Three Customer Service (how NOT to treat your loyal customers)

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I have 4 PAYG SIMS with Three, one for me and one for each of my lads.

Because they were <18, I had them all in my name but a few weeks ago, I decided to swap the eldest lad's SIM into his name.

I rang up expecting it to be a simple change of details on their system.

Turned out they wanted to cancel the existing SIM and send out a new one in his name.

I asked if the credit he had on his phone would be transferred over as he had just bought a £10 Add-on.

Yes, I was told, it would be transferred over,

So, a few days later, he gets his new SIM. Puts it in. No credit.

I ring up and give my details and get told that I cannot talk to them about the account as it is now in my son's name. I insist that he deals with me as the credit that was lost was on the SIM when it was in my name.
After a lot of faffing around, I get told that the credit has been lost and there's nothing they can do.

I ask the guy to ring my son and explain this to him, but unfortunately, my lad thought it was a spam call and put the phone down...

I ring up another day and another chap apologises and says that they normally advise customers to use up credit or add-ons before switching ownership. Sadly, he says he can't help because he is not authorised to reinstate credit.

Earlier last week, I filled in an online complaint form. It told me in three working days I or my lad would hear from them.

Today, nothing, so I rang again. I explained I had spoken to many people who had all told me that I had lost the credit and sorry, there was nothing they could do. I asked if he could reinstate the credit or, if not, could he put me through to someone who could. I told him I had 4 SIM cards with them and was a loyal customer, topping up for many years and I was on the verge of asking for PACs so I could move to a different provider.

So what do you think the guy focused on? Trying to sort out the credit so I don't leave, right?

WRONG! I could hear his eyes lighting up over the phone at the sales opportunity.

"How many SIMs, did you say?"

I have to confess that I lost it here. I was polite and did not swear, but raised my voice a tad:

"I can't believe you have received a customer complaint call and you are trying to turn it into a sales opportunity to make commission!"

I demanded to be put through to Customer Complaints. The guy must have been a bit flustered as I heard his conversation with Complaints: "Please deal with this guy before he has a heart attack...."!

The complaints guy put me on hold to check the history, then came back on and said it was very important that I was happy because I was a loyal customer for many years and would I be satisfied if they credited my lad with £5?

I couldn't quite believe my ears and had to ask for the amount again.

"My son has lost £10 credit through your poor advice and you want to replace it with £5?"

"We want you to be happy and as a final gesture of goodwill, we will raise that amount to £10. Are you happy?"

What a fiasco!
 
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I know cutting the end price to the customer does not always result in having to cut costs elsewhere - ie Customer Service - (Smarty and GiffGaff - both MVNOs - are well thought of by Which? and the former piggy-backs off Three!), but it often seems to happen that way. Think of Virgin Media or Talk Talk.

The thing is, customer service is like insurance....you may never need it, but when you do, if your provider is rubbish at it, you have a fight on your hands.
 
Yes!

(Smarty and GiffGaff - both MVNOs - are well thought of by Which? and the former piggy-backs off Three!)
Which is why I can't understand how/ why Three CS is so lousy. I mean, they make it very difficult to complain in the first place, then to try and get a resolution is like getting blood from a stone.
 
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Try Barclays Bank! Held on for 54 minutes this morning before giving up. Now been back on hold for 26 minutes. Got to go out again in a minute, I might try talking to someone in the bank but I suspect they'll just tell me to phone in! Frustrating. At least you got to speak to someone!

image.jpg
 
Aaaaaaarrrrggggghhh!

Just got through to a person, had the phone on loudspeaker, instead of pressing the speaker button to turn the speaker off, I've hit the 'end call' button. :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:
 
Try Barclays Bank! Held on for 54 minutes this morning before giving up. Now been back on hold for 26 minutes. Got to go out again in a minute, I might try talking to someone in the bank but I suspect they'll just tell me to phone in! Frustrating. At least you got to speak to someone!

View attachment 264356
Am I surprised? NOooo.

Went into a branch of Barclay's to pay bill - the company I was paying banks with Barclay's so it is normal business - unhelpful teller told me off for doing that (and troubling her day).
 
Aaaaaaarrrrggggghhh!

Just got through to a person, had the phone on loudspeaker, instead of pressing the speaker button to turn the speaker off, I've hit the 'end call' button. :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:
Well, just as I thought I'd have to go out and try again for a third time when I got back, a rare common sense event occurred - a woman from Barclays phoned me back! She wasn't sure if she had cut me off. Anyway, she solved my problem in no time at all so apart from the wait, the customer service was excellent.
 
Sadly customers services are bad at most places and still citing "due to covid"

Thanks water, Brith Gas massive waiting times
Coventry BS, very good waiting times
Barclays Premier very good waiting times as is Amazon.
Aviva is often pretty good
Porsche and Merc customers services very good
As my friends have guessed, yes we do use their services :) :)
(we don't do apps)

A really poor poor show is Thames water waiting times. As with all if not most, the people that answer the phone are usally ok to good but
it's how you speak to them makes a difference as well :) ;)
 
Bentley are excellent, private line to the workshop, no dramas, can't say the same about Bugatti though.

I love a Bentley, lovely cars and two of my siblings have one each one has the Arnage and the other one has that big SUV. We could not justify the cost of a brand new one but may consider one about a year to old depending on the model but the upkeep is on a different level as well once out of warranty. Thank you, you lucky little ...
 
I love a Bentley, lovely cars and two of my siblings have one each one has the Arnage and the other one has that big SUV. We could not justify the cost of a brand new one but may consider one about a year to old depending on the model but the upkeep is on a different level as well once out of warranty. Thank you, you lucky little ...
You couldn't buy a new one. They stopped making 'em over 13 years ago and you can pick them up for less than the price of a Focus.

A Bentley has been the most disappointing car that I've ever driven. That was a three year old sport with less than 20k on the clock that I did it's first mot on. Bumps, rattles and squeaks. Terrible car although it did shift like **** off a chrome shovel.
 
The funniest variation I heard of the "**** off a shovel" phrase was:

"....like diarrhoea off a hot chrome shovel...."
 
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