it takes 2 business days to ship like the website does now they are LYING.

If there is such thing as 0.1 star, i would even consider ten times before awarding it to public mobile.

just like some of the reviews here, paid for the sim card, everything else have to do online. and to raise a ticket, you have to create a separate community account.

autodebit is automatically checked for you, so do avoid this pitfall. Go for chatr, they dont do autodebit automatically. bettter private than public!

I have been using Public Mobile for 2 years now and enjoy the service. Usually during the Christmas Season, Public gives out free data and long distance minutes.

This the worst carrier for customer service. You dont have access to agent to help after all the layers of chatbots, and the account number (for purpose of porting your number to another carrier) has been changing with no way to get access to it.

It's a nightmare
Honestly all cell phone industry is bad and characterized by huge lack of transparency, but this one is the worst (even worse than freedom)

1. The company has no customer service
2. There are often great prices and promos in their website HOWEVER they make you buy a SIM card first and ONLY AFTER purchasing it they tell you that the plan pricing is based on when you activate the SIM card and not when you buy it.
I saw a plan on their website $35 for 20 GB. Bought the SIM card and am now unable to get the plan pricing advertised. This is really misleading.
3. The company won't honor the offer and told me to refer to the terms and conditions. Stay away from this misleading company!!