Can someone convince me not to move to 3?

Celestial Deity

So here's the deal…

I'm a Meteor PAYG customer and I'm relatively happy with them, the deals are cheap and the coverage is pretty great. But I'm really dissatisfied with their complete lack of 3G coverage in my area (sligo) and Meteor's PAYG data pricing. So recently I've been looking at Three's 3pay and it just seems too damn good to be true. Free texts to any network, week-end minutes AND 250mb of data. Also, correct me if I'm wrong but it looks like I can purchase add-ons online with credit that's on my phone, without needing a credit card.



That's just plain awesome from my point of view.

So my question is, is Three's Customer Care that bad? Has anyone experienced spotty coverage? Or any other bad experiences?

Thanks,

Liam.

PS: I'm not interested in BillPay.

Davy

Customer care is awful, and probably the main reason why I left. The frustration of trying to resolve simple things was beyond them.

Coverage wise I have had problems too, in certain areas it was none existence. I remember in Dundalk at one stage was none in the town, but was fine outside in the fields.


If you dont have to talk to them, your will be fine. Its only payg, so you can switch over and back as you please. And welcome to boards!

mathew

I just moved 3 weeks ago from meteor.
Their customer care really isn't great. But I've had no dealings with them really apart from waiting for the port to happen with took 2 days.. I had meteor coverage for those two days, it was a bit annoying waiting for it to happen, but it eventually happened!

I'm in Dublin so I've no problems with coverage. If there is no 3g coverage, they roam on the vodafone 2g network so you'll always be fine for calls and texts. They don't have an internet agreement with vodafone tho, so there is no internet on 2g.. Again, in Dublin thats not a problem for me!

Its fantastic value. I still have 10e credit left. The free weekend calls are nice!

jimmycrackcorm

The customer care argument is nonsense IMHO. How often do you ever have to ring them up? Its also the case that people have a lot of frustration with customer care for all the operators.

For example my OH is owed over €100 from meteor due to errors from when they changed their billing system and the amount of hassles in trying to fax in details is simply unbelievable.

As for coverage, wherever they don't have 3g they havevf so you still get better coverage than meteor

j4vier

i just moved to 3pay yesterday

customer care is not the best alright, took a day for them to make the transfer rather than the usual 1-2 hours, so bare that u ll be with no phone for at least that! also their english is not the best..

beside that, it works great now, bought the 250mb addon and it works fine

i wouldnt worry about the customer service on pay as u go, id be prob be worried under a contract but if things go wrong, take nothing to switch to another company

Davy

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

The customer care argument is nonsense IMHO. How often do you ever have to ring them up? Its also the case that people have a lot of frustration with customer care for all the operators.

No one is saying other networks are great, just 3 is probably the worst out of the main 4 networks here. The whole reading from a script, and not actually listening to the person or problem gets annoying. I gave them 3 or 4 years on billpay and had to ring them a few times and its never straight forward or simple. Anything technical is remove battery and sim, and then call back again to be told to do the same thing! They should have never got rid of the Scottish CC they had, biggest mistake they ever made

donkey balls

Davy wrote: »

No one is saying other networks are great, just 3 is probably the worst out of the main 4 networks here. The whole reading from a script, and not actually listening to the person or problem gets annoying. I gave them 3 or 4 years on billpay and had to ring them a few times and its never straight forward or simple. Anything technical is remove battery and sim, and then call back again to be told to do the same thing! They should have never got rid of the Scottish CC they had, biggest mistake they ever made

op judging from your location sligo/leitrim if its the later i would not go with them a mate of mine lives in leitrim he went with 3 and the coverage was crap.
as for the customer care Davy is spot on they read from a script,last year i got a call from a company doing a survey on behalf of 3 about their CC within a few months of the survey they set up their upgrade&retention team in waterford.and it is great to see the people working there using their heads and not reading from the script.
Davy the Scottish CC are still there but only look after the UK:(ah i miss the voice of the scottish girls

Celestial Deity

Hmm…

Thanks for the help everyone. It looks like I might be moving, is there a trial period in which I can test out coverage?

donkey balls wrote: »

op judging from your location sligo/leitrim if its the later i would not go with them a mate of mine lives in leitrim he went with 3 and the coverage was crap.

Yup, I live in Leitrim. When I'm in Leitrim I don't really care about 3G, just about getting calls and texts, is that a problem?

j4vier wrote: »

bought the 250mb addon and it works fine

I'm interested in this, is there a 1 gig add-on?

Or any other add-ons?

donkey balls

my mate could not get a good signal when he was with 3 to send a txt or make a call that was about three years ago, i dont know wether the coverage has improved since there is a section on the 3 website that you can check the coverage in your area.
saying that im with 3 a couple of years and find them better than VF bill wise and also the fact that i get free skype&msn messenger.

j4vier

Celestial Deity wrote: »

Hmm…

Thanks for the help everyone. It looks like I might be moving, is there a trial period in which I can test out coverage?




Yup, I live in Leitrim. When I'm in Leitrim I don't really care about 3G, just about getting calls and texts, is that a problem?



I'm interested in this, is there a 1 gig add-on?

