3 made a mistake - what are my options?

Cuilean

Please help me deal with what has become quite a comedy of errors (Except I'm not laughing yet).


On Friday, I took out a SIM only contract with 3, in their store in Stevenage. I got to choose a "gold number", which is really just a posh way of saying a memorable number. It was printed on the back of the plastic card, along with the push out SIM which was to go in to my phone. Except when I got it home and put it into my phone, it didn't work. Apparently I was not authorised to make calls, although if I asked the phone to tell me my number, it told me the nice Gold Number I'd chosen. 3 Social Media Support said this was because the staff in store in Stevenage hadn't activated it, and I needed to go into a 3 store and get a replacement SIM.


Today, I went to the 3 store in Watford, just because I was out with a friend and it was nearer. They gave me a replacement SIM. Because it was a replacement, it had no new number on it. I asked them to confirm that it would not give me a new number - she promised it would not. I took it home, put it into the phone and tried to sign up for My3, only for the website to tell me that the number I was using wasn't on their system. When I asked the phone to tell me its number, it said "Number unknown". I was a bit spooked.


I rang 3. The nice call centre lady told me that she would manually reset my password, and texted me a password. I tried to log in, but it still said my number wasn't valid. I rang 3 again. This time, a nice man asked me to confirm my number. I read him the number on the back of the original SIM. "No", he said, "That's not your number, this is", and proceeded to read out a number I'd never heard. We went round in circles, and he's quite right - when I look at the original contract paperwork, one of the many numbers buried within something called MCISDN is indeed this mysterious number which is not printed on my SIM.


The call centre's solution to this is to go back to the Stevenage store and ask them what's happened. I think it's probably some sort of human error, but I don't think they'll be able/willing to explain it either.


The way I see it, I have a few options:
1) Accept the new, non-memorable number and leave it.
2) Try to get them to activate the gold number (This is possible, apparently).
3) Cancel the contract - I assume I can do this as I've only had it 36 hours?


Any other ideas? Can anyone shed light on this?

suicidebob

4) Go to the Stevenage store

Cuilean

suicidebob wrote: »

4) Go to the Stevenage store

Yes, that's kind of a given, and my plan for tomorrow. I was more wondering which of those 3 to go with once I got there.

mattyprice4004

I don't think 3 have any cooling off period, so cancelling it probably isn't an option.

AJXX

Just go back to the store and ask them to sort it out.

The 'gold number' likely is not properly assigned to your account. The 'never heard of before' number is.

I don't see why they've given you a replacement sim, unactivated as well which IMO would only confuse matters more.

They simply need to 'provision' the gold number at their end so that it correctly works/activates with the original sim.

Cuilean

Thank you for the helpful replies

I had a think back to when I signed up on Friday, and I remember the salesman made a mistake - he brought out a micro SIM, instead of a Nano SIM. He fiddled about on the computer for ages before realising it was the wrong size, then putting it back in the drawer, and I'm willing to bet he assigned the number on the micro SIM to my account but didn't think to change it to the one on the Nano SIM once he realised his mistake.

Anyway, the manageress sorted it for me today. The helpline had rung them and warned them I was coming in, so they were expecting me, and were very apologetic. The area manager is going to ring me tomorrow to apologise and confirm that they've cancelled the old numbers and contract from the system. We've started again with a new contract, and I've managed to get everything working this afternoon, so I'm happy.

Looks like a poorly-handled admin error on the part of the salesman, and nothing technical or catastrophic, just massively inconvenient. Kudos to 3's support team as well - they made sure Stevenage's staff were briefed and had sorted things out before I arrived.

diamonds

Cuilean wrote: »

T The helpline had rung them and warned them I was coming in

WARNED ?


that made me laugh! Kudos to 3 ? if they trained staff in the first place!! Glad its all sorted for you though




Communications companies that cant communicate - it a Ofcom requirement!

gycraig_2

Sounds like a quite simple mistake to make which they sorted promptly and efficiently as soon as it was realised