New mobile phone and contract for Christmas - no network coverage in my area!

GSDog

I was given a new phone for christmas which was part of a 24 month mobile phone contract with 'Three'. The phone and service was purchased through an online retailer, not from 'Three' directly.

The order was placed on the 12th December and was delivered on the 19th December. I opened it on the 25th and started using the service on the 29th which was when my old phone number was transferred from o2 to Three.

Unfortunetly since using the phone for the last couple of days I have discovered that the Three network coverage in my village is absolutely abmismal. I get no signal in any buildings and very poor signal outside. Text messages take hours to receive and send and phone calls are impossible inside. I have since spoken to a couple of friends who have used the Three network and they all had to cancel their contracts due to the poor signal in the area.

I would like to cancel the contract because I am not being provided with the service which I am paying for. My worry is that because the order was made on the 12th and delivered on the 19th I might not be able to cancel without a very hefty charge?

What are my rights? I would like to change back to the o2 network so that I can actually use my phone again.

Any advice on this would be appreciated.

pcombo

So is the contract in your name.

GSDog

Yes it is in my name.

pcombo

Normaly there excuse to stop you canceling would be something like you should have done a coverage check before agreeing.

zoesmummy_2006

im on three also and over the last few months their coverage in my area has been shocking, its now at the point where incoming calls i dont get, they just come up as a missed call. I i manage to get enough signal in my house to make/receive a call then it cuts off after about a minute cos the signal dies. Apparently three were mast sharing with orange round here and orange decided not to share anymore, hence the poor signal recently. Im going to try and get out of the last few months of my contract because of this issue, i have a friend who got them to cancel their contract when we had the heavy snow in 2010 because three had no signal whatsoever here for 5 days-i should have done the same then!!

Helix

zoesmummy_2006 wrote: »

im on three also and over the last few months their coverage in my area has been shocking, its now at the point where incoming calls i dont get, they just come up as a missed call. I i manage to get enough signal in my house to make/receive a call then it cuts off after about a minute cos the signal dies. Apparently three were mast sharing with orange round here and orange decided not to share anymore, hence the poor signal recently. Im going to try and get out of the last few months of my contract because of this issue, i have a friend who got them to cancel their contract when we had the heavy snow in 2010 because three had no signal whatsoever here for 5 days-i should have done the same then!!

Its not Orange not wanting to share anymore, it is Three not wanting to pay Orange to share anymore. In areas where Three think their coverage is good they have turned off the fallback onto Orange when there is no Three signal.

GSDog

I have now sent them an email requesting to cancel the contract or change to the O2 network. I informed them that I am not receiving the service for which I am paying and I said that I believe I am entitled to this under the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982. I have given them 14 days to reply, so we shall see what happens.

TagEHeuer

In all fairness, Three haven't done anything wrong... I don't see why they should cancel the contract. Whoever bought the phone should of done a coverage check, it's going to be very difficult to get them to cancel it. I'd be very surprised if they did. Sorry for your problems.

W

GSDog

WillEH wrote: »

In all fairness, Three haven't done anything wrong... I don't see why they should cancel the contract. Whoever bought the phone should of done a coverage check, it's going to be very difficult to get them to cancel it. I'd be very surprised if they did. Sorry for your problems.

W

I did do a coverage check on the Three website and it shows that I should get signal in my area. In reality I get signal about 5 minutes of every 60 minutes. My phone displays "Emergency calls only" nearly all day in this area. It's far, far worse than their coverage checker suggests.

I'm still a little confused as to who I should be chasing about this though, since I bought the phone and service via an online retailer but pay the monthly payments directly to Three. I have sent my cancellation request to the online retailer, since I bought it through them.

As it is at the moment the phone is totally unusable in the village where I live. I'm currently typing this from my parents house 2 miles away from my home and I still have absolutely no signal, it's been "Emergency calls only" every time I've checked for the last 4 hours. That to me is totally unacceptable and there is no way on earth I'm going to continue paying £17.50 a month for the next 24 months for a non-existent service. I will go to court to get out of this contract if I have to, but hopefully it won't come to that.

wealdroam

Not trying to be funny, but I don't understand this "emergency calls only" business.

Don't you need a signal to make emergency calls too?

In other words, if you have a signal good enough for emergency calls, then why is it not good enough for other calls?

TagEHeuer

GSDog wrote: »

I did do a coverage check on the Three website and it shows that I should get signal in my area. In reality I get signal about 5 minutes of every 60 minutes. My phone displays "Emergency calls only" nearly all day in this area. It's far, far worse than their coverage checker suggests.

I'm still a little confused as to who I should be chasing about this though, since I bought the phone and service via an online retailer but pay the monthly payments directly to Three. I have sent my cancellation request to the online retailer, since I bought it through them.

As it is at the moment the phone is totally unusable in the village where I live. I'm currently typing this from my parents house 2 miles away from my home and I still have absolutely no signal, it's been "Emergency calls only" every time I've checked for the last 4 hours. That to me is totally unacceptable and there is no way on earth I'm going to continue paying £17.50 a month for the next 24 months for a non-existent service. I will go to court to get out of this contract if I have to, but hopefully it won't come to that.

Sorry, you didn't mention the signal check in your original post. Good luck with it all.