Three

I've always spoken very highly of Three, even yesterday defending them on this forum. However I feel the need to share a very bad experience I had/am having with them. I ordered 3 iphone 4's for family members at Christmas. Received them on 23rd Dec. However one of the iphones didn't connect to Three. After a million phone calls and emails they told me that the contract for one of the phones had been declined AFTER the iphone was sent out! Unbelievable I know but it's true. Therefore they couldn't activate it and told me I must return it. The iphone did work on our wifi but that was all. The phone was a gift to my son so it was quite hard having to send it back. Not as hard as what followed though. I should mention it took £30 worth of phone calls from my landline to get them to find out WHY the contract for that phone was declined after being sent out (an error at their end). No one knew why - the phone number wasn't even recognised! I have no idea whey they couldn't have activated it, having found the error! Sent the iphone back on 4th Jan as requested, it was received back with them on 5th Jan (tracking info showed it). It is now 15th Feb and I am still awaiting the refund of £89 (up front payment for the iphone on The One Plan). I submitted a complaints form at the end of January after many emails and no resolution. Then on 7th Feb I received an email with a resolution and admittedly an apology for the delay and poor service. There were three options for my refund and I was to get back to them to let them know how they should proceed. Yeah right ! I emailed them the same day saying how to proceed but got an auto responder saying we will reply within 10 days (which usually means a few weeks). Today I phoned customer services thinking I would only have to mention the email they sent me and all would be well! Not so. They didn't really know what I was talking about ! The language barrier doesn't help! I've yet to speak to a customer service adviser in the UK !! Finally I was told that they would email the person who wrote to me with the resolution and he would call me. Some hours later I'm still waiting for his call. If no call tonight I shall be sending all the paper work (hundreds of emails! and my landline phone bill) to head office. I am so disappointed in Three right now. Have been a loyal customer for a few years and until this lot happened I found customer services very helpful, in fact the best. Now they are more than useless and I don't really know what to think about it all. I've been treated really badly and when paying £45 times 3 monthly for the three phones I think I deserve better! I did manage to replace the phone I had to send back, had no option as it was a family gift. The iphone 4 is brilliant, and we love them but Three have badly let me down.

I would love to be writing a glowing report about Three as previously I couldn't speak highly enough of them. Some of the team do their best to be helfpul but they just don't seem to have the ability to resolve issues. I've also noticed that the One Plan has changed! The original phones were ordered in Dec and included 200 picture mail messages. My sons replacement phone was ordered when the original one was sent back and I realised today it doesn't have the 200 free picture messages with the One Plan - they've taken that away but I am going to fight for it as that was the original plan and it wasn't my fault the original phone had to go back. It just gets worse

Quick update - The call wasn't returned & nothing heard at all from them so it's going in the post now.... even though it says on their home page, contact us, and gives phone nos etc, then says write to us and lists the address but states "we regret we are unable to reply to letters at present" !!!!!!!!!!!!
Hmmmmmmm! More delay tactics and I will be going above Three and taking it further.

Well, isn't this great? I am about to post off the documentation for my complaint to Three including a copy to Otelo, but here's what the Three website says

Want to write to us?

Our address is:

3 Customer Services
Hutchison 3G UK Ltd
PO Box 333
Glasgow
G2 9AG

Sorry, we're unable to answer
letters at the moment.
If your query is urgent please
use the "Email us" option.

What a joke ! except it ain't funny. Hmm if your query is urgent please use the email us option..... fine if you don't mind waiting more than 10 days for a response to your urgent query! You will receive an auto responder stating we will reply in 10 days. They don't of course. So much for telling people what to do if their enquiry is urgent!!!

My letter is going off anyway! Note to self... do not use Three ever again! (pity these iphones are stuck in 24 month contracts at £45 a month each) Three customer services were the best two years ago, now they are non existent., sad but true

I would urge a quick enquiry to Citizens Advice people on the legality of that statement.

Though on checking just now, there is NO TEXT suggesting they wont answer letters.

UK firms are meant to provide a contact address for posting things to, i.e. is a legal requirement so that complaints/legal issues can be handled.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Though on checking just now, there is NO TEXT suggesting they wont answer letters.

It is still there...

http://www.three.co.uk/Help_Support/Contact_us/Other...

It seems to depend how you navigate to the contact page.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

UK firms are meant to provide a contact address for posting things to, i.e. is a legal requirement so that complaints/legal issues can be handled.

This is true but it only has to be the Registered address of the limited company, presumably Hutchison 3G UK Limited for Three.co.uk

http://www.three.co.uk/Company/Contact_us/Office_loc...

Name & Registered Office:
HUTCHISON 3G UK LIMITED
STAR HOUSE 20
GRENFELL ROAD
MAIDENHEAD
BERKSHIRE
SL6 1EH
Company No. 03885486

Edited by Nick_Russell (Thu 17-Feb-11 13:05:39)

Which means it is probably just a HTML coding mistake and thus ignore it

Thanks so much for your replies.

Here's what I'm seeing at this link

http://www.three.co.uk/Help_Support/Contact_us/Other...

Want to write to us?

Our address is:

3 Customer Services
Hutchison 3G UK Ltd
PO Box 333
Glasgow
G2 9AG

Sorry, we're unable to answer
letters at the moment.
If your query is urgent please
use the "Email us" option.

They're acting illegally also by saying you can email then if it's an urgent query becasue they know very well they wont reply any sooner than 10 days and usually much longer. How urgent do they think urgent is ?

Thanks again for your replies.

Have a good weekend xxx