Difficulty getting PAC from Three

MarkBargain

My fiancee wants her PAC so she can move to a new network as she's in the last month of her 12-month SIM only deal with Three. She phoned a few times during the week and gave up due to long queues (waited 30 minutes one day!). Yesterday they wouldn't deal with her unless she changed her 'memorable name and place' passwords in My3, which she did. Today they said the new passwords "have not reflected in her account" and asked her to do the same again and to ring back 40 minutes later (after which that department would be closed for the day). I suspect they are just trying to make it difficult for her to leave. I advised her to email them to request the PAC and try again tomorrow.

grumbler

Yes, '3' are notorious for making it difficult to leave them, but usually they just hopelessly keep persuading you to stay with them. What you describe seems to be a genuine problem with the access to the account.

MarkBargain

Perhaps. She did what they suggested though and in My3 the passwords are there on screen, so I don't know why it hadn't "reflected" on their system. Hopefully it will get sorted tomorrow by phone or email.

Buzby

Do remember that 30 days notice is required, so ONLY port out on Day 29-30 - NOT as soon as you've the PAC !

[Deleted User]

Buzby wrote: »

Do remember that 30 days notice is required, so ONLY port out on Day 29-30 - NOT as soon as you've the PAC !

Unless, of course, you don't mind a bit of overlap in terms of paying two bills for a month, and want your number to switch now.

Either way, porting out on day 29/30 is poor advice - there's a good chance the code could expire before the port is fully actioned. I'd recommend doing it on about day 25 at the latest, to be sure. (To account for weekends, bank holidays, etc).

MarkBargain

Today my fiancee phoned and they didn't even ask for the passwords that were such a problem previously! She was put on hold five times and when told she plans to move to Virgin Mobile was given a load of babble about how Virgin are a "third party who may be withdrawing the internet" or something like that. It took a lot of holding firm, declining poor offers, and repeating requests for the PAC before they finally agreed to send the PAC by text in a couple of days.

MarkBargain

Three just phoned back and I spoke to them.

The caller said Virgin operate a 2G network, not 3G, over O2. I told him that is incorrect, as I know they operate 3G over Orange/T-Mobile.

Three offered a £10 a month deal. I told them Virgin offer £5 retention deals. He said Virgin add VAT to that, taking it to nearly £10. I said 20% of £5 would only be £1.

Is lying like this OK in modern business?!

mikegahan

There are a lot of posts about problems getting a PAC number out of £. I was thinking of moving to them to try out their "SuperfaST NETWORK" but now I am not sure it is worth the hassle

simax

I gave up numerous times on the phone to try and disconnect a sim zero deal, I eventually emailed them with all my security info and asked them to close the account. 10 days later they emailed back saying my details were not right and they would not authorise access to my account. And to call them!! And when I did there was nothing wrong! I suspect that was a stalling tactic.

I did after one very lenghty, arduous, wrist-cuttingly long call manage to get the line cancelled. And it went off-line last week.

Am not going to put myself though that again!!

MarkBargain

I knew they would try to stall and offer deals, but this went beyond what I was expecting, especially so blatently lying about another network, saying Virgin do not offer 3G for example! Presumably people less in-the-know may swallow those lies, making it commercially worthwhile for Three to operate in this way. A sad state of affairs.

zonecrew

I also spent an arduous 30 minutes on the phone to 3 this morning trying to give my notice. In the end I was literally shouting down the phone at him to try and make him accept the notice!

He was telling me blatent lies about other providers and at one point said that he was cancelling my contract today and I would lose all services but have to pay up the remaining month:mad:

I look forward to similar frustrating calls from retentions if the last time is anything to go by!