Three - We need to speak to you about changes to your plan

diamonds

I handed 30 days notice last Nov when it went public (could have got that cancelled as a option) but when got the text I didnt cancel the notice - last in first out (30 days sim only 6 months old).

I just got refused a savings account from my own bank where I have a current a/c. Everything else is gleaming on my credit file.

3 have me due them £50odd on a default on my credit file, I sent payment of the last warning they sent me for £17odd in Dec (cancelled DD late Nov) livid as even withdrawing The One plan they would not stop calling me with offers of £30 Unlīmited with 4GB after notice and then PAC request, I ended up leaving with no PAC as all they wanted to do with me was sales not PAC.


Default does not even make sense as they say I never gave notice (I have the call date on billing) they kept billing me £23 a month until May 2015 then it went to default....£23 x 6 is not £50odd! But customer service cant work that out even when pointed out to them! They sent bill copies which show billing till Jan not May, idiots.


I have lodged a complaint to Ofcom today, Three EXEC tomorrow.


Beware of the tactics when they are The One removing The One Plan!

I have been on paper billed two months past 5/6 Dec of my notice. I went live with Virgin on 28th Nov (last day any activity on my 3account) and expected to pay a weeks outstanding, they said in Dec it was with a part outstanding from Oct bill approx £17odd all in, paid.


Jokers!


3 customer service got better from 2008-2012 but after its parent Hutchison sold its 3 customer service division it got worse 2013 onwards.

zee744

I've got my letter today and to say I'm heartbroken is an understatement. I have been out of contract since July last year and I assumed I'd be able to stay on my contract as long I didn't cancel.
They say they're going to move me over to the one plan but they're taking away my unlimited tethering and going to charge me £30 instead of my £20 😐 apparently I'm going to get a £3 discount

Is there anything I can do to stop this and stay on my current plan

Roland_Sausage

zee744 wrote: »

Is there anything I can do to stop this and stay on my current plan

Nope

(filler)

dealer_wins

zee744 wrote: »

I've got my letter today and to say I'm heartbroken is an understatement. I have been out of contract since July last year and I assumed I'd be able to stay on my contract as long I didn't cancel.
They say they're going to move me over to the one plan but they're taking away my unlimited tethering and going to charge me £30 instead of my £20 😐 apparently I'm going to get a £3 discount

Is there anything I can do to stop this and stay on my current plan

Move on, leave Three out of principle and send them the right message that they are "making things wrong"

ryan121

I don't understand why people are shocked or surprised by this.

Unlimited tethering is abused by many people which can slow things down for other customers. There are a lot of people using unlimited tethering as an alternative to home broadband, that's simply wrong and is not what it was intended for as this is a mobile network. There are cases where people use 100gb a month tethering instead of paying for home broadband. How can anyone think that's okay?

There is also the matter of fairness. Newer customers are effectively subsidising older customers. It costs money to build and maintain a network and what people were paying for their one plans cannot be described as a fair price anymore. No other network offers unlimited data and unlimited tethering yet people expect to get that for £15 a month.

agarnett

ryan121 I detect your life and world experience is insufficient for you to state so categorically that it is "wrong" to use a cellular data connection instead of broadband mobile. Old customers subsidised by new customers? Do you not mean dumber customers paying too much compared to smarter customers? That £15pm offer was not a single legacy period in the mid noughties - it was repeated as an offer throughout maybe four continuous years 2010 to 2013 inclusive I believe. Both types sit on the bill as a standard SIM Only £25 contract with a £10 "Loyalty discount".

Relish 4G broadband is a competing cellular data offer (competes with other cellular and mobile data) but there is no SIM for a mobile telephone.

Three themselves having been selling dongles just for data for ages.

I am writing this on a non 3, 4G tethered cellular data connection which gives 30GB per month as well as calls and texts a bit like 3 mobile "One Plan" and it costs less than £11 per month. Will the company concerned also soon be reeling that one in too?

