3 PAYG rate increase

leadhead

leadhead said:

leadhead said:

jon81uk said:

leadhead said:

I contacted 3 about this tonight via their call back option. I was put in touch with someone I could hardly understand (Cumit), he then said he would put me in touch with someone who could answer my question. After hanging on for 15 minutes, the line went dead...(possibly a deliberate tactic to put people off cancelling)

My question was.....My wife topped up this account by £10, a few days before this 300 to 400% increase was announced, how will she be refunded any outstanding balance when she leaves.....I notice that under normal circumstances, if you leave 3, you lose any outstanding credit.....but these arent normal circumstances, 3 have changed her agreement drastically, surely they HAVE to refund any balance....Is there any one who HAS cancelled that has also received any credit balance that they had before the announcement.......and if not, how can we make 3 refund any credit they hold belonging to us.

Its not clear what happens to your credit if you stop use of the service.

Under normal circumstances it says, if you terminate your contract, then you lose any credit balance you have......BUT THIS ISN'T NORMAL CIRCUMSTANCES..... If it were I would stay with them......Surely, because they are breaking their contract with me, and the cridit I have put on the phone is not going to be used for what It was intended to be for....ie £10 would have got my wife 500 texts. now it only gets 100....which is clearly not what it said when the phone was topped up.....I tried again to get through to them, but the chat line just went off(what a surprise).....How do we all get a full refund of all credit that we put on our phones BEFORE they announced this huge increase .Surely the LAW prevents this theft of credit

I submitted all my evidence to the Ombudsman, and its in their hands now..

I will let you know of the decision.

Within hours of the Ombudsman getting involved, Three responded directly to me with an offer to refund the outstanding credit to a credit card, altho they put a couple of obstacles in front....Because of the obstacles,I told them that I would let the Ombudsman continue with this....in the hope that a ruling would be made that others could refer to.

leadhead

[Deleted User] said:

leadhead said:

jon81uk said:

leadhead said:

I contacted 3 about this tonight via their call back option. I was put in touch with someone I could hardly understand (Cumit), he then said he would put me in touch with someone who could answer my question. After hanging on for 15 minutes, the line went dead...(possibly a deliberate tactic to put people off cancelling)

My question was.....My wife topped up this account by £10, a few days before this 300 to 400% increase was announced, how will she be refunded any outstanding balance when she leaves.....I notice that under normal circumstances, if you leave 3, you lose any outstanding credit.....but these arent normal circumstances, 3 have changed her agreement drastically, surely they HAVE to refund any balance....Is there any one who HAS cancelled that has also received any credit balance that they had before the announcement.......and if not, how can we make 3 refund any credit they hold belonging to us.

Its not clear what happens to your credit if you stop use of the service.

Under normal circumstances it says, if you terminate your contract, then you lose any credit balance you have......BUT THIS ISN'T NORMAL CIRCUMSTANCES..... If it were I would stay with them......Surely, because they are breaking their contract with me, and the cridit I have put on the phone is not going to be used for what It was intended to be for....ie £10 would have got my wife 500 texts. now it only gets 100....which is clearly not what it said when the phone was topped up.....I tried again to get through to them, but the chat line just went off(what a surprise).....How do we all get a full refund of all credit that we put on our phones BEFORE they announced this huge increase .Surely the LAW prevents this theft of credit

The only instance 3 are obligated to refund the top up is if their service is unavailable as you signed up to service where they could vary the costs with notice - just like they are doing. 

You could use the credit to donate to charity, if you'd prefer rather than keep calm, use up credit, port out and move on...

and no wonder this guy deleted his account.....giving useless incorrect information as this...

Its also a pity (in a way) that the original thread was hijacked with ideas for an alternate to the 321....instead of creating a new thread with info on a cheap tariff.....Staying on topic might have resulted in more people getting their outstanding credit back...

I say this even though I DID benefit from the "other sims" info in getting an o2 321 sim...

gwapenut

Strictly speaking, the only "hijacking" of the thread was by people asking how to get their credit back, as the OP said "I see 1p Mobile charge 1p per minute, (as the name suggests), and uses the EE network. Has anyone had any good or bad experiences of this provider ??   "
Suggestions about other providers were on topic! If two threads were ever needed, then the legalities of what 3 did should have been in the second thread, not the answers to the OP's question!

For what it's worth though I've appreciated both aspects of the discussion in this thread.

leadhead

gwapenut said:

Strictly speaking, the only "hijacking" of the thread was by people asking how to get their credit back, as the OP said "I see 1p Mobile charge 1p per minute, (as the name suggests), and uses the EE network. Has anyone had any good or bad experiences of this provider ??   "
Suggestions about other providers were on topic! If two threads were ever needed, then the legalities of what 3 did should have been in the second thread, not the answers to the OP's question!

For what it's worth though I've appreciated both aspects of the discussion in this thread.

I stand corrected....I too have appreciated both as well....As I mentioned, I managed to get an o2 321 sim from the thread...I looked at the title of the thread (3 PAYG rate increase) rather than reading the first post...

Swipe

I sent a text from my data reward sim today and it deducted 4pm from my available balance

leadhead

With regards to the o2 Cassic (321) sim I bought off ebay for a total of 20p(which included postage)...

A few days after I put it in my wifes phone, o2 added an extra £5 to her credit....Lets hope the 321 tariff is around long enough to see out her £15 credit...

mongoose2009

I'm currently near the end of my 3 sim credit
i have a 3 data reward sim and had no text about any changes in prices
my plan is to port out to a free EE sim i have with no credit
and then port back onto the 3 data sim
my question do i have to add any credit to the free EE sim i have to get it to take my ported number and 
how long will i have to stay to get a port code back/

Doshwaster

I used a Three PAYG SIM in an old backup mobile. DIdn't use it very often but it was handy to have a spare in case of a problem with my main phone so I kept about £5 credit on it and rates were reasonably cheap when it was used. This price increase is making me wonder if it's still the best option
The cheap alternative seems to be 1pmobile but that needs a £10 topup every 120 days so that's £30 a year to keep the phone active even if I don't use it. Alternatively, keep the Three SIM as the credit doesn't expire as long as you use the phone once every 6 months but any use will be more expensive. For only a few calls per year it will still be cheaper.

getmore4less

Doshwaster said:

I used a Three PAYG SIM in an old backup mobile. DIdn't use it very often but it was handy to have a spare in case of a problem with my main phone so I kept about £5 credit on it and rates were reasonably cheap when it was used. This price increase is making me wonder if it's still the best option
The cheap alternative seems to be 1pmobile but that needs a £10 topup every 120 days so that's £30 a year to keep the phone active even if I don't use it. Alternatively, keep the Three SIM as the credit doesn't expire as long as you use the phone once every 6 months but any use will be more expensive. For only a few calls per year it will still be cheaper.

pretty convinced I have a data reward that was idle for more than 6 month, I think you can keep them alive using the free data and they have a min £2 top up so probably still the cheapest to keep alive as a back up phone or second sim for 2FA.

alanjones60

Getmore4less,you are right. The free data on the sim counts as being used,so you will never need to make a call or send a text every 6 months. Like iv said b4,the data reward sim acts just like the normal three sim,plus it still has the 321 rates. The only thing it doesnt do is voicemail.