markbhx

I took a three mobile contract out in the UK back in Feb 2007 just as they launched "3 like home" as I was moving to Sydney. That is you can roam on any global 3 network and call back to the UK using your inclusive minutes and texts. So for 30 pound a month I can call the UK for 500 minutes a month from OZ with no additional cost, plus I had 500 text messages back to the UK.

Anyway my girlfriend also had a similiar contract. She found out 2 weeks ago that the "3 like home" service had been withdrawn on 1st July 2009. She only found out when she couldnt send text messages. On calling 3 uk they said she couldnt send texts because her mobile bill hadnt been paid. Which was strange as it was direct debit. Then the agent told her her bill was 500 pound when ususlly it was 30GBP!! So they let her bill run up to this amount, they stopped her sending texts but still allowed more phone calls to be made on the phone and never told us. The calls have gone from being free to 2 pound a minute.

Apparently they informed us of this change by text message lol. What a joke who changes your contract by text message. We had no letter or no email.

Anyway obviously we are not paying this bill. We have cancelled the direct debit ( yes we are in breach of the contract) and told the bank not to allow them to take any money from the account. I'm aware that they can change your terms and conditions without telling you but this is a joke. This is not some minor change this is massive. Basically our phones are useless now as we only used them to call the UK.

I'm in dispute with them also over my contract as I recently renewed it to a better plan before I knew about this change. I dont call the UK as much as my OH so I didnt get hit with a massive bill. Now they are saying I am locked in til 2011!!

As usual the indian call centre was useless and tried to offer credit and all sorts of crap for phones that we cant use... unbelievable. Then they offered for a manager to call me back lol. This would also cost me 2 pound a minute to receive the call when before it was free. I had to explain that to the agent as well.

So now we are back to compaining by snail mail, breaking our contracts by stopping the direct debits and if they dont reply with a satisfactory solution of to Otelo we go to let them sort it out.

Did anyone else use this service and now cant? How did you go with cancelling contracts and them waiving the bill?

3 have really stuffed up here. From internet searches it seems lots of people are cancelling contracts due to this change.

Lee Family

We are still in the UK and did receive a text saying they were getting rid of 3 like home and being as it was a major contract change we could cancel our contract with no penalty, when we rang them to cancel they said we had never used the phones in Australia so could not cancel We had to read them the text that said nothing about having to have used the phone abroad for them to eventually say they would cancel the contract, unsurprisingly it didnt happen, so 30 days later after a heated conversation with "Steve" in India saying they had no record of our call we just kept repeating cancel the contract over and over, after 20 minutes of this they said they would cancel within 7 days, 5 minutes after hanging up the phone went off. Unfortunately i have to ring them again this week to cancel another contract (daughters phone) that luckily is past renewal but i'm not expecting it to be easy.
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markbhx

Sounds about right. It took me 30 minutes to get it through to them I want the contract cancelled and I dont won't free credit a discounts on my bill, not at 2 pound a minute to make phone calls. They're call centre is useless

Luckily Ive used the phone in oz for more than 2 years so if it goes to the ombudsman at least I have evidence that it has been solely used for that purpose. I might get some compo for the hassle of cancelling it :-D.
Theyre just making it more difficult than it has to be.. prob in the hope I'll give in!! errr not.

bcworld

Not having a dig but I can understand why they would withdraw it if it was common for people to take a contract out in one country and then use the phone exclusively in another - I'm surprised some kind of loosely worded 'fair use' policy didn't apply?

As far as I know '3 like home' still exists for 3 Au customers, although it has never included call costs, even if your cap includes them - the only thing you get from you inclusive cap while roaming is SMS...and no charge to receive calls. Calls and data are very reasonably priced with 3 like home though, compared to traditional roaming.

seang

I belive its just UK customers affected. So if you had your contract with 3 Ireland or Italy its still in place

markbhx

It's just UK customers that it has been withdrawn. I'm sure the rest will follow. There reason behind withdrawing it was to avoid shock bills when customer accidentally roam onto a non 3 network and call the UK, lol, what a joke. Everyone knows you can lock you phone to only use one network and it its not available then you cant make calls.

