3 PAYG rate increase

leadhead

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

Chino

Phones4Chris said:

If you'd searched (Hotdeals certainly, but I'd guess eBay as well) and followed the links which end up with the seller, you'd see they are guaranteed to be activated, and in any event as I've already posted, your are protected by eBay anyway.

Could you be so good as to indulge me and provide the relevant links that provide guarantees that the SIMs can both be activated and provide the original O2 Classic PAYG rate?
All Ebay buyer protection would do is potentially refund me in the event that the ordered SIM either did not arrive or was broken; it would not guarantee that I could activate it and receive the original O2 Classic PAYG rate - unless the seller specifically advertised such in the listing.

Phones4Chris

@Chino, did you read @AndrewJB 's posts? (his was "must be activated by the 7th December 2021"). And the ad I looked at yesterday did guarantee activation on the Classic Tariff. They are CLEARLY advertising the O2 Classic 3-2-1 Tariff. But the ads are constantly changing as they seem to on hotdeals.
This is (I assume) the hotdeals link https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/2x-o2-classic-payg-3p-2p-1p-sim-cards-20p-delivered-at-ebay-3647100 originally mentioned by @Junaid26 and was the one I looked at yesterday. This lead me to the eBay seller I commented about, search for eBay item number: 324080768612 I'm not absolutely certain it's exactly the same ad, but it has the same spelling error and seller!
& the seller details here https://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/20psimcards?_trksid=p2047675.l2559

The seller has some other similar deals too (1 Classic sim + a Bundle sim), search eBay item number : 224113370148
I've noticed there's another post on that hotdeals thread giving links to some similar deals, but watch they aren't all the Classic O2 3-2-1 PAYG. I did notice some ads on eBay are the same trader but different selling name, also one seller I believe may be someone who has posted in this thread! Not all ads are the same hotdeal.
Also a post further down the hotdeals thread says that the deals are disappearing and the prices going back up.
Can't expect a 20p SIM deal to last for ever!! It has to be a promotion for the seller as 20p is surely less than the postage!
In any case if the SIMs did not activate you'd get your money back on the eBay buyer protection. On the very rare occasion that I've had an issue with something I've bought on eBay. I've had no trouble getting a refund. But hey, for 20p!

AndrewJB

Phones4Chris said:

@Chino, did you read @AndrewJB 's posts? (his was "must be activated by the 7th December 2021"). And the ad I looked at yesterday did guarantee activation on the Classic Tariff. They are CLEARLY advertising the O2 Classic 3-2-1 Tariff. But the ads are constantly changing as they seem to on hotdeals.
This is (I assume) the hotdeals link https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/2x-o2-classic-payg-3p-2p-1p-sim-cards-20p-delivered-at-ebay-3647100 originally mentioned by @Junaid26 and was the one I looked at yesterday. This lead me to the eBay seller I commented about, search for eBay item number: 324080768612 I'm not absolutely certain it's exactly the same ad, but it has the same spelling error and seller!
& the seller details here https://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/20psimcards?_trksid=p2047675.l2559

The seller has some other similar deals too (1 Classic sim + a Bundle sim), search eBay item number : 224113370148
I've noticed there's another post on that hotdeals thread giving links to some similar deals, but watch they aren't all the Classic O2 3-2-1 PAYG. I did notice some ads on eBay are the same trader but different selling name, also one seller I believe may be someone who has posted in this thread! Not all ads are the same hotdeal.
Also a post further down the hotdeals thread says that the deals are disappearing and the prices going back up.
Can't expect a 20p SIM deal to last for ever!! It has to be a promotion for the seller as 20p is surely less than the postage!
In any case if the SIMs did not activate you'd get your money back on the eBay buyer protection. On the very rare occasion that I've had an issue with something I've bought on eBay. I've had no trouble getting a refund. But hey, for 20p!

I’d treat these as if they are ‘new old stock’. O2 are no longer issuing them and the resellers will not be getting any more stock. Once the existing supplies are gone, that will be that. For 20p, if anyone has got the slightest interest in them, order one now before they're gone.

Regarding the price, I can’t see the resellers shifting these at a loss. Mine was sent out with a first class stamp on it which is currently 85p. They must receive money from O2 for every sim that’s activated. As you say, it could be a promotion to clear the stock, but one that's likely to be backed by O2.

