Dear 3,
It pains me to have to say this after such a short time together, but I feel that our love affair is already on a rocky road. There may still be hope, but we’re definitely going through some serious issues after an extremely short-lived honeymoon period. To be frank, I expected more from you.
I was overjoyed with the attention and care I received when I came in to see you at your place on Oxford Street. I even told all of my friends about you when you gave me that beautiful E71 a few weeks ago;
“I’ve got to throw in at this point that I was hugely impressed with 3 when signing up…They were quick, efficient – and most of all, KNEW what they were talking about. I obviously knew what phone I wanted, and was fairly clued up about how I was going to be using it – so I wasn’t pressured into buying a different model, or giving any less attention than other customers needing more advice. Great experience all round.”
But when I left and needed to call you – you let me down.
I’d been really happy with the texts you’d sent at the beginning of our relationship, including the ‘welcome to 3’ videos and weekly reminders of how much of my free texts and calls I’d used.
Then a text came in on Friday morning informing me that I’d almost reached my allotted allowance. I phoned you to check and was told that I’d £18 worth of calls and texts. I’ll take some of the blame here, I was at work – and the automated message wasn’t really that clear – I assumed this meant that I’d used almost all of my free calls.
Apparently not.
I was midway through a conversation with a client on Friday afternoon, and just as I was just about to be pulled into another meeting – my phone cut off. I call you straight away, only to hear this;
“We can’t connect you at the minute, because you’ve just gone over your credit limit. The good news is, its easy to get back up and running... Sorry, there seems to be a problem, connecting you to an advisor.”
While waiting in a queue to speak with you (it was a Friday after all, so this didn’t bother me) I’m thinking in my head…what a second, when did we talk about setting a credit limit?
Anyway, when I did get through (this time, you were in India), I gave you my details again (blood group, mother’s maiden name and what I’d had for lunch) and was told that I’d actually used £18 of additional calls. This equated to a total of £40, and I’d maxed out my account.
At this point I asked you why the limit had been placed at that value, but you couldn’t help me. I ask what extra costs I’m paying for, and you just took me through an overly detailed account of what an ‘extra cost’ means. You were perfectly polite, but just ignoring my questions. After more to-ing and fro-ing, I eventually squeezed two numbers out of you for the week of 7-13 November – which apparently make up the bulk of this additional cost.
One was an international number, which I know is a client in Denmark – but the other is an 0845 number I didn’t recognise. While on the phone to you, dear 3, I dialed it from the landline… and it was a fax number.
I told you this, and that there’s no way I would have dialed it from my mobile. Why would I? It just doesn’t make any sense.
After more silence from your end, I asked if those were the only two chargeable calls. You said no, and tried to palm me off to one of your friends in the billings department. It took me a long time to talk you into doing a search from the 13th November to present day, and I’m not sure why? That’s my information and you know it, you should have just given it to me as soon as I’d asked.
I could tell you weren’t happy, as I was then put on hold for 10 minutes to the worst music I’ve ever been forced to listen to – and I had to hang up.
So, I ran into my meeting and tried again later. Upon serious recommendation, I tried you on another number (via Scotland), but was once again re-directed.
This time you took a completely unreasonable tone with me, and in fact, were downright rude before I’d even had a chance to ask a question!
When you did let me talk, I asked again if you could tell me which numbers I’d called that were chargeable. You repeated the first 0845 number, and I told you it was a fax line.
“No its not”, you replied.
“Er…yes it is. Try phoning it now”, I say.
‘It’s not my job to check up on which numbers you’re calling, if you’ve dialled it, you’ll get charged.”
“Right, even though it’s a fax that you’re trying to tell me I stayed on the line for 14 minutes to?”
“Yes.”
It was at this point that I got really annoyed. For the fourth time on this second call, you told me that I’d used up all of my allotted minutes. However, this time you also nonchalantly told me that I needed to make a payment to re-instate my account.
Now I realise that because we’re still within the first 30 days of our relationship, we don’t have any history to go on yet. But as awful as they were with ripping me off, this never happened with T-Mobile.
This basically means that for the time being, there’s no point in having any kind of agreement with you – I’m using my phone as a pay-as-you go service, TOPPING UP every time I need to use it.
Endlessly frustrated and at breaking point, I finished the call with you to go to an evening event on Friday night. BUT, I begrudgingly paid a £10 top-up to ‘increase my credit limit’ later on. It seems that outside of my regular contract, you’d conned me a little. It turns out that your calls aren’t actually very cost-effective after all, as it had been frittered away by the end of the evening following a mere half hour on the phone and a few texts.
Anyway, we still haven’t been able to sort this out. You have my direct debit details, so why am I being restricted to the point of being cut off?
Hoping we can sort this out soon, perhaps talk when you’re nearer by? Maybe in the same country so you can put my questions into context without reading from a script.
Cheers,
Vikki
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