three mobile..........bill increased by 2000%

takethemon

hi. can anyone advise me please.
round about february this year 3 advised me that i would be better off changing my contract on the phone my wife uses as she does not use her minutes,so i changed to 100 minutes any network and 2000 3 to 3. £12 a month. my wifes niece has been very ill' this year more so and she is currently hospitalised awaiting a lung transplant,and my wife has been phoning her sister and been engaged in lengthy conversations with her,resulting in massive monthly bills,as her sister is not on the 3 network,though my wife thought she was. i have never checked our phone bills since going paperless. suffering from depression,i dont check my paperless bank statement either,and i was mortified to find out how much overdrawn i have gone,mainly thanks to the bills from 3.
since february i have had bills of £200 twice,and other bills ranging in price from £85 to £139.
i have contacted their indian call centre and they say the charges stand. i have now to contact the executives office (probably customer services!) in england to try and resolve this matter,but before i do i would be very grateful for whatever advice anyone could offer.
have 3 no systems in operation that show up excessive usage on contracts?
thank you for taking the time to read this.

Exhortation

I don't think you have any recourse on this, sorry. Three advised the change of contract in good faith based on previous bills, they weren't to know of what problems (as sad as they are) lay ahead. Presumably, your wife knew of the changes to the contract on the phone she was using? I appreciate that under the circumstances her mobile bill was probably the least of her worries but, unfortunately, I doubt Three will be very sympathetic. You could try explaining the facts to the executives office and they may knock something off for good faith but I doubt you'll see them wipe the bills out. The least they could do under the circumstances, however, is change the tariff to a more suitable one. I wouldn't hold out any great hope of even this happening if I were you, however.

DUTR

Sorry to hear about your family illness, however it has no bearing on the fact that you are on a tariff that no longer suits your useage, ultimately it is up to YOU or the contract holder to ensure they are on a tariff most suitable for their use. If you are not going to check your paperless bills and statements online that is not the network or bank's fault. I can only suggest you review your phone use and select a tariff that suits your use most economically.

Oscar_The_Grouch

Hi there

Sorry to hear about your problems and the issues affecting your family.

I have some good news and some bad news:

The bad news is that your bills will stand. I appreciate that this is not helpful, but the responsibility to check your useage and bill rests with you. Most Three phones will let you check this on the phone, so your wife could have seen that she was out of free calls at any time.

The good news is that you can stop this from happening again. If you go to the Three website, you can log in to your account and set a limit for overspending. Three are one of the only networks that offer this. If you give them a call (or even better, go into a shop) they can talk you through how to do this.

I hope everything works out for you.