Three One Plan change of service

scorched

Hi, long time visitor but first time poster, hope you can help me because this is starting to really stress us out!

Just a little background... We live in an area that gets very poor phone lines so our broadband speed is usually around the 0.5mb mark, but is often lower than this. We also can't get cable as we live on an offshoot to the main road... Despite living less than 100 yards from the green cable box on the street Virgin say it's too expensive to install. So I found that Three were doing mobile wifi. I tried it out and we were getting speeds 10 times that of our regular broadband! Great! Only trouble was we were getting through the data allowance really quickly since it was our main Internet now.

So I went into 3 to see if they had any higher data packages. They told me about the One Plan which for £25 a month gave you the all you can eat data with no restrictions. They said I could use the sim card in the mifi dongle. In the end I went with the £35 a month iPhone 4 plan as I needed a new phone and figured an extra £10 a month was cheap to get that as well and it was time for a new phone.

So we used the sim in the dongle and I used my existing orange sim in the iPhone, since march we have been doing this with no problems. Yesterday when I try to go to a web page I get a message that 'the sim will only work in a phone. Take it out of the dongle and put it back in the phone as it is against our terms'.

Well hang on, what terms? The person at the shop said it was ok, and this little booklet that came with my iPhone sim says sim cards can be used in phones or dongles on the three service. It says a little about using a sim in unauthorised devices may not work or damage the device but it doesn't even say that's not allowed.

So we go to the Three shop and tell the manager about the problem. In the end she says 'yes, we told customers you can use the one plan sim in the dongle but later we were told that they can't, and we were told off for telling them they could'.

So the person in the store basically admitted to mis-selling the contract, then all they could do was tell us to ring customer service. You know, the customer service that passes you between departments every minute so they can get rid of an awkward customer. After 40 minutes on the phone getting nowhere we were chucked out of the shop as it was closing time but they rang back on my mobile. We explained the change in service and how it had been mis sold and how the manager had admitted to it, after a long time we were asked to email a copy of our booklet to them as the wording has changed on their website - it now says 'devices', not 'phones or dongles'.

The bloke was basically laughing at us anyway, reading what he wanted into the t&cs - 'it says OR, you can only use it in one or the other.' me: 'where does it say i can only use it in a phone or dongle?' him: 'it doesn't but it's implied.'

Great, so Three can write ambiguous terms to get away with whatever they like.

The crux of the matter is I now have 21 months left on a contract that is of no use to me since we only used it for the Internet. And we're back to square one with getting decent Internet. Can I do anything about this? We have a manager supposed to be ringing us this evening but we're not holding our breath. Preferably we want the service returned to how it was but if this won't be done can we argue I was mis sold the contract and end it?

Thanks for any advice you can give.

essexman77

I dont think they have ever allowed use in a dongle or non mobile device but you have always been able to teether.I dont own a iphone but have a samsung galaxy S android it has a good aplication called mobile AP which turns your phone into a dongle and transmits wifi Im fairly sure Iphone 4 has it as well but other members can help you out on this.

This way I think wont break the terms of service.

scorched

Thanks for the reply, like I say I can't find anywhere in their terms that states you can't use the sim in a dongle. There's a tiny bit on the website that you can only really find if you get the message come up when you've actually done it, but it's a bit late by then. Plus the woman in the shop told us it was possible, well in fact recommended the One Plan to us with the dongle.

I wouldn't have minded if it hadn't worked from day one, or at least stopped working in the first couple of weeks so I could have returned the phone under the cooling off period. But the fact it's over 3 months down the line seems very dodgy to me.

I have tried using the tethering with the iPhone. For some reason we get a great signal with the dongle (most of the time full bars HSDPA), but the iPhone struggles to get one bar. Most of the time it says no service. Last night to ring customer service we had to take it out of the iPhone, put it in my girlfriend's phone which was not much better, and then go and sit upstairs by the window, or it would just drop out after less than a minute. So it can barely even connect to the 3 network let alone have a decent enough connection to use it for tethering. But I don't understand why 3 allow to tether but not use it in a dongle, when tethering is in effect just turning the phone into a dongle.

kingofherts

Its been in the T&C from the launch of The One Plan that you cannot use the sim in a dongle or mifi device, however it was only recently that the condition was enforced, a way around it is to use your iPhone as the modem and tether it or buy a 3G mobile and use that as the modem as you are not breaking the T&C then

Don't ask me why you can do this, you just can!!

Regards

King

bengalknights

As above it has always been in the T&Cs everyone i know that uses it does it via tethering there phones to the pc.

Guys_Dad

If you can get the person in the shop to admit that they told you that you could put the sim in the dongle, then you have a pretty good case to get the contract cancelled or as a basis to take them to court.

If you can't, then you are facing an uphill struggle for the reasons given above.

DUTR

scorched wrote: »

Hi, long time visitor but first time poster, hope you can help me because this is starting to really stress us out!

Just a little background... We live in an area that gets very poor phone lines so our broadband speed is usually around the 0.5mb mark, but is often lower than this. We also can't get cable as we live on an offshoot to the main road... Despite living less than 100 yards from the green cable box on the street Virgin say it's too expensive to install. So I found that Three were doing mobile wifi. I tried it out and we were getting speeds 10 times that of our regular broadband! Great! Only trouble was we were getting through the data allowance really quickly since it was our main Internet now.

So I went into 3 to see if they had any higher data packages. They told me about the One Plan which for £25 a month gave you the all you can eat data with no restrictions. They said I could use the sim card in the mifi dongle. In the end I went with the £35 a month iPhone 4 plan as I needed a new phone and figured an extra £10 a month was cheap to get that as well and it was time for a new phone.

So we used the sim in the dongle and I used my existing orange sim in the iPhone, since march we have been doing this with no problems.
Thanks for any advice you can give.

Can you explain the the readers how you did that?
the IP4 as I understand uses a micro sim, and the mifi uses a standard mni sim, so whilst the mini sim can be cut down, not sure how you managed to use the micro sim in the mifi dongle.

DUTR

essexman77 wrote: »

I dont think they have ever allowed use in a dongle or non mobile device but you have always been able to teether.I dont own a iphone but have a samsung galaxy S android it has a good aplication called mobile AP which turns your phone into a dongle and transmits wifi Im fairly sure Iphone 4 has it as well but other members can help you out on this.

This way I think wont break the terms of service.

The use handset as wireless hotspot is a feature of android 2.2, my wildfire does this too without the need for further applicatons, the IP4 does tether via cable not sure about wireless though.

gjchester

DUTR wrote: »

The IP4 does tether via cable not sure about wireless though.

Yea by Wifi and Bluetooth as well as cable but the teleco's can track it unless it's jailbroken and your using another app.

gjchester

bengalknights wrote: »

As above it has always been in the T&Cs everyone i know that uses it does it via tethering there phones to the pc.

It's still detectable if they want to scan packets, but thats a lot of work for very little payback..

scorched

DUTR wrote: »

Can you explain the the readers how you did that?
the IP4 as I understand uses a micro sim, and the mifi uses a standard mni sim, so whilst the mini sim can be cut down, not sure how you managed to use the micro sim in the mifi dongle.

Hi, I just lined up the contacts of the microsim to the contacts in the dongle. Might have to try a couple of times to get it right but it worked.