WARNING: Three are thieves!

Ferris

The three network have now adopted a novel approach to retentions. Rather than offering great deals or quality phones, they simply cancel your contract, and then set you up on a new one without your permission, tying you in for 18 months and claiming that you called to arrange it in the first place. This is what has just happened to my sister.

The day before her contract was due to end, she called to have her sim converted to PAYG. they said no problem, and that it would follow on seamlessly from the contract sim ending, and that she could keep her number. The day the contract ended... no conversion. The sim card was inactive. She called three again, and was told there had been a problem, and that they would have to reactivate her account which would take up to 3 working days.

3 working days later, a letter of apology and a replacement SIM card arrives. she puts it in her phone only to find out she has been 'upgraded' (despite not having been given a new phone) to a completely different tariff. she never asked for it, agreed to it, and as has already been mentioned, this 'upgrade' provided no actual 'upgrade' at all. on calling three, they say that she had requested an upgrade on the 18th (while her SIM was inactive, remember), and - despite being able to conjure imaginary interactions out of thin air - were unable to find either note on her account where she requested to convert to PAYG. so that's it. we're dependent on three's insane computer system (true Artificial Intelligence, it even has an imagination!), and now my sister is locked into paying £18x18 months (or risk her credit score) with not even a new phone to show for it.

beware, three are thieves, take a contract with them at your peril.

does anyone know the official address for the network so that we can write and tell them of our disgust at this extortion? i was previously a fan of three but now i will do all in my power to deter people from signing up to them.

utilitybroker

An e-mail to their Executive Office
executive.office<a>three.co.uk usually gets results.

alnsv1000s

If they have no proof of a request to start a new tariff and contract then call them again and ask for cancellations and ask for the Pac code and move it to another network. Follow it up with a letter sent by special delivery to Three explaining that she requested conversion to Payg.

Don't let them get away with it unless they did in fact offer her a reduced line rental deal instead of a cencellation.

As a dealer I have had nightmares with them recently when I try and upgrade a customer through their Sprint system and it fails and then have to spend an hour on the phone to them to try and get the upgrade done manually.

They then put it on a different package to what I requested and dont register it properly and customer end up on wrong tariff and we give out a phone that Three dont pay me for until the problem they have caused is queried which can take months.

Even the dealer support is in Mumbai and 80% of the time cannot understand what we are saying and I end up spelling a whole conversation over the phone.

Good luck and don't accept their incompetence.

GunJack

I'm wondering if 3 have had a recent big overhaul of staff/computer systems/something, as they never used to be this bad. As ferris will remember, they bodged up my transfer to payg at contract end, and I'm still trying to sort it out....

GeoThermal

An admin error or disgruntled employee hardly makes them thieves. Yes it's unacceptable and frustrating but the contract is unenforceable if it was not agreed to. Email the exec office as suggested. It might be worth asking for a copy of the phonecall recording of the alleged upgrade request. I hope they resolve it quickly for you.

alnsv1000s

GeoThermal wrote: »

An admin error or disgruntled employee hardly makes them thieves. Yes it's unacceptable and frustrating but the contract is unenforceable if it was not agreed to. Email the exec office as suggested. It might be worth asking for a copy of the phonecall recording of the alleged upgrade request. I hope they resolve it quickly for you.

I agree.

Some of the terminology on this forum is poor, such as thieves, scammers, conmen etc.

They do not deliberately mislead but it is usually down to inadequate customer service an I would say from recent experiences Three are getting worse.

It takes me so much longer to sort out problems on 3 than any other network and I am a Q (quality) dealer.

They have put value back into the tariffs but not customer services.

KeithP

The day before her contract was due to end, she called to have her sim converted to PAYG. they said no problem...

Don't you have to give 30 days notice to terminate a contract?

Ferris

GeoThermal wrote: »

An admin error or disgruntled employee hardly makes them thieves. Yes it's unacceptable and frustrating but the contract is unenforceable if it was not agreed to. Email the exec office as suggested. It might be worth asking for a copy of the phonecall recording of the alleged upgrade request. I hope they resolve it quickly for you.

obviously if its an admin error and they're willing to accept the possibility of that, then that's fine.

but to read out account notes and then deny point blank that those exact same notes exist a few minutes later, to insist that she made a call requesting an upgrade (and inventing an account note for it) when her sim was inactive (suggesting that she was the deceitful one, in fact), and to insist that she had had an upgrade when all she'd had was the replacement sim she requested suggests such incompetence that they have to hide behind deceit to try to wriggle out of it, and to me, deceit plus monetary gain is a fair approximation to theft, whether by an individual or an corporation.

i've had at least one contract on almost every network, and that's never happened before.

on the plus side, a day on we seem to have got through to some people who seemed to have a bit more power, and they finally grudgingly acknowledged that they might have made an error (still no apology though) and that the SIM should change over to PAYG within a couple of days. i'm still dubious, and i expect we will still get bills and more hassle over this. but a little bit of progress, at least. thus if i had the power to change the title of this thread, i would change it to:

"If Satan had a network, it would be Three"

which is far snappier. merry humbug, everyone

GunJack

Update - just had a call from 3, they're sending me a new SIM for the account & number they erroneously transferred to payg, and giving me my discounted retention tariff....I wrote to Glasgow to complain and they've done the biz.,,:D

Ferris

GunJack wrote: »

Update - just had a call from 3, they're sending me a new SIM for the account & number they erroneously transferred to payg, and giving me my discounted retention tariff....I wrote to Glasgow to complain and they've done the biz.,,:D

good for you GunJack! what is the Glasgow address you wrote to that did the trick? i have a very stiff letter i want to write them (possibly on cardboard).

GunJack

ferris - will dig it out next couple of days for you...