3 customer care strikes again

Cabaal

GreenHell wrote:

Horror story of a thread. I'll be leaving 3 when my contract runs out, not at happy about the treatment I recieved when they sent me out a replacement phone and sim card, which I payed 50 euro, no problem there. However the replacement phone was a refurb....

This unfortunately appears to be the norm when Three replace phones, its always what they were doing to people when they said they couldn't unlock Nokia phones.

Instead they'd sent people out refurbished Motorola's or LG's, infact its one of the requests that I made when they first refused to unlock my phone, I asked that they sent me a new phone if they were sending me one at all...they didn't really answer my question though

lfc1892

I bought a Nokia 6233 from 3. I was livid when I couldn't unlock it, I work for a mobile phone company and found that NO ONE could unlock this phone at the time (neither, o2 IRL or UK or T-Mobile or Vodafone UK and IRL, a google search will confirm this)

They refunded me in full because I was within the 14 days. However, it struck me that their customer care doesn't appear to be in Ireland and why do they only have a PO Box address?

I found there was no quibble in the exchange but I'm sure some poor sod got the handset as a replacement!

1huge1

Ya the customer care are in scotland for bill customers and india for 3pay customers

for the most part the scottish people are nice enough (on the phone anyway) and much easier to understand than the indians

chrislad

I flat out refuse to speak to the Indians. Not their fault but the entire nation has a native language that makes speaking English difficult at best. I always ask to be transferred to a English speaking person regardless of whether it's 3, Dell or whomever.

Sam Vimes

now they've got rid of the 1 hour free internet access a day. no immediate plans to bring it back

1huge1

serious, i was just using it the other day, ah well it was as useless as you could get (the sites i mean) I noticed gmailite the other day but it wouldnt load
so makes no difference to me
of course if they were to get rid of the walled garden then that would be a different sotry

smcelhinney

chrislad wrote:

I flat out refuse to speak to the Indians. Not their fault but the entire nation has a native language that makes speaking English difficult at best. I always ask to be transferred to a English speaking person regardless of whether it's 3, Dell or whomever.

chris, have always enjoyed your posts on other topics on boards, but mate, thats blatantly racist. Dress it up how you like, "I expect a service I pay for etc.." whatever..

neilled

Commander Vimes wrote:

now they've got rid of the 1 hour free internet access a day. no immediate plans to bring it back

What'd you reckon vimes? Is that in anticpation of the xseries launch? Any insider info?

Sam Vimes

smcelhinney wrote:

chris, have always enjoyed your posts on other topics on boards, but mate, thats blatantly racist. Dress it up how you like, "I expect a service I pay for etc.." whatever..

i wouldn't call it racist at all. there's a difference between hating someone because they're different to you and not wanting to discuss a difficult technical problem with them because they have only the most basic grasp of the language you're speaking.

any such problem will be sorted in half the time if you're speaking to a person whose native tongue is your own

Sam Vimes

neilled wrote:

What'd you reckon vimes? Is that in anticpation of the xseries launch? Any insider info?

no idea i'm afraid

ADSLUSER

smcelhinney wrote:

chris, have always enjoyed your posts on other topics on boards, but mate, thats blatantly racist. Dress it up how you like, "I expect a service I pay for etc.." whatever..

Yes I think it's best to keep your racist remarks out of this forum like "the entire nation has a native language that makes speaking English difficult at best". I work with many people from India in the workplace and find their English very good.

TerrorFirmer

ADSLUSER wrote:

Yes I think it's best to keep your racist remarks out of this forum like "the entire nation has a native language that makes speaking English difficult at best". I work with many people from India in the workplace and find their English very good.

His point was it's harder to understand an Indian person speaking English in comparison to a native English speaker. I have spoken to a fair few Indian reps before, and in fairness, while some of them had both perfect english and a better grasp of tech then others, their accents at times did make it hard to hear precisely what they were saying.

That's not racism.

ADSLUSER

Maybe the statement was not intended to be racist but remember that racism is also discrimination or prejudice based on race - and in this case, "I flat out refuse to speak to the Indians" would be classified as discrimination without giving a person the opportunity to speak based on their accent regardless of whether they have good English or not.

The_Hustler

I haven't had a great experience with 3 either (of course). I'm not on contract but even when I initially ordered the phone online it took 2 weeks to arive (not the next working day as it claimed).

I got a voicemail from one of their indian call centre reps and they wanted me to call, no name left. When I did all they told me was the features of the phone. A week and many calls later (to the scottish office as they seemed to be more helpful) still nothing. They just said all those phones should have been delivered by now. I finally get another call from the original rep, said she wants my father (as it was his credit card) and I gave his number after she wouldn't give me any details. My father missed the call unfortunately and no voicemail was left. The phone arrived eventually.