Or any other add-ons?

these are the addons available
Internet

Get access to the internet

Mobile Surfing 250MB
€5.00

Mobile Broadband

Surf the internet on your computer.

Would you like...?

Mobile Broadband Daily 500MB
€5.00
Mobile Broadband Weekly 2GB
€10.00
Mobile Broadband Monthly 1GB
€15.00
Mobile Broadband Monthly 7.5GB
€25.00
Mobile Broadband Monthly 20GB
€35.00

Talk and Text

Talk & Text for 99c a day. Feast on 700 texts & 200 weekend minutes to call and text your friends on any other network. (7 day minimum purchase €6.93)

Talk and Text
€6.93

Celestial Deity

donkey balls wrote: »

my mate could not get a good signal when he was with 3 to send a txt or make a call that was about three years ago, i dont know wether the coverage has improved since there is a section on the 3 website that you can check the coverage in your area.
saying that im with 3 a couple of years and find them better than VF bill wise and also the fact that i get free skype&msn messenger.

Well, it's showing perfect coverage in my area, though I don't know how reliable that map is.

And awesome, thanks for the add-on prices j4vier.

jimmycrackcorm

Davy wrote: »

No one is saying other networks are great, just 3 is probably the worst out of the main 4 networks here. The whole reading from a script, and not actually listening to the person or problem gets annoying. I gave them 3 or 4 years on billpay and had to ring them a few times and its never straight forward or simple. Anything technical is remove battery and sim, and then call back again to be told to do the same thing! They should have never got rid of the Scottish CC they had, biggest mistake they ever made

I'm not actually disagreeing with you that they aren't great. What I'm saying is that if you balanced out the rare number of times you might have to ring them and get an unsatisfactory response against the savings in your bill then in my book money in my pocket makes the CS argument pointless.

I've been through the frustration with the 3 CS myself but since they were resolved I've been saving a fortune.

jethrothe2nd

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

The customer care argument is nonsense IMHO. How often do you ever have to ring them up? Its also the case that people have a lot of frustration with customer care for all the operators.

For example my OH is owed over €100 from meteor due to errors from when they changed their billing system and the amount of hassles in trying to fax in details is simply unbelievable.


I wouldn't say it's nonsense. The reality of the matter is that there is a minimum level of service that should be expected, and feedback on this forum suggests that that minimum level is not there.

I also had a bad experience with 3 in terms of customer service, and it took me 4 hours of phone calls over 3 weeks to get sorted satisfactorily. On the other hand, an issue I had with Meteor was sorted with one phone call.

Walkman

Have been with 3 for years. Never really had too many problems with them. Definitely not any worse than Meteor imo

Our man in Havana

I am with them 7 months and not a bother.

Celestial Deity

Oh boy… just went into Sligo and I got 3G for the first time!

Still want to move to 3 though.

angel01

Seriously pondering moving to 3..they seem like great value..

whiterebel

I took the jump yesterday on bill pay. Well day befor eactually, but the girl in the shop put my VF invoice number through to port instead of my account number, and it wouldn't go through.......:o All apologies when I went back in, she spoke to a guy with an Indian accent who was very quick and helpful, and it all went through within an hour. 3G coverage as great, sim-only contract means I can get out in 30 days any time I want, but the deal is very good compared to VF and O2. I was with Meteor years ago, and never again. I caught them adding a penny on to the invoice every single month. I got an an invoice for x amount, but the direct debit was always 1p more. I didn't think much of it, until one day they claimed half a million customers, then I thought hang on, 1p per month x 500,000???? Nice mistake on their behalf.

angel01

Waiting to get the desire on 3 and then I will move from O2 to 3. I like how you can customise your plan to be exactly how you want, that is a real bonus for me

trad

What everyone else says regarding "cutomer service". Dreadful. I am changing network and disagreed with them regarding termination date of contract so they cut me off there and then. If you have an account problem the amount of phone calls you get from them borders on harrassment. I'm off to meteor today.

Celestial Deity

Does anyone on 3pay know if the 250mb comes bundled with the calls and texts or do you have to purchase it separately?

whiterebel

According three website, its a € per month add-on

Spooky1666

Celestial Deity wrote: »

Does anyone on 3pay know if the 250mb comes bundled with the calls and texts or do you have to purchase it separately?

The add on costs 5 euro but they give you 5 euro extra for free when you top uo by 20 euro so its basically like getting the data bundle for free

ninja 12

I moved to Three last week from O2 .

My number was ported over in about 2 hours . I rang Customer Care and had internet access sorted ( and access to the "My Three" portal ) within minutes .
My phone is a HTC Touch Cruise ,2009 version .

So far , no real problems with coverage , but 3G coverage in my house could be better . Sometimes it drops to GPRS . Not an issue for me as I can use wifi . Other than inside my house , 3G reception is fine .

The only thing I don't like about Three so far is their extra charge for not using direct debit to pay bills .

