Lost Phone with Three - bad experience

the_batman

I had a shocking experience with three at the weekend. I lost my phone. I know it is my fault that I lost the phone, but when I contacted three they certainly let me know it was fault... and kept telling me this!

I lost the phone on Saturday morning. I called three at about 11am and they told me that they could suspend the account immediately and also blacklist the phone. I agreed to this and asked about getting a new handset. I am on bill pay and remember the person in the store telling me that if I lost the phone they would charge €50 and have a new phone for me within 24hours. I asked them about this, and they told me that the phone would arrive on Tuesday, but the sim could take up to five days to arrive (from Monday). If I avail of this service, I would also have to extend my contract by 12 months. As nothing was going to be done until Monday, I told them I would call them back later.

A couple of hours later I got an email from a friend telling me that they tried to call me, but were getting some sort of message that my phone had been disconnected or something like that. I had assumed that when they suspended my account I would still have access to voice mail. I assumed wrong! I phoned three up and asked them to unsuspend my account, so that I could still have access to my voicemail. They told me that I would be liable for any call costs, but as the phone had been blacklisted I told that that this shouldn't be an issue. The customer service guy just kept telling me that it was my fault and I shouldn't have lost my phone. He really made me angry. I asked could I speak to someone else, so that I could have the number diverted to another phone, but he would not transfer my call. He told me I would have to hang up (and again told me that it was my fault that I lost the phone) and if I wanted to speak to someone else I would have to call back. I did and spoke to someone else who then setup my phone to divert to another phone number (I bought a meteor pay as you go phone so that I would be contactable until I got my phone back).

My friend has a spare Motorola v3x which she said she would give me, so this morning I phoned three in order to get a new sim card.

I read on the three website that there would be a charge for a replacement sim card and that this charge was set out in their Price Guide. I had a look at the price guide, but there was no mention of it there.

To my amazement, they told me that it would cost €27.25 to get a replacement sim!!! How can they charge this amount for a sim card? If this is listed on their website, then fine, but it is not.

At this stage it is more of a principle thing. I have three months remaining on my contract, and I think I would rather cancel the contract (and pay a termination fee) rather than pay the €27.25 charge.

Any suggestions?

the_batman

I just received a call back from Three and they have told me that they will send me a new sim card free of charge because the charge was not listed on their website.

Sam Vimes

to be fair they disabled the account, voicemail and all. you couldn't expect to be able to access voicemail. still the guy was a bit of a pr!ck.

you've got a free sim so there's not 27 charge for there to be principle over. and they're shipped from england so that could go some (not by any means all) of the way to explaining why they're so expensive.

i wanted an n70 cheap so i upgraded with them. the process of upgrading and trying in vain to get my old phone unlocked pissed me right off. my advice, let the three months run out and then port your number out

read about my unlocking fiasco here: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054971469

the real kicker was that the phone they sent out to me, a v3x, is faulty. yay

1huge1

you didnt get it that bad at all to be honest
they really couldnt do much once they deactivated the account
only thing i would be pissed of about if the rudeness of the person at the call centre

chrislad

I'll just leave them and go elsewhere to be honest. Meteor have better deals, as do O2.

the_batman

It was really their attitude which annoyed me. "You shouldn't have lost your phone". Really? Thanks for that. I will take that on board.

I think I will wait for three months and then switch. I have a blackberry aswell, so my next phone will hopefully merge the two of them together. Not sure if I will get a blackberry or one of the Nokia multi function things like an E61.

Pythia

Their attitude was awful. I've never heard someone from customer service say that, except maybe once in a joking way. Anyway, all's well that ends well I suppose.

EIN

the_batman wrote:

It was really their attitude which annoyed me. "You shouldn't have lost your phone". Really? Thanks for that. I will take that on board.

I think I will wait for three months and then switch. I have a blackberry aswell, so my next phone will hopefully merge the two of them together. Not sure if I will get a blackberry or one of the Nokia multi function things like an E61.

port ur num out, i ported away from 3 about 4mths before the end of contract! and 3 waived the cancellation fees !

best thing i ever did was cancel that 3 contract. as with comander vimes i am having a nightmare getting my old 6680 on three unlocked.. getting messed about by 3 something shocking..

months and months have passed and still no joy with unlock codes...
im sure 3 are loosing customers every day,, with this messing about.!

rogue-entity

Well, some consolation is that your particualar call will have been recorded and it may just be used as an example of how NOT to deal with customers.
That and the fact that 3's staff monitor these forums and are presumably well aware of the customer dissatisfaction with their services. Personally I havent had a problem with them yet that hasnt been sorted pretty quickly (maybe they just like me ).

There are as always a few things that do annoy me, and I have experienced the odd brusk service agent. I did mention once that some people dislike 3s preference for 3G over 2G in poor coverage areas and the guy rather bluntly pointed out that it costs 3 money every time people use Vodafone (really, Vodafone bill you for using their network, who'd have guessed :rolleyes: ). As there have been odd occasions where this has caused me to have no service, although the service I get when roaming on Vodafone is unreliable at best, 9/10 I cannot place calls, only texts.

4tothefloor

Commander Vimes wrote:

the real kicker was that the phone they sent out to me, a v3x, is faulty. yay

I'm on my fourth, yes fourth, v3x with Three bill pay. It's the worst phone I've ever had and has given nothing but problems - texting freezes up the whole phone, lines of gibberish filling up the whole screen when texting, phone screen flashing on/off and wearing down battery, phone turning itself off when static, phone turning itself off when you flip it back after using it etc. One of the phones that they sent me out wouldn't even let me access the menu, while another one's camera and video camera didn't work at all. I'm on the fourth one now and the texting is playing up again. It's a piece of s**t to put it mildley and I wouldn't recoomend it, or any Motorola phone, to anyone.

My advice to u Commander Vimes is to take it back to the store you bought it from, or ring up three customer service, and demand a replacement phone. Most of the phones they are sending out to people are faulty and it's a joke. I have to see out my contract with three before they will give me my unlock code for the phone. As soon as that happens I'm selling it and moving back to Meteor....

Sam Vimes

you've joined the moto haters club well done. i only got the v3x to replace the 6680 they wouldn't unlock. i sold it as soon as it arrived to a mate who wanted one because, yes, his old one went faulty (and the one before that). they won't give me a replacement now, they'll only "repair" it. i have to wait until it breaks the thrid time before they'll give me a different phone

4tothefloor

Commander Vimes wrote:

you've joined the moto haters club well done. i only got the v3x to replace the 6680 they wouldn't unlock. i sold it as soon as it arrived to a mate who wanted one because, yes, his old one went faulty (and the one before that). they won't give me a replacement now, they'll only "repair" it. i have to wait until it breaks the thrid time before they'll give me a different phone

Did they give you an unlock code for the v3x?

I've only ever experienced one bad Motorola out of seven (V300, V600, V550, V620, V635, V3, V3x - the V3 was the dud), maybe I was just lucky? But now I'm a S60 man, lol.

I'm looking at the different networks at the moment and 3 are certainly off my list...