3 PAYG rate increase

Yorkshire_Pud

dahj 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...

Agree they are within their legal right to increase prices. I did get refunds from fresh aka carphone wharehouse in about 2009 and Asda mobile a few years back after similar gouging tariff increases but only by getting the help of Paul Lewis at the Guardian in the case of fresh and received a call from the ceo of CW and offer of compensation £35 but when companies do this it’s only by outing them in the media as treating their customers unfairly that they back down due to bad publicity.

Now I can’t be bothered. I will just use up the remaining £10 credit at the gouging rate on the principal of when I mentioned about the rising price of petrol to someone and they said it doesn’t cost me any extra, I just put £20 worth in the tank every time!

Notice mse are pushing a new 3 tariff in the right hand banner. Will I go with 3 ever again? Nah.

Roger1

AndrewJB said:

I moved my mother to 1p Mobile when she got a smartphone. They use the EE network. It’s been very good but it does cost a minimum of £30 per year so it’s not for very light users. She uses it for the occasional international call as it's much cheaper than using the landline in some cases.

Have you looked at Lebara and Lycamobile? They both have £5 monthly packages. OK, not PAYG, but they include 100 international minutes.  Obviously depends on her call profile.  Occasional half-price offers, so £2.50.

AndrewJB

Roger1 said:

AndrewJB said:

I moved my mother to 1p Mobile when she got a smartphone. They use the EE network. It’s been very good but it does cost a minimum of £30 per year so it’s not for very light users. She uses it for the occasional international call as it's much cheaper than using the landline in some cases.

Have you looked at Lebara and Lycamobile? They both have £5 monthly packages. OK, not PAYG, but they include 100 international minutes.  Obviously depends on her call profile.  Occasional half-price offers, so £2.50.

She manages to stick within the £30 a year at the moment. International calls weren’t a consideration when I chose 1p Mobile but she was accumulating credit and I was surprised to find that the tariff was quite a lot cheaper than the landline. The companies you’ve suggested are definitely worth bearing in mind if her usage increases.

Regarding the O2 sim, I notice it says 2g, 3g, or 4g, I wonder if anyone can confirm whether it will work on 5g? I would assume that 5g is reserved for the newer tariffs. It’s not a concern for me at the moment, nor is it likely to be for the foreseeable future, but it could be a way for O2 to shift some people off these legacy tariffs.

One bonus for me is that the signal on O2 seems to be about 9-10 dBm stronger than Three, which is quite a big difference and should solve the issues I was having.

NFH

Yorkshire_Pud said:

Agree they are within their legal right to increase prices.

Not quite. Three's marketing of the product caused you to take a transactional decision that you would not have taken otherwise, specifically topping up your Three SIM card. By failing to honour the marketed prices with respect to existing credit, Three is breaching Regulation 5 of the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008, specifically Regulation 5(4)(g) concerning price. For example, you might have topped up £50 with the expectation of receiving 5GB to use at will over several years, but now Three will give you only 1GB for that £50. Given that Three's marketing of these prices was more prominent than any terms and conditions allowing them to increase those prices, those terms and conditions cannot override the legislation.

You should make a complaint to Three on 0800 033 8013, and if it fails to compensate you, for example by multiplying your existing credit by 5 times, then you can complain to Ombudsman Services Limited, an alternative dispute resolution scheme in which Three participates. With respect to this price increase, you can complain only about existing credit balances, not about any future top-ups.

Yorkshire_Pud

NFH said:

Yorkshire_Pud said:

Agree they are within their legal right to increase prices.

Not quite. Three's marketing of the product caused you to take a transactional decision that you would not have taken otherwise, specifically topping up your Three SIM card. By failing to honour the marketed prices with respect to existing credit, Three is breaching Regulation 5 of the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008, specifically Regulation 5(4)(g) concerning price. For example, you might have topped up £50 with the expectation of receiving 5GB to use at will over several years, but now Three will give you only 1GB for that £50. Given that Three's marketing of these prices was more prominent than any terms and conditions allowing them to increase those prices, those terms and conditions cannot override the legislation.

You should make a complaint to Three on 0800 033 8013, and if it fails to compensate you, for example by multiplying your existing credit by 5 times, then you can complain to Ombudsman Services Limited, an alternative dispute resolution scheme in which Three participates. With respect to this price increase, you can complain only about existing credit balances, not about any future top-ups.

Thanks I’m gonna do it £10 refund or multiply credit by five to £50. I will introduce the complaint bit as soon as they start to flim flam me and I’ve got their name. That’s if I can get through.

Swipe

Still no text for me on my 321 PAYG or my data reward sim

getmore4less

Our 2  PAYG 321 came,  the data reward nothing yet.

alanjones60

Swipe. Same for me ,no text on my data reward sim. 1 thing though,when you ring 444,then press for info on your tarriff, mine says,’ you are on one of our old tarriffs,if you want our 321 rates,press 1. But i you know we are already on 321 rate. Prhaps we will miss the price rise alltogether,being as three think im not on it anyway

Roger1

Looking for a substitute for Three 3-2-1, I initially rejected 1pmobile  as too fiddly.  However, they have an option of a 1-year top-up for £30: 

1p a minute, 1p a text, 1p a MB - top-up lasts 1 year

Join 1pMobile today with a £30 top-up so you are all set for a whole year.

Normally we ask you to top-up at least once every 120 days to keep the service active. With the £30 top-up we will not ask you to add any more credit for a whole year. Obviously, if you use all the £30 of credit sooner then you will need to add more.

Includes roaming in 46 European destinations.  This does look attractive to me.  I'll check how Switzerland is included (family reasons) before deciding.

twopenny

Can I ask where you saw this Roger?

Just that I've seen varying lengths of time for their top ups and feel confused.