But now it's broken, and I certainly didn't want to deal with the customer care again. Luckily now they have shops. My father was in the Grafton street one and they said just bring it in and it will be gone for about 3 days.

I went in to the Henry Street one (more convenient) and I was told as it was bought online they wouldn't deal with it. I asked if they could just check if it's something to do with the battery(it wouldn't turn on properly, seemed like the white screen of death) and I was told they no longer have those chargers. I obviously hadn't meant that I had just run out of battery so I asked about them putting in a different battery and I was told they couldn't as they would be making things void if they opened anything.

I don't know if this was an unreasonable request, I had read many times that you could go to the retailer and get simple things like that checked. Eventually the person went to the manager and came back saying they would take it in but it would be for about 2 weeks. I told them what I'd been told and they said it is often 3-5 days but it could be 2 weeks.

I'm presuming I can expect it to take 2 weeks, and get it back still faulty, or some claim that I broke it. I'll most likely lose everything, including a good few games that I hadn't even got to play yet (I just bought them in the January sale). Is there any chance of getting compensation for them, seeing as they're bought from three? I'm guessing not.

neilled

Hustler - all the network shops in ireland use as number of phone repairers that are authorised to repair handsets by the manufacturers as its all subcontracted these days. Vodafone use TMPRC, Meteor Sigma, and Three and O2 Anovo.

Having dealt with Anovo whilst working for O2 i would say in general they don't send something back as damaged unless it was damaged and if it is a warranty fault it will be repaired. Now obviously you do get cases where the repairs get botched and the phones come back in again but thats kind of part and parcel of it.

Three's handsets come in security sealed packs with that little silver sticker in them. There were one or two things in o2 like that as well - you just weren't supposed to open them! Having said that, when the shop built up a pool of damaged/broken/unwanted phones for recycling you could take batteries out of those and use them to do the like of what you were wanting. The three stores being open a small time probably don't have a huge amount of handsets lying around in this state...... its a bit stupid on their behalf i know but the head office mandrins in any company (and the auditors) sometimes get mad ideas and woe betide any retail grunt who doesn't follow the orders to the last full stop........

chrislad

chris, have always enjoyed your posts on other topics on boards, but mate, thats blatantly racist. Dress it up how you like, "I expect a service I pay for etc.." whatever..

I suspect this comment wouldn't have arisen were it not for that damn Big Brother. Anywho, racism, as has been noted by other posters, was not my intent, nor will it ever be. I deal with people of differing nationalities every single day I work. My point was that the native language of the Indian people makes it difficult for them to speak English that we would understand. The same goes for me trying to speak Polish, and no doubt Indian as well. Every time I deal with a Polish (or nearly every Eastern european), I find it difficult to pronounce their names (due to a lot of s's and z's normally) and this is a source of great amusement, more often than not, for myself and the customer.

Moving back to my original point, and this is from experience with Dell, I would prefer to speak with someone regarding a problem I have with a service with a person I can understand 100% and who can understand me 100%. Regarding Dell, I was speaking with two Indian people regarding a faulty soundcard. They were telling me to do this, I was explaining that I did it already etc and we both just got frustrated to the point where I just thanked them for their help, hung up and went out and just bought a new sound card, even though I was covered by warranty.

Yes I think it's best to keep your racist remarks out of this forum like "the entire nation has a native language that makes speaking English difficult at best". I work with many people from India in the workplace and find their English very good.

Again, the remark I suspect is more to do with the current climate since BB, and people are tippy toeing around Indian people at the moment. Again, as explained above, the remark was not racist, and to be honest, I could have read that from someone else and racism would not have entered my head. There's a difference between making a factual statement about a nation and making an offensive statement about a nation. The Indian language DOES make it difficult for them to speak English. They were brought up with a different alphabet etc, and the accent DOES make it difficult for me to understand, and going by replies here, a lot of people do feel the same. Nothing racist about that. If I buy a service and have a problem or complaint, I do expect to be able to deal with it quickly without having to repeat myself repeatedly on the phone. Now, I know there are some people who take to the language a lot better than others (again, bringing BB into it, Shilpa had impeccable English, and dare I say, would be much easier to understand than myself to a broader audience) but for the most part, Indian call centers are cheaper labour, with cheaper training. Unfortunately a product of cost cutting and profiteering.

In conclusion, I would like to apologise if anyone took any offense to my comments, and as I droned on for above, that was not my intention. Apologies also if I ruined any previous or future enjoyment of my posts

ADSLUSER

Chrislad, everything's cool mate. Boards is such a great place, just wanted to ensure it's free from any discrimination but as you explained you had no racist intentions. : D

Urban Weigl

Great post chrislad. I find myself absolutely agreeing with everything you've said.

rogue-entity

I never had any problem understanding people with Indian accents, I work with someone from India, a student, and I never have any problems understanding him. Then again, I speak quite fast and with an (apparently) thick accent which makes it near impossible for some people (particularly Americans) to understand what I am saying.. and we may as well learn to understand Indian english speakers better since (apparently) 3 are outsourcing their call center for the UK and Ireland to Mumbai on April 17th.