Yorkshire_Pud

AndrewJB said:

Phones4Chris said:

@Chino, did you read @AndrewJB 's posts? (his was "must be activated by the 7th December 2021"). And the ad I looked at yesterday did guarantee activation on the Classic Tariff. They are CLEARLY advertising the O2 Classic 3-2-1 Tariff. But the ads are constantly changing as they seem to on hotdeals.
This is (I assume) the hotdeals link https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/2x-o2-classic-payg-3p-2p-1p-sim-cards-20p-delivered-at-ebay-3647100 originally mentioned by @Junaid26 and was the one I looked at yesterday. This lead me to the eBay seller I commented about, search for eBay item number: 324080768612 I'm not absolutely certain it's exactly the same ad, but it has the same spelling error and seller!
& the seller details here https://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/20psimcards?_trksid=p2047675.l2559

The seller has some other similar deals too (1 Classic sim + a Bundle sim), search eBay item number : 224113370148
I've noticed there's another post on that hotdeals thread giving links to some similar deals, but watch they aren't all the Classic O2 3-2-1 PAYG. I did notice some ads on eBay are the same trader but different selling name, also one seller I believe may be someone who has posted in this thread! Not all ads are the same hotdeal.
Also a post further down the hotdeals thread says that the deals are disappearing and the prices going back up.
Can't expect a 20p SIM deal to last for ever!! It has to be a promotion for the seller as 20p is surely less than the postage!
In any case if the SIMs did not activate you'd get your money back on the eBay buyer protection. On the very rare occasion that I've had an issue with something I've bought on eBay. I've had no trouble getting a refund. But hey, for 20p!

I’d treat these as if they are ‘new old stock’. O2 are no longer issuing them and the resellers will not be getting any more stock. Once the existing supplies are gone, that will be that. For 20p, if anyone has got the slightest interest in them, order one now before they're gone.

Regarding the price, I can’t see the resellers shifting these at a loss. Mine was sent out with a first class stamp on it which is currently 85p. They must receive money from O2 for every sim that’s activated. As you say, it could be a promotion to clear the stock, but one that's likely to be backed by O2.

Thanks for confirming, in the real world, that the O2 Classic SIMs can be activated and old number ported over. One reason for O2 continuing to activate these cut price reseller SIMs might be that O2 know full well they will be upping the charges in future. The big advantage of O2 is they allow you to switch to another O2 tariff and transfer  any existing O2 credit to the new account assuming their is an account worth opening.

Does seem that the days of cheap PAYG are numbered and bundles are being promoted to take over.

Nice of 3 to choose this moment, during a pandemic, to up their charges but I guess this decision was taken a year ago when the new rates were introduced for new customers to this tariff and after road testing it for a year they now are happy to sting the remaining customer base on the 321 rate.

Phones4Chris

Yorkshire_Pud said:

AndrewJB said:

Phones4Chris said:

@Chino, did you read @AndrewJB 's posts? (his was "must be activated by the 7th December 2021"). And the ad I looked at yesterday did guarantee activation on the Classic Tariff. They are CLEARLY advertising the O2 Classic 3-2-1 Tariff. But the ads are constantly changing as they seem to on hotdeals.
This is (I assume) the hotdeals link https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/2x-o2-classic-payg-3p-2p-1p-sim-cards-20p-delivered-at-ebay-3647100 originally mentioned by @Junaid26 and was the one I looked at yesterday. This lead me to the eBay seller I commented about, search for eBay item number: 324080768612 I'm not absolutely certain it's exactly the same ad, but it has the same spelling error and seller!
& the seller details here https://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/20psimcards?_trksid=p2047675.l2559

The seller has some other similar deals too (1 Classic sim + a Bundle sim), search eBay item number : 224113370148
I've noticed there's another post on that hotdeals thread giving links to some similar deals, but watch they aren't all the Classic O2 3-2-1 PAYG. I did notice some ads on eBay are the same trader but different selling name, also one seller I believe may be someone who has posted in this thread! Not all ads are the same hotdeal.
Also a post further down the hotdeals thread says that the deals are disappearing and the prices going back up.
Can't expect a 20p SIM deal to last for ever!! It has to be a promotion for the seller as 20p is surely less than the postage!
In any case if the SIMs did not activate you'd get your money back on the eBay buyer protection. On the very rare occasion that I've had an issue with something I've bought on eBay. I've had no trouble getting a refund. But hey, for 20p!

I’d treat these as if they are ‘new old stock’. O2 are no longer issuing them and the resellers will not be getting any more stock. Once the existing supplies are gone, that will be that. For 20p, if anyone has got the slightest interest in them, order one now before they're gone.

Regarding the price, I can’t see the resellers shifting these at a loss. Mine was sent out with a first class stamp on it which is currently 85p. They must receive money from O2 for every sim that’s activated. As you say, it could be a promotion to clear the stock, but one that's likely to be backed by O2.

Thanks for confirming, in the real world, that the O2 Classic SIMs can be activated and old number ported over. One reason for O2 continuing to activate these cut price reseller SIMs might be that O2 know full well they will be upping the charges in future. The big advantage of O2 is they allow you to switch to another O2 tariff and transfer  any existing O2 credit to the new account assuming their is an account worth opening.

Does seem that the days of cheap PAYG are numbered and bundles are being promoted to take over.

Nice of 3 to choose this moment, during a pandemic, to up their charges but I guess this decision was taken a year ago when the new rates were introduced for new customers to this tariff and after road testing it for a year they now are happy to sting the remaining customer base on the 321 rate.

