3 is the cheapest, but is it best

TJK_4

Hi

I have had a 12 month phone contract with 3 via a company 'mobile solutions' (https://www.the mobs.com) since March 2006. The contract involved a refund for my monthly payments by sending in vouchers at months 6 and 12 (an offer available from many companies). However, I have just discovered that 'mobile solutions' has gone bust and I can not get my money back. I've been in contact with 3 who have confirmed that the company is no longer operating but do not want anything else to do with it or the fact that I have lost money. In the meantime they still won't cancel my 12-month contract with them. Has anyone else experienced these problems? I've found a link on moneysupermarket.com with some similiarly unsatisfied people!! http://forum.moneysupermarket.com/forums/1/7890/ShowThread.aspx

Sui_Generis

The cashback agreement is with the company not with Three so they aren't obliged to honour anything. This is always the problem with cashback - I've been lucky but then I've stuck to the bigger companies.

There simply aren't any worth having around at the moment.

dollywackett

shinypennies86 wrote:

3 aren't a network in their own right, they actually 'piggyback' on O2 (due to switch to Orange in the near future).

This is why their signal is so poor - although they piggyback on O2 they only use a percentage of O2 base stations. Also, 3 customers may find at busy periods they are unable ot make calls. This is because at periods of high volume calls, O2 customers obviously get priority (basically 3 customers get lobbed off the base station)

This is quite simply untrue. Mobile phones in the UK work on 3 frequencies, 900MHz (O2 and Vodafone) 1800MHz(T Mobile and Orange) 3G phones work on UMTS 2100MHz. Thus, Three relies on its own network of cell sites for 3G coverage, but its handsets are designed to roam, currently onto O2, when no 3G signal is available. This transfer is usually seamless, although some handsets allow manual selection of non home networks, (useful when roaming abroad).

The whole point of using O2 as a roaming partner is that they have twice the bandwidth of the 1800MHz networks, although Virgin Mobile, a virtual provider with no network of it's own, uses spare T Mobile capacity.

Many other virtual providers use O2 networks, including Fresh and Tesco, whilst BT Mobile piggybacks on Vodafone.

dollywackett

shinypennies86 wrote:

3 aren't a network in their own right, they actually 'piggyback' on O2 (due to switch to Orange in the near future).

This is why their signal is so poor - although they piggyback on O2 they only use a percentage of O2 base stations. Also, 3 customers may find at busy periods they are unable ot make calls. This is because at periods of high volume calls, O2 customers obviously get priority (basically 3 customers get lobbed off the base station)

This is quite simply untrue. Mobile phones in the UK work on 3 frequencies, 900MHz (O2 and Vodafone) 1800MHz(T Mobile and Orange) 3G phones work on UMTS 2100MHz. Thus, Three relies on its own network of cell sites for 3G coverage, but its handsets are designed to roam, currently onto O2, when no 3G signal is available. This transfer is usually seamless, although some handsets allow manual selection of non home networks, (useful when roaming abroad).

The whole point of using O2 as a roaming partner is that they have twice the bandwidth of the 1800MHz networks, although Virgin Mobile, a virtual provider with no network of it's own, uses spare T Mobile capacity.

Many other virtual providers use O2 networks, including Fresh and Tesco, whilst BT Mobile piggybacks on Vodafone.

Golfpro_2

you_llneverwalkalone wrote:

I have been with Three for the past twelve months and my 2 contracts with them is going expire soon.
I contacted CS to ask what they would be willing to offer and the reply was poor to say the least as there is better offers elsewhere via the cashback route (i know some people have had trouble getting their cashback but i,ve been lucky up to now).
I therefore asked for my PAC,s and the very nice lady did,nt seem to care that i would be leaving Three.
My question to you (finally) is do you think i should contact them again to ask for another deal or should i call their bluff and wait to see if they contact me or then again just leave Three all together???

Thanks in advance for your help.

By the way MERRY XMAS and HAPPY NEW YEAR to all...

