3 is the cheapest, but is it best

MarkLS12

Phil51 wrote: »

BE WARNED THOUGH. The Altrincham 3 shop is still selling 3 services and they are aware that there is no service in Alty

Where in Altrincham are you?
I live in Timperley Village and we have great coverage here.

Phil51

For all 3 of my phones the service ends at the traffic lights near the golf club and starts again at about 200 yards past the Vegetarian Society at Denzil Gardens. There is also no service all along Moss Lane to the Avenue in Sale

caela_2

I had been with 3 mobile ever since they first started to take off and thought I would support them, being the mobile phone under-dog at the time and being so cheap as well! Got a brick of a handset that worked ok, found reception and service was always ok. Not bad so far. Updated phones over time and they became smaller and smaller and now use Sony Ericsson which are the best phones, im my opinion.

However, had some faults with phones and called for 3 to pick up for repair. Fair enough, arranged pick up and delivery of my phone with repair of any factory originated faults for free, but coincidence that nearing the end of my contract no-one turned up to fix my faulty sony ericcson k608i joystick? Hmm... mentioned it to them and they assured me they were not waiting until my contract expired so that they did not have to replace or fix my phone.

Anyway, they seem ok so far, right? Well have you ever had to contact 3? For a telecommunications company they do not want to speak to you. Unless you want to polish up on your Urdu, that is. Outsourced call centres, grr, which would be ok if they actually LISTENED to anything you were saying instead of talking over you and ignoring you. Various small complaints were eventually resolved, but the headache of dealing with call centres and calling a million times to sort anything out can be very annoying. Free calls though, so they're paying for it.

It all came to a head when 3 introduced their administrative fee on non-direct debit payments. I know everyone started doing this but it doesn't make it right and considering I had been with 3 for years up to this point, you think they could have treated me with a little respect. No. I asked them to remove this fee since they could not justify it and had the ordeal of my life. Call centre would not give me a head office number or let me speak to anyone in the UK. They were rude and almost shouting at me. Spoke to everyone up to team leaders and no resolve. Was told various lies about the admin charge, literally "the printer uses a different ink to print the giro slip that comes with your non-dd bill", "it's not a fee, it's a discount for those chosing to pay by dd" (quite clearly labelled as a fee on the bill), etc. with other hilarious excuses that literally had me laughing down the phone at them.

Enraged by this I found the contact details for 3 in the UK using https://www.saynoto0870.com and wrote a letter, contacting ofcom at the same time to let them know what was going on. 3 tried to avoid replying in writing, even writing to me to say they had tried to call to talk about my letter (on a line they had disconnected, duh). I phoned them back and explained I was awaiting their written response and asked why they couldn't have put it in the letter saying they tried to call. Anyway, given a long-winded explanation about the admin fees and I told them to put it in writing at which point I was shouted at by the rudest biatch who works at 3 headquarters (although I was polite, I know I am a biatch too, but she took the buscuit). She did however, under her legal obligation, write back to me, carefully omitting everything she has said in our conversation and completely ignoring my complaint. Anyway, I forwarded this to ofcom and so the saga continued.

3 during this whole time were contacting debt collectors to get the money off me for a few months line rental which I had said I would pay if they removed the admin fees (only £12 but on principle, I wasn't paying). No can do so they were after me with their minions, only failed to tell them that I had logged an official complaint. Anyway, ofcom make the complaints procedure as much of an ordeal, I don't know how much information I had to fill in, granted, they were quite helpful, but just too long! Eventually gave up with them and told one tired debt collector (after several quit the case) that I'd pay minus the admin fees and she agreed (something I had been offering since the outset).

Anyway, I got what I wanted, 3 had to wait nearly a year for their £60 or so line rental and I learnt to never use them again. I would not advise anyone go through the crap I went through with them and just say go with orange, who have been perfectly nice to me so far on my pay monthly sim (no contract).

robt_2

So basically you refuse to pay your bill, they send it to a debt collector? Seems fair enough to me.

I trust Orange also charge a fee for not paying by direct debit? :rolleyes:

catz747

Handset: Skypephone S2

Most commonly used location: Hull

Ease and reliability and connection: So far so good, even on cloudy days, could do with testing it in my office - a blackspot for Orange and others some days.

Any other problems: No but I'm expecting some having read this thread

Overall service and rating (out of 10): 8 (I haven't had to ring them yet)

gromituk

Cloudy days? It's not a satellite phone - the signal doesn't come out of the sky.

catz747

gromituk wrote: »

Cloudy days? It's not a satellite phone - the signal doesn't come out of the sky.

No but my Orange phone seems to suffer on cloudy days dunno why.

Aguilk

Hey guys,

I have a fairly good signal in Preston, not really much to complain about there however here comes my nightmare from 3.

One of the most important things to me in paying for a service is the customer service you receive.

I experienced a problem with 3 just 2 months into my contract, There was a problem at the bank where my DD failed and 3 never chased for payment and the bank never notified me of the failed transaction. a second attempt was made to retrieve the money and this also failed, this time the bank notified me.

I got up to no service at all on my phone the following day as 3 had suspended it following the failed payments, they made no attempt to contact me despite telling me they SENT a text message to me (which was never received) asking me to make the payment.

I emailed 3 that morning to tell them i would be making the payment that day when my husband returned from work. I then received 4 phone calls from them demanding payment, this made me a little mad because they suspended my service with no notice and hadn't even said they had not received the payment, anyway, as i was going round in circles with the girl in india i decided to use their webchat - being 6 months pregnant makes me a bit emotional and its easier to type it then to scream down the phone lol!

Anyway, after 45 mins of typing i was told a 'note' had been made of my complaint, I asked if there was anyone i could contact to discuss my complaint and was told to ring 333 from my mobile and they would discuss it, after another 10 mins or so of explaining that the people in customer service were not customer relations and were not helpful in the slightest i gave up.

After i made the payment i received a text message telling me my DD had failed.... Fat lot of use that was!

1 week later i received a PAPER BILL with an admin charge on it because 3 had cancelled my DD following two attempted to retrieve it and again gave no notice to me that they had done this so had i not jumped on the web chat again to query why my bill was so much higher than usual then i would have thought they were going to take by DD again.

I was advised by 'VALORIN' the same name as last week that because my DD failed i have to pay this charge and the charge was not for the paper that the bill was printed on it was for the charge of processing the transaction - what a load of bull! When i asked him to set the DD up again he told me i had to call 333 again - I have refused to do this following my last experience of being rudely spoken to and made to cry by the evil people with no customer service skills.

I have copied the webchats into an email and forwarded to myself for future reference and will try to get my DD set back up through my3 if they ever let me log in!!!!

So far i have estabilished that my complaint has not been looked into and remains a 'note' on the system, i have given them 5 weeks before i take it to the ombusdman to deal with and asked they do not call me and only contact me by email or post, at least this way i am hoping to keep track of their lies!

Less than 3 months into my contract and I want out, they are by far the worst company I have dealt with, and I have dealt with alot of companies, i cant find anything in the contact that can get me out of it so another 15 months of this bull from them!

Phil51

Aguilk wrote: »

Less than 3 months into my contract and I want out, they are by far the worst company I have dealt with, and I have dealt with alot of companies, i cant find anything in the contact that can get me out of it so another 15 months of this bull from them!

Hi Aguilk

Tell them you have a new job in Altrincham and that you are working there during the week until you moved to your new house and use the info in my post below.

Cheers

bigfoot125

got tis offered now for a nokia e63,75 mins talk,unlimited texts,internet access all for fifteen a month,is this any good