3 - charging for text delivery receipts

mehis

Would be handy to know if anyone is successful with this.

johnnyj_2

I have just been on the phone to Anagha if that’s her real name, yes 3 CS. she spent 20mins arguing and telling me she wont get a manager because he will just say the same as I.
I said I started two contract with 3 for myself and my wife because of this useful feature, my wife will send 800 to 1000 texts per month to her friends and she waits for the delivery report, She finds it very useful to know if someone hasn’t received it yet I explained.
Now you are telling me via text message that we are to be charged for this, this is a change of terms and conditions to my contract that you haven’t given enough notice for. 30 days is the minimum notice for such a change and you have only managed 18 days.
Her answer is why do you use it???
I said reason I use it is irrelevant, it was part of my original contract and you are removing it. That is all that matters in the eyes of the law.
Can I speak to your manager?
She said no.. he will just say the same as me.
I eventually got her to get me a ring back in an hour. That was 3 hours ago and still have not heard anything.
3 are moving the goal posts here (again) and will get away with it. Its simply principle. The last time they did this I got out of the remaining 13 months, 2 years ago when they stopped free roaming to Republic of Ireland which was part of my contract. It took me 5 days to get my PAC you must get a PAC because that is proof they have gone into submission, then ask for a rolling month contract I simply moved to Sim15.
Back to the point
I signed up for a specific contract and I expect it until the end of term. My wife and I both use this function and I believe is detrimental to me as it adds at least £10 per month to the cost.
Customer services think they can fob you off and say anything and get away with it.
My reasoning here is simply.
Change my contract. a contract that I signed for and agreed to something that you decide mid way through will be something else is to me making my contract null and void.
How can it be anything else???? I didn’t sign up for it. Its not mine.
Imagine if you mortgage company changed you terms when ever it suited them.
If they get away with this they will charge for something else. Voicemail??? perhaps.
I have noticed that 3s contract are now crazy money. most are £35pm for 2 years. Sounds to me that the company is in difficulties of just trying to make loads of cash.

If there is 10 million text messages send per day that would generate a possible £10000 per day just 10% of this the number of people who probably deleted the txt is £1000 per day. that’s £3560000 per year
Crazy amount of insignificant 1 pennies don’t you think???

simax

JudasPriest wrote: »

Father-in-law is a contract law specialist for IBM. I'm going on his advice and, frankly, would stake my house on his opinion. He's very good.

Three won't want it to go to court, as they'd lose. They'll try to quietly release people who maintain their stance from their contracts rather than face the prospect of going to court and being liable for out-of-pocket expenses to customers as a result of taking equivalent services through other providers.

Watch this space.

So IBM do mobile networks now?

For something in a contract to stand, it must be a "prescribed term". Delivery report provision is nowhere in Three's terms and conditions of service, nor their Pay Monthly terms and conditions. They could charge for it, or take it away altogether if they wanted to. It stops no fundamental part of your contract working, you can still use minutes and texts.

Snakeeyes21

As pointed out on another forum the angle to fight this on is 3's own definition of what an additional service is.
This is important as its a clause that can stop you cancellig without penalty.

A copy of three's current terms ad coditions incase they change..
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13180010/three%20t%26c.pdf

"Glossary - Specific words and phrases that need further explanation."

"Additional Services: additional or supplemental services for which a charge is made in addition to the fixed periodic charges for your Package or Add-on(s) (if applicable)."

As you can see the sms delivery reports were never an additional service as thery were ever charged for, even at £0.00 so do not come under not being able to cancel under 4.1 of their terms and conditions..

Their terms and conditions are perfectly clear, this is clearly an attempt to change a service that is included in your current monthly fee in to a paid for additional service.

This is a perfectly valid reason to cancel without penalty ad gives no room for 3 to wriggle out of it.

A brief email ive sent to 3s executive office, lets see if I gets anywhere.

Account number: xxxxxxx
Phone number: 0798xxxxxx
Name: Sakeeyes21
Account password: xxxxxx
Date of birth: 01/01/1900

Date 20/05/2011

Hi.

I have today 20/05/2011 been informed that from the 6th June 2011 you will start to charge £0.01 for
recieving sms delivery reports, I wasnt informed by yourself but through various forums I frequent.

As you will no doubt be aware my contract states that a minimum of 30 days notice is
required to make changes to my contract that have a detrimental affect on me.

This is a breach of contract and the new charges are now unenforceable

Please see point 4.1(b) of your terms and coditions attached.

4.1 (b) we will let you know at least one calandar month in advance if we decide to
(i) discontinue your package or
(ii) make any variations to your agreement which are likely to be of detriment to you
(iii) increase the fixed periodic charge of your package by any amount that is more than the
percetage increase in the retail price index figure iay 12 month period.

following on from the above it states: (the important bits are bolded)

you can end the agreement for such variations as explained in section 10 .
subject to the above you will not be able to end your agreement if such
variations or increase:
(i) is due to change tothe law, government regulation or licence which affect us, or
(ii) which soley relates to additional services: or
(iii) relates soley to add-on(s)

I was told by a customer services rep that the new charge is for a service that is currently
an additional service, so im not able to cancel without penalty, this is not the case.

as per your own glossary of terms in your terms and conditions it states;

Additional services: additional or supplemental services for which a charge is made in
addition to the fixed periodic charges for your package or add-on(s)

a charge is currently not applied to sms delivery reports and as per your terms and
conditions a charge needs to be made for it to be classed as a additional service.

also sms delivery reports do not currently show on your bills as an additional service all
be it billed at £0.00

this new charge is a charge for something that is currently included in the monthly payment I
make, this change of contract will have a detrimental effect on my agreement, at my current
levels it will add around £15 per month to my bill as I require reports for messages sent.