Just a quickie! I`m an old hand at Cashbacks , have done them for a 3 years with 3.
During the 12 month of contact the bil usually comes out mid month as usual saying that you have paid in advance for your talk and text 600 say! Well the retentions ring you early in month and offer you 100 mins and 100 texts free for 12 months no tie in as long as you dont cancel number at end of contract.
I said no immediately as I need to port numbers out to a better deal but one of my three lines i have with them is a spare so i thought about it and it seemed an easy way to get a 100 mins spare phone in the glove box!
I went through it with them when they rang me back and thinking i was already well into the 12 month and thus no probs with getting my bill for cashback redemption i said ok on the proviso it was at the end of my contract. YES said my charming foreign friend at the swealtering hot call center.
Within 2 days i had a bill , in fact 3 seperate bills. As usual i open them expecting to see talk and text 600 on each for my redemption and guess what....one of them says talk and text 200 , the new deal.
I tried every trick in the book to get them to put it back as i would now loose about 130 quid cashback. No joy ! I was on that phone talking to idiots for a week about ten lengthy calls in total. After they dragged it out it meant i was out of billing date to get ,my bill corrected whilst showing the correct bill date to match existing cashback bills. So I had to take it on chin as it was poiintless loosing the deal if it would be to no avail. I tried County court summons threat, the nicey nicey, the my office has 15 seperate phones in addition to my 3 seperate lines i held with them...I`ll cancel them all etc etc nout worked. its a well timed con as it seems Mobile rainbow now wait until they get the kickback off Three to pay out anyway so they are vetting the claims really well nowadays...prob why its taking three months to get money out of them. At least i didnt change all three lines eh!
They will lie through there backsides as they did the same con on friend i had warned . He set up a conference call and half way through the guy from three said it will not go through untill end of contract 12 months. I came on phone and said thats strange thats what you said to me. he rang off and guess what after the bill came through correctly for colleague he was not bothered by them for the last 2 weeks of month. AMAZING!!

Having said that these cashback deals, as long as its with someone who`s likely to be in busness still when you claim are fantastic value so it kinda makes putting up with network prat`s a minor inconvenience!
I am so tight on money wasting usually it happens to the best of us. Felt gutted at being had over more so than the Money loss!
You`ve been warned. If they call tell them to ring you on the 1 st day after contract finishes and you`ll be glad to. They are doing it to save them paying kickbacks to likes of Mobile rainbow it would seem.

System

dollywackett wrote:

This is quite simply untrue. Mobile phones in the UK work on 3 frequencies, 900MHz (O2 and Vodafone) 1800MHz(T Mobile and Orange) 3G phones work on UMTS 2100MHz. Thus, Three relies on its own network of cell sites for 3G coverage, but its handsets are designed to roam, currently onto O2, when no 3G signal is available. This transfer is usually seamless, although some handsets allow manual selection of non home networks, (useful when roaming abroad).

The whole point of using O2 as a roaming partner is that they have twice the bandwidth of the 1800MHz networks, although Virgin Mobile, a virtual provider with no network of it's own, uses spare T Mobile capacity.

Many other virtual providers use O2 networks, including Fresh and Tesco, whilst BT Mobile piggybacks on Vodafone.

You both partly correct!

There are 3 frequency bands in use in the UK - 900/1800/2100 mHz.
All 5 networks have 3G (2100) coverage.
Orange & T-Mobile use 1800 for their non-3G.
Vodafone and O2 use 900 for their non-3G, but also have 1800 coverage in areas of high usage.

Three uses its own 3G network, but customers roam on to Orange's 2G network when there is no coverage. It used O2 previously for its 2G network coverage. Networks are normally set to give priority to their own customers, over roamers on their network, when busy

Lady_K

Contract ends on 25th Feb I havent rang to cancel yet should I have done? I want to ask for pac code so that its dealt wth by the retentions dept to get a good deal if I can

I have read that sometimes they offer new contacts without the phone so its cheaper but I have the NOKIA 6280 and yes the build is very bad I'm quite disgusted with NOKIA for that. Its VERY flimsy and mine has fallen to pieces more times than I can remember. The battery barely gets through one day so these new contracts without a phone would be difficult for me as its not going to last out another year ts struggled for 1 year.

What should I do about cancelling the present contract and should they give me the pac code now?

yabbas

They provide the best free tarrifs. But after screwing me, my brother and father about - never, ever again!

My gripe was with their shoddy international call rates. I was stung with calls that were charged on a per minute basis when making them, and a per second basis when receiving them. This (at the time) wasn't stated on their website and I wasn't made aware of the per minute call charges. I'd made a number of 3 second calls (things like "call me" *hang up*) which were billed at extortionate rates of 1.80GBP! Askign them to levy the costs made me jump through hoops over and over again.

Eventually threatened them with leaving my contract. Only then did they forward me to the relevant person who offered some small allowance - which - as stated before - is in the form of useless credit on the account!


Indian Call Centre nightmare as well - everything is to their favour, and nothing can be done to remedy any problems.

Phones consume too much battery power and don't have anywhere near as much talktime as others.

Never again.

gromituk

Lady_K wrote:

The battery barely gets through one day

Have you switched it off and on again? This can fix that problem. It did for me when my battery life suddenly dropped to a few hours. Meanwhile I had arranged to get the firmware upgraded for free at Carphone Warehouse. This may help, too.

Perhaps I treat my 6280 with too much respect, but it's never fallen apart on me!

gromituk

yabbas wrote:

Phones consume too much battery power and don't have anywhere near as much talktime as others.

Never again.

Sorry - everyone's going to 3G now so you're just going to have to put up with that.