Three, dishonest or dysfunctional?

I recently decided to give Three a go and bought the 30-day MiFi plan. Unfortunately I haven't been able to use it because of a technical fault in the area. Initially Three gave me a date for when service would be restored 18th March, which came and went with no change. I called again and was asked to wait indefinitely as engineers had not updated the fault file. To compensate I was told there would be no charges on my account for this month. Today the bill arrived and yes I've been charged the full amount as normal. What are they - dishonest or dysfunctional?

Just updating my post for anyone considering Three. We had a lengthy 40 minute phone call, most of it spent on hold while the Three representative informed me there was no record on my account of the fault being logged. I elected to cancel there and then after which I was again promised a refund for the month and an increase in data allowance from 5 to 15GB whilst remaining on the 30 day plan. The fault was again confirmed to me and resolution date moved from 18-Mar to 01-Jun. I asked for confirmation of the conversation to be sent by email which the rep initially declared would not be possible. I elected to cancel again as there was no evidence these phone calls hold any value after which I was told to expect an email confirming the agreement by the end of today. Naturally if this turns out to be yet more false promises I will insist on cancelling the account despite the cost to me.

This was actually a trial to see if Three could be an alternative to O2 for all my 3G accounts: iPhones, iPad and Mobile Broadband. At the moment Three has a lot of work to do to prove they are a valid choice in providing a service.

Over the last two years I've used Orange, 3UK, TMobile and giffgaff/O2.
All their customer service departments were pretty awful with 3UK definitely the worst. (giffgaff were the easiest to deal with, mainly because problems are primarily dealt with by other users via the website!)

However I've found 3UK's data connection in all but the most rural areas to be much more reliable than all the others. In my experience, O2's data coverage was dreadful outside of major urban areas and even then the speed was poor.

I'd suggest you wait a month or so for 3UK to sort out their problem (yeah, right!) and then invite a friend on 3UK over to test the signal at your location?

Speaking from the wife's experience with 3, I would say the CS are dishonest, may just be that it's because it is outsourced and they don't have sufficient checks in place to ensure there is decent quality.

I would also be a little skeptical about network issues, 3 are decommissioning sites after the network sharing deal with T mobile, could well be that the area was covered by 3 but now is no longer covered or has not had a capacity upgrade.

I came to the conclusion that Three CS are indeed dishonest. It took over 2 hours on the phone to get them to accept my 30 days notice of cancellation. I discovered that once again there was no record of any agreement to refund my account for having no service. I was passed from pillar to post but had no choice to keep at it until finally - unless they are fibbing again - someone agreed to put the cancellation through. Is this behaviour even legal I wonder? Initially they wanted me to phone back in 30 days to confirm the cancellation, then that someone would have to ring me back to process it... the saga just went on and on I couldn't believe it was happening. I recorded the call and will send to Ofcom and the Three CEO. Three's behaviour was disgusting. I don't even care that I'm having to pay 2 months charges for no service, I just wanted to be rid of them and never go back. Shambolic would be polite.

Sorry to hear your misfortune...I think its just one of those things with most companies. You can catch the person on the other end in either a good day or bad day. But lately with more and more companies going to foreign poorly scripted tech support i think its the wave of the future. The company in itself isnt bad just the cheap labor.

I just moved here from the US, got a Desiree HD with the "one plan" and well i use my phone as a hotspot and play some xbox 360 over it. Not the best connection (home internet still being setup) but i can play some COD: BlackOps.

Hope your situation turns around...

-Pscgod

Bosie, I have sent you a PM,

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