3 - not such a magic number

JayeL

New to this board so I dunno if it's the kind of place where a randomer can rant but here goes.

I've been on 3 since August 2007. I got a Nokia 6120 classic and have stuck on the Talk 100 tariff for the year. I don't use the phone for calling or texting that much but use the net, mp3 player and radio quite a bit, so I often end up getting high-spec phones on low-use tariffs. Expensive initially but worth it, since I hate the idea of having to carry an iPod and a phone around. So basically I get 100 mins, 100 texts for €30 a month and X-Series silver for €15 to get unlimited internet and Skype (handy for calling sister in Seattle, for example).

Anyway, I got a letter from 3 a week or two ago saying that I was eligible for an upgrade. Happy days, I thought, a new N95 would be tasty around now. So I log on to the upgrade website and what do they want from me? €379!

Several days later, I picked myself up off the floor and wandered into the Meteor store on Grafton St in Dublin, since they mysteriously don't have prices on their website. A new N95 on Meteor, a company that, unlike 3, I have not given over €600 to in the past year is a quite-reasonable €169 on my preferred miserly tariff. Ok, Meteor don't have a 3G network just yet. But they might by the end of the year, in Dublin anyway, and sure the wifi on the phone would suffice at home or oot and aboot.

That's pretty much the only real downside. Meteor have a cheaper tariff for me, free texts and calls to other Meteor folk (including my wife), they're a smidge more Irish than 3 and I had no complaints when I was with them a few years ago. Roaming costs a little more and they do crap ads from time to time but nothing major. So surely 3 can come back with something better.....

I went into the 3 Store on Grafton St in Dublin. I told them that I'd love to stay with 3 but I have my eye on a particular phone and it's way out of my price range on 3, even as an "upgrade". Their best offer was....another 6120c for free. Fork that. However, a young, rebellious chap behind the counter gave me a 1800 number to the retail support line. I got through and the lady on the other end was initally more interested in how I got the number and who in Grafton St gave it to me (it's 1800 944030, btw - oops!). She went through my details and sure enough, their best offer for an N95 for me was €379. And that's that. €379 is pretty much the cost of the phone SIM-free, so in other words, tough luck sunshine. If I switched to a higher tariff, it'd drop to €249 but sin é. In the end, the 3 lady on the phone was telling me to go to Meteor as it was clearly a better offer.

So that's it. 3 are going to lose my business because they can't keep up with the retail scene in Ireland. I think it has a lot to do with how 3 is run. I have zero complaints with the service and I like 3 a lot, surprisingly. I'm posting this with a 3 data modem that's running quite well on the train to Killarney. They clearly have the network and the know-how to give a good service. But this upgrade experience is lousy and I'm leaving them over it. The Irish operation is run as part of the UK and the outsourced contact centre have courteous but unsympathetic staff.

What are the chances of the people in the contact centre in India, the management team in Ireland, the corporate team in the UK and the retail staff ever talking to each other on a regular basis about subjects like this? Do they care? This is the only bad experience I've had with 3 and I'm now going to conform to the whole had-a-bad-experience-tell-15-people rule of thumb.

Has anyone else had a crap upgrade offer from 3? Any luck twisting their arm or is that even possible?

Davy

JayeL wrote: »

Has anyone else had a crap upgrade offer from 3? Any luck twisting their arm or is that even possible?

Yes i share your point. Im leaving them after using them for 3 years,
You might find this worth a look http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055292831 would be better if people posted the offers they get. My latest offer is not even half worth thinking about after giving them thousands

towel401

JayeL wrote: »

What are the chances of the people in the contact centre in India, the management team in Ireland, the corporate team in the UK and the retail staff ever talking to each other on a regular basis about subjects like this? Do they care? This is the only bad experience I've had with 3 and I'm now going to conform to the whole had-a-bad-experience-tell-15-people rule of thumb.

Has anyone else had a crap upgrade offer from 3? Any luck twisting their arm or is that even possible?

i've had to deal with the Indian call centre people - they basically told me that using my laptop with the 1GB add-on was "not provisioned", and they insisted on using that particular phrase. They also repeatedly said things didn't work because I don't own a "3 handset" (no way in hell would I buy their branded crap). but the next morning everything worked fine. It was a new account all they had to tell me that it would work the next day but instead they chose to give me a hard time for not buying one of their locked handsets

samhail

I used 3 when i was on a contract in belfast for 3 months at the start of the years and was quite impressed with them.

Ive a Meteor BillPay here and i got myself a nice new phone(N78) which had 3g so i looked into moving onto the 3 network.
I got the sim card at the weekend but only bothered opening it yesterday. I called them a total of 5 times.
first thing in the morning, right after 8am, thinking i needed to activate my sim card since it didnt register when i put it into the phone. I was told that i needed to call back after 8am.
2nd time about an hour later, and id swear i got through to the same girl. i told her i wanted to register my SIM, and she said that she could help me this time. she spent the next 3min typing up the case notes from the previous call(i could actually hear her typing them). I got into work so hung up.
I got onto the network during the day but didnt have 3g available so expected i needed to register for 3g.
i called them a total of 3 times since i got home with their "systems down for upgrade" only got through the last time trying to explain what i want.

finally... What i was after was the 3g network access and the planet3 program... i was told that since i have a sim free phone(not 3 branded) i can only make txt messages and calls from my phone. like seriously.



I have worked in call centres and i know how bad these indian call centre can get.
customer support 0/10
product 3/10(so suiting !)



What are 3G services like on vodafone or o2 ?
(hmmmmm i wonder whether my skype mobile from the north will work down here with my irl 3 sim card... one way to find out

---

Yeah expected it wouldnt work(anyone have a unlock code for skype phone;)))

towel401

notsamhail wrote: »

finally... What i was after was the 3g network access and the planet3 program... i was told that since i have a sim free phone(not 3 branded) i can only make txt messages and calls from my phone. like seriously.

don't believe a word of it. Its like they get a bonus for each time they say it

but in fairness the other networks do it as well.

samhail

so if i wanna get the latest phone they aint gonna support me ! hmmm

flodis79

You can use any 3g phone on the 3 network.. And if you wanna use planet 3 you need to know how to spoof your user agent to one of the phones they sell, e.g. nokia n73. For 3's msn messenger client, search the boards. For skype, when you have spoofed the user agent (search the forum), you can download it from there, and you do not need any extra 3 security checks to download, install and use it.