MIR reader, Steve, had what we mobile industry watchers call ‘bill shock’ recently.
He bought a 3 pay monthly deal for £25/month from 3 UK a little while ago. That’s been serving him well as he’s taken a tour around Australia for a few months and has been, obviously, roaming on 3 Australia.
All was good until he was whacked for £140 recently.
3’s Customer Services tried to explain that he was roaming on a non-3 network, hence the charges.
He was roaming on 3 Australia.
Insert confusion here.
3 eventually admitted to some technical problems relating to outgoing calls.
I gather that Steve won’t have to pay these extraneous charges. If you’re planning to roam in Australia on 3, make sure you’re not being overcharged whilst these technical issues continue.
Similar problem here. I do a lot of work in Sydney and having the 3 Like Home feature is so useful. I checked my usage on My3 and it's currently showing about £40 of unbilled calls which have definitely been made on 3 Australia – I have a unlocked HTC phone and have my network settings set on manual to 3Telstra which is 3 Australia.
I've had no problems with billing last year and earlier this year so something's obviously gone a bit screwy this month.
Still, this is good news in the sense that they recognise it's their fault and he hasn't got to pay. I mean (and this is going to sound a bit 3UK fanboy!) it's not as if they've said 'yeah, roam as if you're at home' and then fallen back on small print to nullify that.
Show me a billing system that doesn't screw up from time to time and I'll show you a UK tabloid that doesn't actively hunt out sensationalist mobile-related headlines.
Er, ok, to clarify: neither exist.
It's kinda inevitable that any MNO's call centre will follow scripts and if it looks like a duck, will call it a duck.
Until you or they prove it's a turkey, in which case Steve gets his dosh back.
I've had similar experiences with Voda's Passport service, particularly in the France/Switzerland border area, where the phone was hopping between Passport- and non-Passport MNO's and ended up with a major hassle to untangle the bill, which of course arrived several months after the fact.
Sad to say I think international mobile users should be resigned to this sort of thing happening every once in a while.
I'm roaming on Three in Brisbane now and getting whacked by three every time I make a call, they have even charged once or twice when I received a Skype call. My inclusive minutes aren't decreasing but my balance is increasing.
The first time I called three about this they told me that I must be roaming off their network, which is absolute trash as we have carefully checked every time before making a call, they denied that they had problems and put me on to a tech guy who told me to set the network manually, I had already done this but did it again just for the record. The next call I made to the UK cost £8. Been on to three again, they admitted that there was a problem and are looking into it meamwhile my bill is still increasing.
Really, really annoying!
2008/9/21 Disqus <>
Really, really annoying!
2008/9/21 Disqus <>
Really, really annoying!
2008/9/21 Disqus <>