3 mobile contract

[gkaur1985]

I signed a contract ages ago on 2nd Nov 06 with 3 mobile. At the point at which i brought it my brother asked wy it said 45 quid on the contract to which the salesman at phone 4 u said "that's nothing just ring them up at 6 months and they'll reduce the tariff"

So come 6 months I rang 3 who refused to downgrade my tariff and say that changes came in on 1st nov 06 and phones 4 u were well aware of them and that the contract was missold by phones 4 u, so I have to pay £45 per month. had I known that I cant change the tariff I would NEVER have gotten into that contract.

So on friday i went to phones 4 u and they say the changes had come into effect after my contract was signed and gave me copies of their documents. So while I was at phones 4 u I rang 3 and they backtracked from blaming phones 4 u. they offered to reduce the tariff to a completely naff one £25 per month and really low minutes and text plus an admin charge of £25 pounds. However nowhere in my contract does it say that you CANNOT reduce the tariff until the 12th month or that if you skip a number of tariffs you are charged £25 admin costs. So I said I'll think it over and ring back.

So rang them 3 today to get my headache sorted and over and done with now back to square one they say contract missold and they WILL NOT change the tariff no matter what till 12th month. But have arranged a conference call for tomorrow at 1pm with phones 4 u and themselves and me.

My questions are if 3 brought in changes after my contract was signed do they apply to me??? Should they not inform people of these changes and give a chance to get out of the contract???


plus if you ring 3, and you say u wanna talk to a manager they transfer you to customer services in India. and they wont give you head office details so you have no way of sorting this bloody mess out.

Can someone tell me what to do tomorrow??? ANy advice and who is in the wrong me or them???

[gkaur1985]

help... anyone???

[buzby]

You've been caught between a rock and a hard place. The bottom line is that you entered into a contract knowing what the full cost would be, but the salesman told you of a get out (a 'waiver') that would allow you to downgrade your monthly rental and still retain the same phone, Because 3 and other networks have been hit badly by this ploy, (as the phone should cost more on a lower tariff) they removed the waiver - something they can do and as it doesn't form part of the contract, they've done nothing wrong.

Imagine another purchaser wants the same phone as you, but realises they can't pay the required £45 and went for a £25 deal. This meant they had to pay £149 for the handset instead of £49 (or possibly free). Is it fair on them that they should pay this for their handset when someone else signs up with the intention of downgrading?

P4u used the ability to downgrade as a sales tool - which they shouldn't have. Because of this, I'd be complaining to them that their advice was worthless and you're being seriously disadvantaged. What to THEY intend doing about it?

[complete]

This is THREE's latest Downward Migration policy.

Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Changes to our downward migration policy.

Our price plan migration policy will change from 1st March 2007. The rules affect both new and existing customers and are detailed below.
New customers
All new customers who join or upgrade from 1st March 2007 will no longer be able to move to a lower value price plan, at any time, during the minimum term of their contract. However, customers will be able to move to higher value price plans at any time and can move back down to their original price plan (or the plan that they upgraded to) if they need to. This applies to both 12 and 18 month contracts.
Existing customers
It's good news for existing customers. From 12th March 2007 customers who have already served the minimum no downgrade element of their price plan will no longer be charged a £25 fee (or need to agree to a 6 month contract extension) to downgrade to the next lowest value price plan (e.g Video & Talk & Text 1100 £45 to Talk & Text 900 £40). Existing customers can downgrade to the next lowest value price plan up to 4 times during their minimum contract period, but can only move down 1 price plan at a time (as shown in the example below) and only once per month.
Note - customers wishing to move down multiple price plans at one time can do so, but they will be charged a £25 fee. (e.g from Video & Talk & Text 2600 to Video & Talk & Text 1100). This applies to both 12 and 18 month contracts. The lowest value price plan that customers can move down to is one that has a monthly line rental of £25 per month.
Customers can’t move to any promotional/limited period price plans or the promotional variants of standard plans.
See the table below for the rules for when customers can downgrade their price plans subject to the above rules.

Please note, customers can continue to upgrade their price plans at any time and the rules for business customers remain unchanged.
The policy set out above is 3’s current price plan migration policy. It's subject to change at any time. If you discuss downgrading with a customer you must advise the customer that:

• Downgrading price plans is not a contractual right and the ability for a customer to downgrade is offered at 3’s discretion
• The downgrade rules are not fixed and may change at any time
• Downgrading is subject to the customer meeting certain criteria listed on our website e.g. being up to date with account payments
• Customers will be advised of the current downgrade rules at the time they enquire about downgrading or they can visit www.three.co.uk for the latest change of price plan policy.

[buzby]

Seems fair enough. Sign up for the tariff you want, not the one your salesman tries to upsell you to.

[gkaur1985]

I would have been much better off purchasing the handset alone and getting it unlocked for a fiver so I could have used my orange chip which is a top up 10 quid and get evening and weekend calls free plus 100 text.

My brother has offered to pay the extra costs which is nice of him. Phones 4 u salesman that sold it to me denied misselling, so it's a my word against his situation.

I think 3 were alright in the end, their manager aranged a conference call with a representative of phones 4 u and he rang my landline so it didnt cost me. But since the salesman at phones 4 u is denying everything it didnt really produce any results.

[complete]

Phones 4U are well known for this downgrading tactic.

They are on very high commission levels and earn a low basic so need to make it up however they can...

[gkaur1985]

Do you think confronting the phones 4 u saleman in person might help? Or you think he'll just deny it even in person as he may fear losing his job.

[complete]

They are probably used to it. I recently had a customer go into a phones 4u store for a TMobile 12 Month Contract. He was advised that TMobile only offer 18 month contracts now, and he would be better off with Vodafone.

Lo & Behold they stuck him on an 18 month Vodafone contract, due to thier high pressure sales tactics and the lure of £50 cashback for signing there and then. He thought he was signing a 12 month contract, which was denied the following day, when he went back with his paperwork. He came into my shop to ask why TMobile did not offer 12 month contracts any more, to which i told him the truth. (He had been duped). He was not happy.

[buzby]

To be fair, the networks are trying to discourage annual contracts, and are pushing for 18 and 24 month contracts instead (O2 and Orange are on the 2-year track).

[complete]

But apart from Nokia, other Manufacturers only offer 12 Months warranty, therefore with an 18 month contract and a faulty phone after 12 months you only have a few options.

Pay for a repair
Buy a cheap phone for the remainder of the contract
Take out an additional line
Go back to the old banger, you stuck in the drawer when you got this phone
Pay up your contract.

Other than the above 18 Month contracts can be good value.

[barracad]

Manufacturers' warranties are in addition to your statutory rights, they do not replace them. If a 12 month old phone develops a fault it is not fit for purpose, so you would be able to take this up with the retailer under The Sale of Goods Act.

[gkaur1985]

Surely all this duping customers will result in less customers in the long run. As my mates all know what happened to me and said they will stick with link or places where their mates work. And if anyone ever mentions they need or want a new phone I will definately advise them to stay away from phones 4 u.

[gkaur1985]

3 head office just rang me and left a voicemail and number to ring back on. what shall i say??? will she help??? what can she do for me when it's phones 4 u's fault???

[buzby]

Easy - work out what the monthly rental would have been (averaged over the year and divided by the number of months). That's what you expected to pay - see how close the can get to this, and remember whilst they probably won't match it, they're not obliged to!