Roaming charges offer

[DS]

All, I would like to know if anyone else was offered the opportunity to get free roaming if you signed up for a contract before the 1st Oct 2021? I was offered this and signed up 30 Oct 21. I have recently found out that as 3 did not process my contract until the next day I was not given the free roaming.
Customer service whilst being helpful could not do anything re this and filed a complaint 24 hours later I received a message from complaints saying they had done everything possible (this did not include correspondence with me) and that there was nothing they could do. Complaints a waste of time and now it is off to the ombudsman and a well known national newspaper.
Many years with 3 and five phone accounts, this counts for nothing with 3. please respond if you have had a similar situation as I would like to understand if this is a common practice by the network.

[jess_937]

Correct, there has been no change of plan or upgrade since I believe it was 16.09.2021, but my billing date remained as the 12th of every month when I completed this upgrade so Three are arguing this is when my contracted started. Now Three are saying it is not possible to change the roaming policy despite it being included for the past 2.5 years until my trip abroad a few weeks ago for work. Something has changed/happened and Three are refusing to recognise this or honour my plan. 

[Spindan]

Hi. Did you manage to get this resolved? Definitely a recent change in approach by three. My wife upgraded on the 21/09/2021 and has benefited from free roaming until now. We went away last week and have now been charged the roaming fee with three saying the contract start date is actually the 12/10/2021.

They are also threatening to charge for roaming they say we should have paid for over the past 3 years.

[JonathanB]

Hi @Spindan,

I don't expect we would recalculate historical bills and charge you for 3 year old usage, but I'm keen to help you get to the bottom of this. I'll send you a PM to get you in touch with some colleagues who can help get this checked out in more detail.

To view your private messages on the community, click on your avatar image in the top right of any community page, then "Messages".

Thanks,
Jonathan

[jess_937]

Hi @Spindan, 

This has been happening to a lot of people I know who are with Three. I ended up going to the Ombudsman as Three customer service representatives would not accept when my contract started. It has since been resolved after much back and forth, and only after submitting all my information to the Ombudsman. At this point Three finally recognised my contract start date, and that I had been charged incorrectly. I was able to get a refund for all incorrect charges.

If you are struggling to get anywhere with Three customer service representatives, ask them for a deadlock letter once you have exhausted their complaints procedure (if you don't get the outcome you want) so you can file your case with the Ombudsman. 

I decided to leave the contract and moved to pay as you go as you get the roaming in the 71 countries included, and it is cheaper than the contract I was on. It seems ludicrous to me that you can get a better deal on pay as you go than a contract. However, if you do this you will either have to change your number or move to another provider for a minimum of 24 hours and then switch back to Three with your same number using a PAC code. Unfortunately, Three are the only company which offer this sort of deal for roaming, other providers only offer roaming within the EU, hence why I switched back. 

Hope this helps! 

[JonathanB]

Hi @jess_937,

Thanks for coming back here to confirm what happened, I'm glad to hear it was sorted although I'm sorry to hear of all the trouble you went through, I'll take away this feedback to hopefully help others.

Thanks,
Jonathan

[Spindan]

Thanks so much for the reply and advice. It is really helpful. Glad to hear you got it sorted in the end. 

[JonathanB]

Hi @jess_937,

Sorry for the delay getting back to you on this. I just want to reassure you that I'm still looking into this. I'll let you know as soon as I have any more info or updates.

Thanks,
Jonathan

[DS]

Hi Jonathan. Thanks for the response.

Yes that is a typo. the offer was sign up by 30th Sept (before 1st October) to benefit from the offer. I did check with the online sales team to make sure that even though my contract did not expire for a couple of weeks after that date that I would still be given the offer. (I have screen shots of the conversation although no-one from 3 seems interested in this). I signed up online on the 30th September.

I had not realised anything was amiss until i started to travel again recently and found that my service was cut off as I had reached my set spend limit. On contacting customer services I was told several different sign up dates until eventually I was told the correct details that I did the application on the 30 but it was not processed until the 1st and therefore did not qualify for the benefit. As customer services said there was nothing they could do they raised a complaint for me and submitted it. A stated above I received a response stating there was nothing they could do and a link to the regulator.

Whilst I have paid roaming charges, this is not about the money, this is about 3 having an absolutely awful attitude and a complete disregard towards its customers.

[JonathanB]

Hi DS,

It's really disappointing to hear about how this has been dealt with. I'd like to get this looked into in more detail. I'll send you a PM with guidance so that we can get the complaint investigated further.

JonathanB

[JonathanB]

Hi DS,

I'm really sorry to hear about this confusion with your Go Roam terms. Was this a typo where you've said "30 Oct 21"? If the sale was on 30 Sep 21 but the contract activated on the 1 Oct 2021, my understanding is that you should still be on the old terms with no daily charge.

Have you incurred charges, or received a message that you will incur the daily charge? If you can fill me a little bit more on what's happened, I'll do my best to help.

JonathanB