3 is the cheapest, but is it best

muhammadfaiz

hello mate u know any cheaper pay as you go mobiles phones.
plz let me know.
many thanx 4 ur co opration.
bye

jamesbrownontheroad

Finally out of an 18 month contract with 3. Took 2 hours on the phone to get a PAC to transfer my number out, but am finally free. Have been called repeatedly by 3 Customer Services with last chance offers to keep me: £10/m for 600 mins and 1000 texts plus a new phone. Guess it tells you how much I hate this useless network that even that can't tempt me.

TheHippo

leejo wrote: »

I agree with treb1971
this can damage your credit rating

I finally phoned Ofcom and got a reference no . Ofcom tel no 0207981 3040
Armed with this I phoned the 3 office in this country and spoke to a lovely man who made sure that my contract was cancelled.

He also assured me that there would be an internal enquiry into the 'hard sell' calls as he agreed being on the phone for nearly an hour was intolerable.

If their customer service was as excellent as this, there would be no trouble, however the whole experience was just so infuriating and upsetting.

There is no way I would wish to voluntarily go through that again so
I will never, ever have a contract with them again.

I have spoken to 3 customer services a number of times in the past 12 months. Some of these calls were untollerable, ignoring my requests and going for sales when I'm not interested. When this happens, I tell them to forget it and hang up.

Some of the staff there are very friendly and listen to what you have to say, these are the people you need to speak to. So if I don't get them first time round, I ring again.

It might cost a bit more on the phone bill, and might take a little more time, but it really is worth speaking to someone who is willing to listen and do what I want, rather than try and sell to get commision, no matter how much I'm not interested.

Dreamnine

In the end I just told 3 to f*** off- both the staff in the shop and the halfwits in Bangalore. Let them sue me. Life is too short for such hassles.

Ibizavic

Ive been with 3 since Dec 2005 and up until July 2007 I had never had any problems with them. I get very good signal where i live in Cambridge which is a bonus after reading some of the posts on here!

July 2007 I was about 9 months into an 18 month upgrade with a Nokia N73 which was a great phone until it started switching the camera on when I was trying to write a text and doing various other silly things so I contacted 3 customer services (who disgust, annoy and p**s me off more than any other company's customer service ever have!) to see if they could help. I was told they would look at the phone to see if it could be repaired.
First it took them 3 attempts to arrange a courier to collect the phone, then when they finally did and it came back they said they couldnt fix it as it had been dropped (I can assure you it hadn't, I'm very careful).

So as I was stuck with no phone, and 3 being 3 you cant use your sim in a non-3 phone, I had to get another one. After a 2 1/2 hour argument with there Indian call centre the best phone they could offer me was a Sony Ericsson K something or other which was refurbished and absolutely nothing like the spec of the Nokia, and wanted me to pay £50 for the priveledge, I managed to knock that down to £35 so for 9 months I had a crap phone and was left stewing.

Stupidly in the beginning of April 08 i upgraded and changed my contract and got the LG Viewty as a free upgrade after I threatened to leave (which i now wish i had!) as it was a 12 month contract and the deal was pretty good.
I have called them today to enquire about an upgrade just to see if they can offer me anything different and have been told that as my contract started in June 08 I'm not eligible to cancel until the beginning of June and upgrade until the end of Feb, which seems weird as on their website it says you can upgrade 2 months before the contract ends.
After trying to converse with someone who couldn't understand what i was saying and vice-versa, I went away and checked my bills as I didn't believe what they said that it was June 08 as I know i got my new mobile in early April.
I've checked the bill dates and the billing for the new tariff started on the 23rd April yet they are saying this started in June. I do not understand how they have added 2 months onto a contract without me knowing!?