The_Hustler

neilled wrote:

Having dealt with Anovo whilst working for O2 i would say in general they don't send something back as damaged unless it was damaged and if it is a warranty fault it will be repaired. Now obviously you do get cases where the repairs get botched and the phones come back in again but thats kind of part and parcel of it.

Sadly they have sent it back to me claiming there is water damage. Small claims court here I come.

Sam Vimes

The_Hustler wrote:

Sadly they have sent it back to me claiming there is water damage. Small claims court here I come.

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055042434

you probably will win because they won't bother showing up, not because there's no water damage. you didn't make it clear how long you had the phone before it got damaged. was it like that when you got it?

chrislad

Oh dear God. Onto them again, and I'm being told AGAIN that I cannot change my tariff. I explained that CPW told me I could and all I got was apologies but I signed a contract saying I agreed to the T+C. I pushed on this that I never actually signed a contract nor was I given any T+C's. I had asked could I switch down and I was told yes. I don't want to get snotty with these people as they are nice but I asked was there a copy of the T+C's on their site, and he said yes. I asked where and I've currently been on hold for 5 minutes while he looks!!

They're nice and all on the phone but it seems to be that they're not singing from the same song sheet.

Sam Vimes

chrislad wrote:

Oh dear God. Onto them again, and I'm being told AGAIN that I cannot change my tariff. I explained that CPW told me I could and all I got was apologies but I signed a contract saying I agreed to the T+C. I pushed on this that I never actually signed a contract nor was I given any T+C's. I had asked could I switch down and I was told yes. I don't want to get snotty with these people as they are nice but I asked was there a copy of the T+C's on their site, and he said yes. I asked where and I've currently been on hold for 5 minutes while he looks!!

They're nice and all on the phone but it seems to be that they're not singing from the same song sheet.

they are nice but don't actually have the power to do anything. you can 100% definitely change your tariff. i'm on the phone to them now and i've just confrimed that you can drop your tariff one step at a time (i.e. if you're on the 60 tariff you haver to drop to the 45 for a month then the 25). i can give you the guys name if you want so you can talk to someone who knows what hes talking about. the only condition is you have to be with them 6 months and that's how its always been.


and he said the the problem earlier was multi-national. england went down too

1huge1

if sure if you wanted to upgrade you tariff say from 24 a month to 100 a month they wouldnt make you go through each tariff for a month

Blaster99

They give you a phone subsidy based on your bundle, so they're not going to let you switch to a lower bundle immediately. Pretty obvious, I would have thought?

Sam Vimes

Blaster99 wrote:

They give you a phone subsidy based on your bundle, so they're not going to let you switch to a lower bundle immediately. Pretty obvious, I would have thought?

the thing is they're saying he can't drop at all which is not true

chrislad

Blaster99 wrote:

They give you a phone subsidy based on your bundle, so they're not going to let you switch to a lower bundle immediately. Pretty obvious, I would have thought?

Obviously.

The point was that I wasn't sure which bundle I needed. I said I'd go for the higher one as I was told I could switch down whenever I wanted to, no questions asked. I am now being told that I can't switch down until 12 months are up.

I consider this a major contract breach, or at the very least, signing a contract under false pretenses. Either way, I'm not using nor paying for my Three contract until they sort it out.

Blaster99

Commander Vimes wrote:

the thing is they're saying he can't drop at all which is not true

If their T&C's say that the price plan can be lowered, quote them that. Otherwise, good luck.

chrislad wrote:

The point was that I wasn't sure which bundle I needed. I said I'd go for the higher one as I was told I could switch down whenever I wanted to, no questions asked. I am now being told that I can't switch down until 12 months are up.

I consider this a major contract breach, or at the very least, signing a contract under false pretenses. Either way, I'm not using nor paying for my Three contract until they sort it out.

It sounds like an issue between you and CPW, the people who sold you the phone and told you lies.

If you haven't signed a contract, then there's no issue in any event. Stop paying.

chrislad

That's what I am doing

I've not used the Three sim since the issue, I've paid up my rental to the end of this month and I've cancelled my direct debit. I don't owe them anything, they owe me nothing. I've sent them an email to this respect and am posting back my sim tomorrow.

Sam Vimes

Blaster99 wrote:

If their T&C's say that the price plan can be lowered, quote them that. Otherwise, good luck.



It sounds like an issue between you and CPW, the people who sold you the phone and told you lies.

If you haven't signed a contract, then there's no issue in any event. Stop paying.

if you read the thread you'd see that i personally dropped my tariff from 60 a month to 25. the only person telling lies is the bloke at 3 customer care