You must remember that 3 Mobile is part of the mighty Hutchison Whampoa organisation which is over 150 years strong. They've always owned a large part of the mobile phone infrastructure since it was invented. Orange was ostensibly their first UK airtime retail mobile brand. They sold the airtime company to France Telecom and that of course has swapped hands since, but it has not been entirely transparent as to how Hutchison in one guise or another have always retained a major interest and developed the cutting edge parts of the main network infrastructure and of course been running 3 Mobile in UK since 2003 and elsewhere around the world.

The UK mobile network infrastructure and airtime scene has been an incestuous constantly interbred affair from the outset. Let's face it, in the late 80s and early 90s major companies scrambled to control patents for the technology just as they did 100 years previously for the patents for electricity transmission networks. Every company is in bed in some way or beholden to every other in the industry. They just keep rebranding and pretending they are competing to keep the sheep guessing, and whist national borders mean nothing to telecoms companies e.g. Hutchison is now based in Cayman!? (supposedly - do they ever pay tax??), these companies nevertheless love suggesting that roaming charges are something they can't control and that bandwidth is a scarce resource and all amount of other claptrap to feed the pretend know-it-alls who willingly repeat the justification spiel daily in forums like this.

Hutchison has always been duplicitous in nature. Sometimes blowing hot and winning customer plaudits (Orange for a long time in the early days was voted best customer service and held in high regard almost like FirstDirect in banking - no surprise perhaps that they both had roots in Hong Kong!) But then they can blow very cold like we see now in just one of their UK guises as 3 mobile. The #makeitright campaign is, in so many respects when considering typical data usage requirements, a thinly veiled lie. I regularly use 3 mobile abroad and data is throttled mercilessly.

In addition there are commonly technical network problems on arriving afresh on a foreign network caused in part it seems by their deliberate restriction to their preferred partner networks which often too frequently mean you can't roam at all unless you are both semi-technically proficient and persistent. The first year of Three Like Home of Feel At Home or whatever they call it now wasn't too bad. I even got away with a little light tethering for email purposes using an old handset for a while.

But I wouldn't mind betting there were a lot of 3 customers last summer who thought they'd be getting free roaming when they landed at their holiday destinations, but who actually were totally unable to connect because they'd arrived, switched on, couldn't connect, switched on and off a few times, took their SIMs out and rubbed them on their t shirts, retried, had a beer and given up! Many will have simply thought "it doesn't work/I must've forgotten something/I can't be bothered to spend time trying to sort it out while I'm away".

I've had a legacy £15pm rolling SIM only contract for quite some years now, and so now do my kids. Interestingly theirs have been converted into their names as fresh customers in the last year or so, so it will be interesting to see who gets a letter first.

The letters will of course be most unwelcome, but I guess Hutchison don't mind if you get upset, because chances are they will still get a slice of your business another way if you leave :rotfl:

Ladies and gentlemen you are simply being churned by a corporate unhindered by government regulation or by UK law, or even by UK taxation. There is simply no justification for it other than that you haven't been nearly profitable enough lately in the cash cow terms these sorts of companies like to exploit you, so you are being turned down a new path and milked another way. You heard it here first.

gycraig_2

agarnett wrote: »

ryan121 I detect your life and world experience is insufficient for you to state so categorically that it is "wrong" to use a cellular data connection instead of broadband mobile. Old customers subsidised by new customers? Do you not mean dumber customers paying too much compared to smarter customers? That £15pm offer was not a single legacy period in the mid noughties - it was repeated as an offer throughout maybe four continuous years 2010 to 2013 inclusive I believe. Both types sit on the bill as a standard SIM Only £25 contract with a £10 "Loyalty discount".

Relish 4G broadband is a competing cellular data offer (competes with other cellular and mobile data) but there is no SIM for a mobile telephone.

Three themselves having been selling dongles just for data for ages.

I am writing this on a non 3, 4G tethered cellular data connection which gives 30GB per month as well as calls and texts a bit like 3 mobile "One Plan" and it costs less than £11 per month. Will the company concerned also soon be reeling that one in too?