I'd rather be able to walk into a post office or login to their site to pay my bills ( I hate having direct debits on my bank account )

jay93

only ever had to ring 3 about 4 or 5 times in the 3 years i have been on their network have my mobile broadband with them and my mobile phone with them also find them great network has only ever gone down once or twice prices seem reasonable enough also have a tesco mobile phone both 3 and tesco are the best for value imho the others are a no no for me defo will never touch vodafone again couldnt be arseD with o2 or meteor anymore

allthedoyles

We are moving to 3 and are going to use Mi-Fi .

If anyone here has used this device , we would be grateful to get some feedback ...this is the link

http://www.three.ie/products_services/broadband/mifi.htm

drunkmonkey

allthedoyles wrote: »

We are moving to 3 and are going to use Mi-Fi .

If anyone here has used this device , we would be grateful to get some feedback

If your going to be using it in the House go for the Huawei B260a, it's a lot easier to use and is quick. It's 49 euro for the router on a 12mt contract if you go for broadband pro (30gb).

evolutionqy7

as to coverage and internet availability yes its a good move...but lmao ****ing customer care...

i have 3 mobile broadband im sick of their im sorry im an idiot and i cant do anything about it...their text book support is annoying and trying to explain something to them is impossible and annoying. one of them even hung up on me when i wanted to make a complaint about incosistant broadband service.

chimerical26

I have perfect signal in my house in the city but no 3g when I am out visiting my folks in the countryside. I'd recommend trying it out but obviously there are areas around that aren't covered for 3g.

I've been with 3 for a few years now and I haven't really had a need to contact them about anything so I can't comment on their customer support but the service the offer never fails to astound me. The gap between what they offer and what anyone else has is huge. If you use or intend to use the internet you can't go wrong.

I stream often internet radio for hours at 128kbps and never seem to have to pay for anything other than my addon. Once my addon has been paid for I can completely relax about my usage and the worst case scenario is that I'll go over the limit and find I've used up my call credit. So far that has never happened.

evolutionqy7

if u live in the city/town centre area and u need internet connection on ur phone i would rather choose meteor...i got 3 broadband = average 50kbps
wheres as surprisingly i got average of 2mbps speeds of meteor one

Run_to_da_hills

I have 3 broadband (USB Dongle) and have absolutely no probs with their service, good reception, generous cap of 15gb etc.

However what annoys me most is their persistant reps hassling me into trying other packages with them including mobile phone. I had two calling me from India in the space of a about three weeks that couldn't understand the word NO.

conor.hogan.2

switched my num from meteor to three - easily eneough.

things worked fine.

then 3g would be on and off - eventually worked after a few calls.

then didnt work at all - i called tech support and it took ages to explain the diff between wifi and 3g and he didnt fix it but it worked again on its own.

then it seemed ok and both worked fine - yesterday 3g and calls worked but i cant send sms but can receive.

yes 3pay is great - but the hassle is not worth it.


you dont care about data op? then dont under any circumstances switch to 3, are you mental?

god's toy

Been with Three for about 3 years now and I've had no major problems with them, any issue's I've had were always sorted out in a quick and polite manner.
Was with Voda for 10 + years before that and was also very Lucky with them too.

Bit miffed about them bringing the Internet add on down to 250MB but thats life. Some one said they would be changing it to 500MB but as yet no change.

Over all I'm happy with them. (free skype+msn is a welcome bonus! :pac:)

PinkTulips

I'm about to switch to them.

I'm with meteor PAYG atm and can't get reception in my house unless i stand on the coffee table or go outside the front door. We have no landline and three small children so this is a major problem really.

The boyfriend used to be with O2 and they had equally bad reception here and people with vodafone aren't much better off.

3 however have excellant coverage here and are cheap and have some lovely phones.

I was put off by the customer service too but recently bought a 3 modem for the playschool laptop and was amazed at the service. I ordered it at 6pm on a thursday and it arrived 11am the next day, I've had to ring them once and they've rung me twice to sort out billing as (through no fault of 3's) they couldn't direct debit the playschool account as i'd had to give my name when ordering (to pay the 1c admin charge by cc) and they've been absolutely fantastic every time. Extremely helpful, friendly and polite and very efficient... i've never been on the phone longer than 10 minutes and on one occasion they actually offered to ring me back rather than put me on hold!

I'm switching my phone as soon as i can afford the one i want and i think the boyfriend will be following suit in the near future.

PinkTulips

In fact this thread just gave me the incentive to check their site again and I've just ordered a Sony Erricson Xperia Mini for 49 euros on pay monthly for 19 euros a month.

Result!

kopite davo

just try them. if your going payg you dont have anything to lose.
customer care is a pain in the arse though, i've been with them for 5 years, no 3g where i live but always 3g in kilkenny/waterford cities

whiterebel

Just got my second bill. Girl in shop told me 25% off the €49pm plan for the first 6 months. turns out they are billing me €24.50 which is 50% for 700 flexi-units!!!! Very happy. Reception is great, both phone and data.

Celestial Deity

Just a quick update, I've decided to take the plunge.

Now it's either 3Pay or Best of Both with the 500mb add-on.

Leaning towards 3Pay for the ability to buy the occasional daily/weekly broadband option.

Davy

You wont be tied to them if your not happy in case, so its not he end of the world