Three Network Contract changes Jan 2015

GarySD

I received a text from THREE network this morning telling me about a change to the way that I could pay for purchases from Google Play, I can now pay through my phone plan.
This would be great if I was only responsible for my phone contract and my purchases but I have six phones and all but 1 of them belong to my children.

Some children might not understand the implications of spending money that isn't theirs, some might get cross with their parents for some reason and decide to teach then a lesson by sitting in their rooms and clicking on download purchase button until they have no more memory left in their phones.

I called THREE and asked for this new functionality to be stopped and they told me that it cannot be stopped / restricted or capped.

They told me that I must get my kids to log into their google accounts and give me their phones so that I can change the purchase settings on their phones, protecting this option with a password which I must keep secret.

I said what if my children don't want me to restrict their ability to spend their own money, or they consider it a breach of their privacy handing over the phone to me..?

THREE said that this was my only option, to which I answered I guess I do have the option of no longer being a customer of THREE and they said yes, but I should consider this carefully as I might have to pay a penalty for exiting my contracts before they had ended.

I have rasied a formal complaint with THREE

In the meantime, does anyone have any thoughts on this ...?

pepdavies

Kids can't take out a contract, they are yours. It's not Three's problem if you give the handsets to the kids is it? Just change the settings, you don't need to read their private messages so they shouldn't worry. I really don't see why it bothers you, this is a useful change to a lot of people

cklass

All the major networks except Vodafone offer this service. While O2 does allow its customers to opt out, I don't think EE does, and now, it seems Three is following EE's suit. Unfortunately, I'm not sure what your rights are in this situation.

To be honest, if this is a real concern for you then a pay monthly plan probably isn't the best option for your children. You need to be able to have total trust in them because there are always going to be new ways through which they could run up your bills if they want to and it's not in the networks' interest to prevent them from doing so, which is why most of them are resisting pressure to introduce caps. If you feel your children really need to be on a pay monthly plan, Tesco may be your best bet at avoiding these kinds of charges - just make sure they include purchases from Google Play in their caps.

While you're with Three, you should probably change the purchase settings. Monitoring what your children are buying isn't an invasion of their privacy and neither is asking for their phones so you can change the settings - you're the bill payer and their parent, it's your right and responsibility.

d123

GarySD wrote: »

This would be great if I was only responsible for my phone contract and my purchases but I have six phones and all but 1 of them belong to my children.

To be clear, you are only responsible for your phone contract, all 6 of them.

You must be quite a gambler, FIVE contracts given to children to use? You'll either be very lucky or bankrupt if it all goes wrong...

Collabora

My kids have unlocked phones and a GIFFGAFF £7.50 a month Goodiebag

https://giffgaff.com/goodybags/7.5pound-goodybag

and they have to earn the monthly topup otherwise they start using the 7.50 at GIFFGAFF normal rates and if it runs out then they their problem until the earn the right to get it topped up