Wednesday - last edited Wednesday
I took out a 5G router contract with Three on 23/10/24 and cancelled it on 21/11/24, within the 30-day cooling-off period.
Around 03/12/24, Three sent a returns bag. I returned the router around 12/12/24.
Despite this, I've been charged £350, with Three claiming they never received the router. When I contacted support, I was told I needed the tracking number, otherwise they couldn't do anything. But I never held onto the tracking number on the bag, since at no point previously did Three tell me I should hang onto this. I also find it strange and suspicious that Three does not have their own record of the tracking number, considering they are the ones who provided the returns bag.
Three have escalated to a Credit Referencing Agency, and I’ve been receiving repeated texts and emails about it every day for months.
I followed the instructions I was given. I shouldn’t be penalised for a failure in Three’s system.
@Three support—can someone please step in and get this sorted? This has gone on far too long.
yesterday
@JonathanB @Maxine @PeteG I see that you have assisted with many similar cases in the past—could you please help me?
To give more info: Three sent me an email on 30/11/24 saying “Your final bill's now ready”—but this wasn’t a bill at all. It was actually a refund for the router, since we had cancelled the home broadband contract within the 30-day cooling-off period. Naturally, I assumed this meant the major steps were handled and most of the process was now done.
We received the returns bag around 03/12/24. My flatmate returned the router around 12/12/24 and got a receipt from the Post Office. We held onto the receipt for a few weeks, but since we’d received a refund marked as our “final bill,” the router had been returned, and we hadn’t heard anything further from Three for a few weeks, we didn’t think there was any reason to keep it beyond that point.
We didn’t take a picture of the returns label on the bag either, since Three didn’t tell us to do so. I disagree with the comments suggesting it’s just “common sense” to keep tracking numbers. In my experience, that’s simply not how most companies handle returns.
When I return something to Amazon, eBay, or most major retailers, I’ve never had to keep a record of the tracking number. I’ve also never been told by the company to do so. Either the company or courier emails the tracking info to me, or it’s visible in my account, or the company already has a record internally—because they’re the ones who generated the return label. That’s the standard setup.
In this case, Three sent the prepaid jiffy bag themselves. If anyone should have access to the tracking number, it’s them—not me. They were the ones who generated the return label and paid for the postage—so they should be able to retrieve the tracking info from the courier. Three did not tell me it was my responsibility to personally record the tracking number. Having to personally record the tracking number is the exception, not the rule. If they wanted me to keep a record of the tracking number, they should have said so clearly. They didn’t.
I would really love any assistance on this! It's been several months and I would like this mess to end.
8 hours ago
Hello, Jolene.
Am I right in that the bill that you received at the end was actually a charge for the Hub rather than a refund as expected?
Pete.
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Wednesday - last edited Wednesday
Difficult one this.You cancelled it on the 30th day cutting things fine to say the least. But I absolutely have to agree with Geluk. Common sense should dictate you keep a note of all tracking numbers to cover your own proverbial backside and not expect others (even or especially a large company like Three) to do it for you and then cry foul when things go wrong. I’m afraid legally the onus is on you to prove the parcel was sent and received,something a tracking number would obviously do;and again as Geluk says if you were actively tracking the package and it wasn’t showing as delivered then you could alert people at that point. It genuinely seems to me that if you shook your head,part of the Sahara desert would come out and I’m frankly at a loss as to what to advise except to raise a complaint via the Three homepage and in doing so I absolutely wish you luck.
Wednesday
Common sense dictates you keep a note of tracking number for ANY RETURN, and most
people would actively track too, to ensure it's arrived.