You must remember that 3 Mobile is part of the mighty Hutchison Whampoa organisation which is over 150 years strong. They've always owned a large part of the mobile phone infrastructure since it was invented. Orange was ostensibly their first UK airtime retail mobile brand. They sold the airtime company to France Telecom and that of course has swapped hands since, but it has not been entirely transparent as to how Hutchison in one guise or another have always retained a major interest and developed the cutting edge parts of the main network infrastructure and of course been running 3 Mobile in UK since 2003 and elsewhere around the world.

The UK mobile network infrastructure and airtime scene has been an incestuous constantly interbred affair from the outset. Let's face it, in the late 80s and early 90s major companies scrambled to control patents for the technology just as they did 100 years previously for the patents for electricity transmission networks. Every company is in bed in some way or beholden to every other in the industry. They just keep rebranding and pretending they are competing to keep the sheep guessing, and whist national borders mean nothing to telecoms companies e.g. Hutchison is now based in Cayman!? (supposedly - do they ever pay tax??), these companies nevertheless love suggesting that roaming charges are something they can't control and that bandwidth is a scarce resource and all amount of other claptrap to feed the pretend know-it-alls who willingly repeat the justification spiel daily in forums like this.

Hutchison has always been duplicitous in nature. Sometimes blowing hot and winning customer plaudits (Orange for a long time in the early days was voted best customer service and held in high regard almost like FirstDirect in banking - no surprise perhaps that they both had roots in Hong Kong!) But then they can blow very cold like we see now in just one of their UK guises as 3 mobile. The #makeitright campaign is, in so many respects when considering typical data usage requirements, a thinly veiled lie. I regularly use 3 mobile abroad and data is throttled mercilessly.

In addition there are commonly technical network problems on arriving afresh on a foreign network caused in part it seems by their deliberate restriction to their preferred partner networks which often too frequently mean you can't roam at all unless you are both semi-technically proficient and persistent. The first year of Three Like Home of Feel At Home or whatever they call it now wasn't too bad. I even got away with a little light tethering for email purposes using an old handset for a while.

But I wouldn't mind betting there were a lot of 3 customers last summer who thought they'd be getting free roaming when they landed at their holiday destinations, but who actually were totally unable to connect because they'd arrived, switched on, couldn't connect, switched on and off a few times, took their SIMs out and rubbed them on their t shirts, retried, had a beer and given up! Many will have simply thought "it doesn't work/I must've forgotten something/I can't be bothered to spend time trying to sort it out while I'm away".

I've had a legacy £15pm rolling SIM only contract for quite some years now, and so now do my kids. Interestingly theirs have been converted into their names as fresh customers in the last year or so, so it will be interesting to see who gets a letter first.

The letters will of course be most unwelcome, but I guess Hutchison don't mind if you get upset, because chances are they will still get a slice of your business another way if you leave :rotfl:

Ladies and gentlemen you are simply being churned by a corporate unhindered by government regulation or by UK law, or even by UK taxation. There is simply no justification for it other than that you haven't been nearly profitable enough lately in the cash cow terms these sorts of companies like to exploit you, so you are being turned down a new path and milked another way. You heard it here first.

When the unlimited data sim was released you would struggle to get a tarrif with 2 gig on as quite simply phones where not a patch on what they are now and 4g didn't exist or only belonged to ee.

The fact people are complaining so much shows you the tarrif was far to cheap for what you got as there is nothing else competitive out there.

I work for a competitor it's impossible to sell people on these legacy sims a tarrif as its far far far cheaper to buy the phone and use the sim.

How can you say "dumber customers" because they aren't on a tarrif that they can't get anymore, what a stupid thing to say

Also three dongles the times I tried have never come with unlimited data and have been expensive

diamonds

ryan121 wrote: »

I don't understand why people are shocked or surprised by this.

Unlimited tethering is abused by many people which can slow things down for other customers. There are a lot of people using unlimited tethering as an alternative to home broadband, that's simply wrong and is not what it was intended for as this is a mobile network. There are cases where people use 100gb a month tethering instead of paying for home broadband. How can anyone think that's okay?