Thanks for your post @AndrewJB. Yes, new old stock backed by O2 is the way I see them. A friend of mine bought one and it arrived today with an "Activate by 7th December 2021" date as well. His arrived with a First Class stamp on too!
@Yorkshire_Pud did you see what Vodafone have done to their PAYG1 tariff in the middle of this lockdown 

Yorkshire_Pud

No Chris but I’m guessing it has gone up extortionately!

Junaid26

Phones4Chris :

@Chino, did you read @AndrewJB 's posts? (his was "must be activated by the 7th December 2021"). And the ad I looked at yesterday did guarantee activation on the Classic Tariff. They are CLEARLY advertising the O2 Classic 3-2-1 Tariff. But the ads are constantly changing as they seem to on hotdeals.
This is (I assume) the hotdeals link hotukdeals .com/deals/2x-o2-classic-payg-3p-2p-1p-sim-cards-20p-delivered-at-ebay-3647100 originally mentioned by @Junaid26 and was the one I looked at yesterday. This lead me to the eBay seller I commented about, search for eBay item number: 324080768612 I'm not absolutely certain it's exactly the same ad, but it has the same spelling error and seller!
& the seller details here ebay .co.uk/usr/20psimcards?_trksid=p2047675.l2559

The seller has some other similar deals too (1 Classic sim + a Bundle sim), search eBay item number : 224113370148
I've noticed there's another post on that hotdeals thread giving links to some similar deals, but watch they aren't all the Classic O2 3-2-1 PAYG. I did notice some ads on eBay are the same trader but different selling name, also one seller I believe may be someone who has posted in this thread! Not all ads are the same hotdeal.
Also a post further down the hotdeals thread says that the deals are disappearing and the prices going back up.
Can't expect a 20p SIM deal to last for ever!! It has to be a promotion for the seller as 20p is surely less than the postage!
In any case if the SIMs did not activate you'd get your money back on the eBay buyer protection. On the very rare occasion that I've had an issue with something I've bought on eBay. I've had no trouble getting a refund. But hey, for 20p!

That was indeed the deal I was referring to, and they also have another listing currently (ebay item 323873641211) where they're doing 2x for 20p. They do seem to be an affiliate linked to O2 for sure, but the SIMs are definitely will on the 3/2/1 plan as I got mine also with an Dec activate by date. O2 do seem better in allowing users to stay on legacy tariffs as I believe there's still people on the very old ones such as text and web. Nothing is guaranteed of course, but worthwhile for as long as it lasts, and you get priority access also  

[Deleted User]

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...

Yorkshire_Pud

Junaid26 said:

Phones4Chris :

@Chino, did you read @AndrewJB 's posts? (his was "must be activated by the 7th December 2021"). And the ad I looked at yesterday did guarantee activation on the Classic Tariff. They are CLEARLY advertising the O2 Classic 3-2-1 Tariff. But the ads are constantly changing as they seem to on hotdeals.
This is (I assume) the hotdeals link hotukdeals .com/deals/2x-o2-classic-payg-3p-2p-1p-sim-cards-20p-delivered-at-ebay-3647100 originally mentioned by @Junaid26 and was the one I looked at yesterday. This lead me to the eBay seller I commented about, search for eBay item number: 324080768612 I'm not absolutely certain it's exactly the same ad, but it has the same spelling error and seller!
& the seller details here ebay .co.uk/usr/20psimcards?_trksid=p2047675.l2559

The seller has some other similar deals too (1 Classic sim + a Bundle sim), search eBay item number : 224113370148
I've noticed there's another post on that hotdeals thread giving links to some similar deals, but watch they aren't all the Classic O2 3-2-1 PAYG. I did notice some ads on eBay are the same trader but different selling name, also one seller I believe may be someone who has posted in this thread! Not all ads are the same hotdeal.
Also a post further down the hotdeals thread says that the deals are disappearing and the prices going back up.
Can't expect a 20p SIM deal to last for ever!! It has to be a promotion for the seller as 20p is surely less than the postage!
In any case if the SIMs did not activate you'd get your money back on the eBay buyer protection. On the very rare occasion that I've had an issue with something I've bought on eBay. I've had no trouble getting a refund. But hey, for 20p!

That was indeed the deal I was referring to, and they also have another listing currently (ebay item 323873641211) where they're doing 2x for 20p. They do seem to be an affiliate linked to O2 for sure, but the SIMs are definitely will on the 3/2/1 plan as I got mine also with an Dec activate by date. O2 do seem better in allowing users to stay on legacy tariffs as I believe there's still people on the very old ones such as text and web. Nothing is guaranteed of course, but worthwhile for as long as it lasts, and you get priority access also  

Just ordered two 02 sims for 20p on eBay. Seller has 99.9% rating and selling the sims for over three years. Worth a punt for 20p.