Needless to say, i will be calling them to inform them of this tomorrow and then seeing what my options are. I like the fact that I get a few extras like £5 free downloads, mms messages etc and that I get a good signal here but their customer services are so so dire I may just go to T-mobile and call it a day with 3.

nikzGfx

Three do take the !!!! at times! Upgraded contract last month, was agreed that I would get for £16, Mix and Match 700, plus for FREE, the add on with unlimited landline calls, for 12 months on a sim only as was keeping handset. 1st bill came a few days ago, to realise they had charged me £26! In my price plan on the bill the inclusive unlimted was listed as part of the £16 mix and match offer, but somehow with that being there they also added the inclusive landline add on and charged me £10 for it! Very silly to give me free inclusive minutes already and then charge me for the same add on as an extra!!

1st call to sort this out, guy said he will check my bill which will take a couple of minutes and that I should hold, 20 minutes later I was cut off to the customer survey, press 1 if you think your query was sorted etc! Fuming!!! Called back 2nd time, and I was fuming at them, was transferred to another department and after slowly explaining to them what they had done, another 10 minutes hold it was sorted, the lady even had the cheek of offering to upgrade me tariff to something that costs more!

Will await next bill to see if they have credited me again. Being an Indian myself these Indian call centre staff are useless at most times, and they know that my name is Indian and ask me various questions like where are your parents from, etc etc. Funny lol!

Gynd05

Handset: Sony Ericsoon C902

Most commonly used location: Sheffield

Ease and reliability and connection: Very poor reception and can never get on the interent

Any other problems: Many all listed below!

Overall service and rating (out of 10): 1


I HATE 3! They are the worse company that I have ever had the experience of dealing with, their customer service is shocking, as is their phone service. All their call centre staff are in India and they never understand what you are trying to tell them. I have been with the 3 for 20 months now and I am so frustrated that i have sent them a letter of complaint. I refuse to pay any more money for their poor service as none of their customer services reps seem to give a damn. Here is the letter which outlines the main issues I've had with them:

In November-December 2007 you billed me incorrectly. I should have had 12 months half price line rental but you thought I had just 6 so I was over charged. After I had called to make you aware of this, you continued to bill me incorrectly for the next 3 months. I rang up and spoke to your customer services several times to try and rectify this but incorrect bills were still sent.

I have always had a problem with my reception since I joined 3; I have never been able to get a reception downstairs in my house, even though my three housemates on O2 can get a signal fine. However, I have been able to get a reception upstairs in my attic bedroom. When my first 18 month contract was coming to an end in November 2008 I rang up to say that I was leaving three, the main issue being the bad reception. However, the woman I spoke to assured me that the reception would improve with my new phone (Sony Ericsson C902) and offered me a new deal, which I accepted. She also said that if the reception wasn’t any better then I would be able to send the phone back and cancel the contract; as there is a 14 day period where a customer can change their mind. [/font]

When I received my new phone and turned it on I realised that the reception had actually worsened. I could only get one bar in the attic and still couldn’t get a reception downstairs. So I switched the phone off and called 3 from my old mobile, explaining that the reception had worsened and that I was going to send the phone back and cancel the contract. Your customer services representative proceeded to tell me that I could not send the phone back now as I had ‘used it’. I explained that all I had done was turn it on but she said that turning it on constituted using it. She also said I couldn’t cancel my contract because I’d used the phone. After a heated argument with her I hung up. She was incredibly rude and unsympathetic and left me with an even worse opinion of three. Now every time I want to ring someone I have to go into the settings and select a different mobile network just so I can get 2 or 3 bars to make a phone call. I can’t get one at work so basically the phone and contract is becoming rather useless as I can’t use the phone when I would like.

Another problem I have is with text messages; whenever somebody sends me a text that is two or three texts joint together I only receive the last part of the text. The first part never comes through. This has been a problem for about 4 to 5 months. Again when I rung up to cancel my contract in November 08 the woman assured me that the problem was probably due to the fact that I had an old phone and that it would resolve itself when I received my new phone. It has not resolved itself and every time a friend sends me a joint up text I only get the last part.