There is also the matter of fairness. Newer customers are effectively subsidising older customers. It costs money to build and maintain a network and what people were paying for their one plans cannot be described as a fair price anymore. No other network offers unlimited data and unlimited tethering yet people expect to get that for £15 a month.

Which is fair enough, but having a FUP of 1000GB was 3's own choosing. It would have been much more proactive to change the FUP with 30 days notice.

agarnett

gycraig wrote: »

When the unlimited data sim was released you would struggle to get a tarrif with 2 gig on as quite simply phones where not a patch on what they are now and 4g didn't exist or only belonged to ee.

Yes and what precisely is the ownership structure of EE? And who controls large parts of the network infrastructure EE use? Have a look at the government mobile phone mast sitefinder database and look at the labels of the companies which own the masts. It is like a look back in time pre-EE, but don't dismiss the labels as incorrect. My first mobile (my employer paid) was with Vodafone in 1990/91 interestingly from CarPhone Warehouse when Charles Dunstone might sometimes have been spotted behind the counter ! I had a personal contract with Orange for a bit (when it was Hutchison) then a long stint with BT Cellnet which became BT Mobile and then O2 and then Telefonica.

Every name I have mentioned so far and more besides would have been folded into EE had I stayed, right? And now if I wasn't looking carefully I'd say it was actually all BT owned again now, right? Wrong!

The fact people are complaining so much shows you the tarrif was far to cheap for what you got as there is nothing else competitive out there.

Too cheap compared to what? Chips? Pigeon post? There is nothing competitive out there. It's a cartel. You are a paid part of it but haven't yet realised!

I work for a competitor it's impossible to sell people on these legacy sims a tarrif as its far far far cheaper to buy the phone and use the sim.

You think you work for a "competitor", but actually its just a different coloured hamster wheel across the street from the other cartel hamster wheels. So? Why are you still trying ? - time to move on to a bank perhaps? Or have you been promised a shake-up of the market so all these upset customers can be freshly milked in your shop?

You could quite easily move into retail banking now perhaps. That's where most smart mobile phone salesmen get their next job, is it not?

How can you say "dumber customers" because they aren't on a tarrif that they can't get anymore, what a stupid thing to say

My kids each got their first mobile phone contracts with 3 mobile £15 SIM only contracts in the last 12 months in their own names. The latest of them was set up only three months ago. You are wrong. I appreciate not everyone has a parent who is smart enough to cause ripe fruit to fall from the trees into their offspring's laps, but who is stupid now?

The world is your oyster if you are smart enough to know how to exploit existing relationships and play the field at a level you don't read much about in these forums. Otherwise you get milked for longer than the rest of us, that's all. Now we are all being churned but no doubt a few of the smartest will soon find a way to protect their mobile phone budgets again Do you envy the smartest? Instead of calling them stupid you could look further than the headline offers of other phone shops across the shopping mall, and instead of too quickly saying "I can't beat that", spend a bit of time to take note of what the footfall you say you cannot sell to are actually telling you they have achieved, and how. Or is that boring? Probably!

Also three dongles the times I tried have never come with unlimited data and have been expensive

It's not your fault that you haven't yet got enough experience to comment on the whole history of mobile phones or dongles in the UK. It's not a criticism - I'd rather be your age with a lifetime of experience and surprises to look forward to than my age with too much of it behind me for comfort

Which reminds me, soon time for gym else the old bones will seize up! :j

joeluken

agarnett wrote: »

who controls large parts of the network infrastructure EE use?

EE's mobile infrastruture i.e. mobile sites etc is provided by a company called MBNL that is jointly owned (50/50) with Three.

MBNL was created around 2007 by what was then T-Mobile and Three. This was so succesful that several years later Telefonica UK (O2) and Vodafone UK also created a smililar joint venture company called Cornerstone that means the majority of Voda and O2 were consolidated and are now shared by both.

It will be interesting to see how CKH (Three) buying Telefonica's UK O2 business will unfold given that it will have an interest in both MBNL and Conerstone joint ventures creating massive overlap and cost dupication. Exiting a JV will leave the remaining partner will a massive increase in costs.

https://www.mbnl.co.uk