Doesn't suprise me that oz 3 only offers txt messages while roaming. Mobile phone deals are terrible down under. They need more competition here. Need a nice little mobile start up to undercut the big boys :-D

bcworld

I have a colleague who went to Europe with his shiny new iPhone and came back with an unexpected bill of over $5000 for roaming data charges! This guy is clued up when it comes to technology so I'm not sure what happened - maybe his data cost / Mb was just extreme and he didn't realise.

Anyway after much pleading to the onbudsman he eventually got away with a settlement of a few hundred $s.

Lucky Lucan

I got the text from 3, rang them up and made them cancel my contract without penalty, they tried to talk me out of it of course with the usual tactics but I insisted that as they had changed their T&C's I had the right to cancel, as stated in the very same T&C's

David101

To anyone who has been affected by 3 removing its "3 like home" plan I would highly recommend complaining to OTELO (the Ombudsman), in particular if you regarded an SMS notification of such a fundamental term of the contract to be an absolute joke. Who reads their SMS messages when all 3 ever sends is advertising material?

Don't be surprised if you are treated badly throughout the whole 'customer service' process by 3. I have only ever been disappointed by 3. They were rated as far and away the worst customer service provider of all the UK operators this year.

Should you get past their incompetent Indian call centre you will then confont their bullies at the mythical 'Executive Office' (oh and don't call their 0845 number either - call 01628 765000 to save wasting more money on 3). Nonetheless, this process is unfortunately required to proceed with lodging your case with Otelo, who will hopefully handle your case to deliver a good outcome.

Good luck!

markbhx

I got my contract cancelled by going through the "exec office". My OH has to go to OTELO has she owes them 600 quid and they won't waive it.

David101

Update - I won the battle with 3 after refusing to pay the £500 or so pounds I allegedly owed them after they cancelled their '3 like home' plan.

It was all heading to the Ombudsman and then they agreed to waive the full amount and let me terminate my contract early. A happy outcome, but a lot of undue stress in getting there!

Good luck.

markbhx

Nice one. My OH took it to the ombudsman and 3 offered a 100 quid discount on a 600 quid bill. She refused the offer then the ombudsman came back with thats it its take 3's offer or let them take you to court for the money.
I told her to wait til 3 chase her for the money. As we are in oz, they might drop it as taken her to court would prob cost more than the bill.

NedKelly

When I moved over here I had just finished with my three contract. I went into the local "three" shop here and asked if I could buy a sim for the phone. Of course they wouldn't and they said I had to sign a 2-year contract and I get a new phone, which just happened to be exactly the same as the old one.

So I bought an Optus PAYG phone and sold the old three phone on ebay for a nice sum.

I would never deal with them again.

RobertC

Funnily enough, I just got an iPhone 3GS 32GB model on a 3 contract for 2 years, super fast delivery and no problems at all getting it all set up, I only use it within Oz so there's plenty spare in the $49 cap (plus $10 for the iPhone).

For a total of $59 per month 3 were by far the cheapest provider, if you only use the phone within Oz and rarely make international calls then these deals aren't really important and there's no need to think about canceling.

Actually, I've never come across any company that makes cancellation of their product or service easy. I suppose the exception is when you move elsewhere and they take care of the previous cancellation for you (like electricity companies)


Anyway, to sum up, all phone companies make obscene profits and will keep adjusting their charges to keep it that way. At least 3 created this deal in the first place, I'm sure no other companies would have, and when 3 realised why they had to cancel it again.

markbhx

The problem was 3 decided to cancel the service by means of changing the cost per call and txt. When the call cost goes from 0p per minute to 3.50 a minute letting people by txt message is not acceptable. As we found out the txt never arrived. They had our email/ phone numbers and address so I don't know why they couldnt call us/ write to us.
On top of that they didnt question the fact that our bills had gone from 30 pound a month to 400+, they just let us keep racking up charges. Now that is really bad for a company to allow that.