Three end of contract

jmmo20

Hi,
I have a contract with Three since Nov 2012. I bought an iphone and agreed to pay £39 a month for the one plan.

Now there a lot of fuss about the change of tariffs. I asked in twitter and got a reply that I think must surely be wrong.

I asked what happened to my monthly fee after the 2 year contact is up. I was told my monthly charge will remain the same.

And now my question, given that I agreed to pay a higher monthly fee for a subsidised phone (£69 for a phone, and £39 monthly), how is it possible that my monthly fee remain the same even AFTER my contract ends? I would have thought that the "normal" thing would be that my monthly fee was reduced to that of the "sim only" the one plan (£23 at this time).

Basically I'm asking this because I want to keep using Three, and I want to stay in the same one plan tariff. I don't want to upgrade phones and I don't want to change to the new 0800-that-I-call-once-a-year-from-work tariffs. But obviously I will move to a different company if the price to pay for a one plan out of contract is the same that I was paying with the phone contract.

Any help clarifying this would be much appreciated
cheers.

cgk1

This is complex and not at the same time - you are right, the business model is based on a subsidy for your phone but there is no subsidy in your contract because it is purely for the service provides, the equipment described in your contract is your SIM card and does not include the phone - so the price wouldn't go down because nothing in your contract has changed, you've just gone past the minimum period in which you can quit the contract with no charge.

However this is easy to fix, get them switch you to a SIM only rolling contract.

gycraig_2

you took out a minimum 24 month contract paying 39 quid a month, you will pay that same amount till you cancel it, upgrade it or renegotiate.
the phone was a "free" gift you technically havent been paying for it

you can upgrade, start a fresh minimum 24 month contract with a new phone,

you can get your tariff price lower but for the same minutes texts and data,
or you can cancel it.

choice is entirely yours but they leave the ball in your court so to speak, however with the rule changes im not sure how it would work, if you got them to just lower your price you wouldnt be signing a new contract, ask them if you can have a REDUCED tariff till you choose a new phone, they wont send you contracts so you should stay on the old one

criboo

Ring them when you're in your second last month and tell them you want to cancel you're contract and then a few days later their retentions team will call you, then set out the terms of contract you want and see what they offer.

Good luck