As per my terms and conditions I would like to give my 30 days notice to cancel my contract
without penalty.

Please reply to this email to confrm my request to cancel without penalty will be processd
within the 30 days notice I have given

Thanks


now lets wait for them to reply

Snakeeyes21

simax wrote: »

Get over it. If it was a charge introuduced of 1p per text message SENT, then I would agree. Delivery reports are an additional benefit, which can be turned off. You can still send unlimited texts at no cost, which is part of your contract. I think you'll find delivery reports are not. Did it say "500 minutes, unlimited text and unlimited delivery reports"? Nope.

Or, you could just turn on delivery reports on messages that actually require a receipt.

People who "depend" on delivery reports are usually insecure, paranoid folk who think the world's ignoring them if they don't get a reply to their text THAT INSTANT. Get's right on my wick.

its not about whether its importat to recieve delivery reports, its about 3 making a change to your contract that will cost you extra if you choose to use it..

Im sure you would be happy about any contract your in being changed which makes it cost you more

Maybe you are on the wrong site if you have money to chuck away like that

bxm

simax wrote: »

Get over it. If it was a charge introuduced of 1p per text message SENT, then I would agree. Delivery reports are an additional benefit, which can be turned off. You can still send unlimited texts at no cost, which is part of your contract. I think you'll find delivery reports are not. Did it say "500 minutes, unlimited text and unlimited delivery reports"? Nope.

Or, you could just turn on delivery reports on messages that actually require a receipt.

People who "depend" on delivery reports are usually insecure, paranoid folk who think the world's ignoring them if they don't get a reply to their text THAT INSTANT. Get's right on my wick.

My £15/month contract allows for 3000 inclusive text messages. I typically use 500-1000 SMS/month. Without modifying my usage of the service one iota my fixed £15 a month bill becomes a variable £20-£25. If I were to use my allowance to the full (unlikely), it becomes £45. Do you really think that's not a big deal? And as previously stated by others, the charge itself isn't even the point -- the point is that they have failed to give 30 days notice for a change which is potentially detrimental to me as required by the terms of the contract, as drafted by 3 themselves.

I use delivery reports because I don't entirely trust the mobile networks to deliver my messages, with good reason from past experience, and to give me an indication of whether such-n-such will actually turn up at the pub at the suggested time on the basis that they have/haven't received the message but not replied because they are out of credit, their battery died, they're going through a long tunnel or the classic "dog ate their phone".

And do you really think switching delivery reports on/off per message is convenient?

simax

Snakeeyes21 wrote: »

its not about whether its importat to recieve delivery reports, its about 3 making a change to your contract that will cost you extra if you choose to use it..

Im sure you would be happy about any contract your in being changed which makes it cost you more

Maybe you are on the wrong site if you have money to chuck away like that

I've got an iPhone, so no longer have the delivery reports option. However I don't miss them one bit. And if I did have delivery reports and Voda started charging 1p for each text I got a report for I'd simply switch it off.

When you pay £xx on your contract, that is for the supply of mins, texts and data. Three are still supplying this, so there is no change to the core contract that was signed. So Three should hold you to contract as delivery reports are an additional supplemental feature that can be disabled.

Look at it this way... You send a letter first class. Costs 46p. Do Royal Mail call you to say it's been delivered?

No. That's Recorded Delivery, and it costs more. Delivery reports are the same.

grumbler

simax wrote: »

I've got an iPhone, so no longer have the delivery reports option. However I don't miss them one bit. And if I did have delivery reports and Voda started charging 1p for each text I got a report for I'd simply switch it off.

Personally, I hardly ever text and don't care about reports, but for many texting without a report just makes no sense:

bex010 wrote: »

I signed up to Orange a few months ago only to find that there is about a 3 hour time delay on receiving some text messages. I contacted Orange to be told thats the way they operate!!

Jon_01 wrote: »

All the networks still quote a max of 24 hours for SMS's,

simax wrote: »

When you pay £xx on your contract, that is for the supply of mins, texts and data.

Nope. That's for the supply of the services, some of which being free. Your "mins, texts and data" are allowances for the free outgoing calls and texts. Incoming calls are free. Let's take this to extreme and imagine that they start charging for incoming calls. How is this different from charging for text reports? Your free minutes, texts and internet are still in place.

They are free to change the prices and to introduce new charges. However, these innovations must not affect detrimentally the existing contract customers. Otherwise these customers must be free to leave.

]Look at it this way... You send a letter first class. Costs 46p. Do Royal Mail call you to say it's been delivered?

RM is PAYG, not Pay Monthly with inclusive services.

johnnyj_2

Now you are getting carried away.

I dont care about what delivery reports do and dont do.
The fact is they changed are contracts without enough notification. and think this is fine.
Even if they did give notice the contract will not be what you signed up for. so what legally is sound about it.

Simple black and white. there is no grey area. I dont care if I hardly use txt and my wife goes through 1000 per month. its purley principle. you should not be able to change any aspect of my contract. that I signed up for. period.

nsabournemouth

Snakeeyes21 wrote: »

its not about whether its importat to recieve delivery reports, its about 3 making a change to your contract that will cost you extra if you choose to use it..

Im sure you would be happy about any contract your in being changed which makes it cost you more

Maybe you are on the wrong site if you have money to chuck away like that

Hit the nail on the head there. IF you choose so therefore it's an additional service.