I went into a 3 store in Sheffield last Saturday (17 January 2009) to discuss this problem and the assistant said the problem may be due to my SIM card, as he had heard of this problem before being caused by a dodgy SIM card. However, when I rung your call centre on the evening of Wednesday 21 January 2009 to discuss the problem, customer services told me that it was because the people that had texted me were on O2 and that there was a problem with O2 and their message centre. Which is strange because I have other friends that aren’t on O2, and when they receive long texts from people on O2 they come through fine. So if O2 is an issue there is obviously some problem between O2 and three that needs sorting out. I told the rep that I thought it may be the SIM card and he agreed to send me a new SIM card out, saying that it would take 3 working days to arrive (so I would assume Monday)

[On Friday night (23 January 2009) around 9pm my SIM suddenly became inactive. When I called from our landline to find out why I was told it was because I had ordered a new one and as soon as they send the new one out the other one becomes inactive. Where is the logic in this? I am now without the use of a mobile phone until at least Monday night (it has not arrived today, unsurprisingly.) This is simply not acceptable to make me go without the use of a phone for the whole weekend and maybe even longer, who knows if it will turn up on Monday. Even if it does I will not get home til the evening so it’s another full day without a phone. Nobody told me this was going to happen which means I have not been prepared therefore people will be trying to get in touch with me and won’t know why they can’t get through or why their texts are being ignored which may cause panic. In addition I will be going out several times on my own this weekend, what if something were to happen to me? I have no means of contacting anyone. In this day and age people rely on their mobile phones and therefore I should have been warned that I was going to lose the use of mine for several days. I understand that you can’t have two SIM cards running on the same number, however, surely the logical process would be me to ring and confirm I have received my new SIM card and swap over the activation at that point. It is unfair to expect your customers to go without a phone for three days

When I rung up to complain last night (Friday 23 Jan 09) the rep was not very sympathetic and only offered me a £5 reduction in my bill. Considering the amount of problems I have had with three, I think I deserve a fair amount in compensation. I have already told every person possible how poor your company is at everything from customer services to phone reception to billing. I do not intend to pay any further bills

[After they received the letter and email they got people from their Indian Call Centre to call and leave messages. I refuse to talk to someone who doesn't understand the issues. Now they have got somebody to send an email back who is clearly not British as the English is appaling. Why don't they take their customers seriously?!

Let this be a warning to anyone considering joining 3, don't do it! They may be the cheapest but you will drive you mental!

thefraudster

I have been on 3 for around 3/4 years, i went to Turkey in May 08 and was there for 2 months.....my direct debit stopped coming out my bank and i didnt know as i was not using the account.

I cam back to find i have an outstadng amount of £347....i called to pay this and told my account was cut off and i could get it put back on, and i had lost my number.

The number i have had for 10 + years!!!!

Is there anyway of getting this back, i have refused to clear the account balance unless my number is reinstated on an account or pay as you go sim card for me to take elsewhere.

EMS77_2

I hate 3. Now I have no problem with their network coverage, where I am its pretty good but their customer service is terrible. I have just tried ringing up to see if I can get my price plan reduced only to be told that I am on the lowest plan yet when I look on their website I see a cheaper one. then I try and take of my Video calling minutes as I have never used them and get told no I have signed a 18 month contract for them. Maybe I am being a bit dumb but I thought I signed an 18 month contract for the line rental not for add ons such as the Video calling minutes. If this is the case why was I not told/or shown that I would be stuck with them for 18 months when I originally took the phone out?! I have paid £9 a month for something that I have never used, over 18 months thats £162 going to 3 for nothing. Anyway I now have 6 months left on my contract and there is no way I am staying on a contract with 3 when its up.

treb1971

The 'video minutes' is (in my opinion) their way of clawing back the cost of the phone. If you were planning to cancel this service during the 18 months, you should have checked that this was possible before taking out the contract.
I'm paying for 20 video minutes per month which I've never used, but it got me the phone I wanted.
Three are the worst network I've ever been with, though.