3 mobile broadband - late loading farce

imran_

Hello moneysavers, hope your day went well!

I've calmed down a little after another hopeless 30min phonecall with 3 mobile broadband customer services (pah!) :mad:

here's my story so far...

i'm on a £15/15GB/month deal, always making sure to keep within my allowance by using the my3 page to check how much i have left.

my month runs from 16th to the following 15th. i received my bill for january, covering 16th dec - 15th jan, which was my usual, apart from the VAT increase.

come the following first week of february there was a notice on my my3 page saying there were outstanding charges since my last bill, which is strange as i was still within my allowance. :shocked:

i rang up to question this, and was told there was a problem with the system that recorded usage over the new year period, so this was a subsequent hiccup. i was advised to wait a week, as a number of customers had encountered this problem, and these extraneous charges would be dropped. :cheesy:

after using my3 again later the next week, it still said that there were charges on my account. cue another 30 min phonecall on to be told that, wait for the next bill to arrive, the 16th of february, as they were unable to see exactly when i was supposedly to have gone over my allowance limit. he did say that it was for the usage on the 31st of december. :question:

once my february bill had been finalised, it showed extra usage for the 31st of december, amounting to £20 inc VAT. ringing up again to question this two days ago, they were refusing to see how it would be impossible for me to know about this extra usage if their system didn't show it at the time. they referred my query to another dept to investigate, who would contact me in 48hours.

lo and behold, no phonecall. so rang them up again this evening; apparently they did try calling, but couldn't get through! (had my phone with me all day) so after another lengthy conversation with an indian call centre, i was told that customers whose charges ran over £20 were being refunded because of the fault, but as mine were exactly £20 i was not included in that. after asking 3 times to speak to a manager; who was apparently busy and would call me back personally within 30minutes(!) :mad:

an hour later no phonecall, and me stewing in my own juices. i can't see that its fair of them to charge me a month and a half after the event, and after it was their system that made the error. how was i to know if i was exceeding my monthly allowance, slap bang in the middle of the month??? they didn't make me aware of my usage at the time, so how can they bring it up now

has anyone else here had the same trouble with the 'late loading' on the 31st of december? i'm getting near to my wits end with all of this and would like some advice please. thanks in advance :T

imran_

hello again moneysavers, hope you're well

apparently 3 mobile broadband customer services tried to call me during the day, which is strange because my phone hasn't rung once all day and i've been checking it regularly.

another phonecall to query this no-show, another heated conversation going over the same thing. requested to speak to another manager. this time i did get a call back. :shocked:

at first he did follow the company line and said charges were liable as the service had been used, but he was willing to halve these. i questioned where my 50% liability in 3's system error came from. i always make sure to check i stay within my allowance, using their account page, so if this didn't tell me i was over my allowance, how else was i to know, apart from extra charges showing up a month and a half later. :huh:

begrudgingly, he put me on hold to check the system again. he came back to say that he would waive the charges. whilst i was extremely thankful for it, why should it have taken all this time (150mins total call time) to get the matter resolved.

my current bill will stand, but then the charges, totalling £20, will be credited to my march bill. so fingers crossed until then! :T

so my advice is, stand firm and hold your ground when you know you've been wronged :cool: