Public Mobile

This company is the worst phone company i have ever dealt with. They sold me a phone which doesn’t receive calls (they go straight to voice-​mail) and text messages get delayed for over 5 hours.
The suggested solution, a 60 $ credit to my account on condition that I buy a new phone.
Nice work Public! What a scam.

I too have been extremely disappointed by Public Mobile. I am not a chronic complainer and am generally pretty laid back, just FYI.
I wanted a no contract plan that allowed me to use the phone on both sides of the border. The ZTE phone the fellow suggested that get is absolute garbage. I hate everything about it. It’s too bad because I have a perfectly good iPhone at home. When I went to buy it I asked them if there was one I could try out first. He said none were powered up. But when I committed to buying he pulled one out and it had a full battery. If I had been able to try it, I wouldn’t have bought it… it’s that bad.
Beyond that, service coverage isn’t what was explained. Large parts of New England are not covered, even parts that Public Mobile explained were. So, the phone really is useless to me much of the time, which is a bad thing for a small business owner on the go.
I’ve had the phone for a month and spent Christmas through New Year’s in Boston. The screen blacked out and while the phone rings, it is not functional. Hadn’t been dropped or anything. So here I am for nearly a month without a phone, which again, as a business owner, is a real handicap. Thankfully I can check the voicemail through another phone.
This service COULD be good in another couple of years, but right now it’s just rubbish. I really do feel like I was oversold an underdeveloped service with an inferior phone. This might work for a high school kid in Montréal, but for a serious professional who needs a reliable phone, I’d recommend looking elsewhere.
UPDATE 12 Jan 2014: I spoke with 2 customer service reps today. It usually takes 20 – 30 mins to get someone to pick up. Anyway, I asked them to delete my credit card info from the automatic billing because I’m no longer interested in the service. The scheduled billing date is 8 days away. They responded with «Sorry, it takes 15 days to cancel a scheduled payment, so you’ll have to wait until next month.» Yeah, right. I told them I’d report the charges as fraudulent with my credit card company, and they did an about face, saying that they’d «make a special exception for me.»
I also asked them to refund the previous month’s charge as the phone wasn’t working during that time. I also wanted to have the $ 20 in my «wallet» refunded, as the phone is broken. They responded «Sorry, we’re a no refund company.» I requested to speak with a manager, they said they’d have him/​her call me back. It’s now evening, I spoke with them at 9am and I’m not getting my hopes up.
One last fun thing: the reps were both nice, and I was also courteous. But after having been on the phone with one rep for an hour and having been promised a call back, she says, I’ll have the supervisor call you on your cell phone.” I was amazed that she still didn’t get that my phone wasn’t working, after having repeated it over and over.
FINAL UPDATE 25 Jan 2014: I never received a call back, as promised. The rep said they were going to give me a free month of service because the phone was out of commission for a month. Well, they have cut my phone service and officially taken me off the map.
My experience is that this company offers an inferior product with substandard customer service. They’ve left a real bad taste in my mouth.