# Getting out of Three contract



## leesider (17 Feb 2017)

I am in an 18 month contract with Three for their mobile broadband. I am only a month into it and I cannot send emails from their network either by phone (Three network) or with the wireless network provided by their broadband service.
Their smtp server is down. I have told them that repeatedly but they just keep telling me it is a problem on my end.
Do I have grounds for getting out of the contract without paying a cancellation fee? The cancellation fee would be the number of remaining months on my contract (16) multiplied by the monthly charge I am paying by direct debit (€40).
They are not fulfilling their terms of service if I can't send email on their network.


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## rob oyle (17 Feb 2017)

If the problem isn't affecting other Three customers in the area, could the problem be at your end?
You could try their technical supports area, rather than customer support/sales, who mightn't be clued up on these things.


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## leesider (17 Feb 2017)

rob oyle said:


> If the problem isn't affecting other Three customers in the area, could the problem be at your end?
> You could try their technical supports area, rather than customer support/sales, who mightn't be clued up on these things.



I can categorically guarantee you that the problem is not on my end. Other users have the exact same issue and they are in different parts of the country to me. I didn't change any settings, it just stopped sending emails all of a sudden.


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## odyssey06 (17 Feb 2017)

There's a very good chance in the next few months you will get an email or letter from Three if they have changed price, terms or conditions of your contract. Usually you then have 28 days to break the contract penalty free... so don't ignore those emails \ correspondence.


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## cremeegg (17 Feb 2017)

This is a practical matter not a really a legal one. What is the best way to get out of a fixed term contract with a service provider. Write to them or email them saying that they are failing to provide the service and that you are leaving. Cancel the dd or standing order and forget about it.

They will send you all kinds of over the top and threatening letters, ignore anything that is not a court summons. If you ever receive one, which is highly unlikely, write to them and point out that you left because they were not providing the service you were paying for and you will gladly defend your position in court. There is nothing in it for them in going to court.


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## JoeRoberts (17 Feb 2017)

cremeegg said:


> This is a practical matter not a really a legal one. What is the best way to get out of a fixed term contract with a service provider. Write to them or email them saying that they are failing to provide the service and that you are leaving. Cancel the dd or standing order and forget about it.
> 
> They will send you all kinds of over the top and threatening letters, ignore anything that is not a court summons. If you ever receive one, which is highly unlikely, write to them and point out that you left because they were not providing the service you were paying for and you will gladly defend your position in court. There is nothing in it for them in going to court.


Could they keep your number though and refuse to let it pass to new provider ?


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## leesider (17 Feb 2017)

I would rather get out of the contract by legal means than just cancelling the direct debit.
It is not just me this affects anyway as the smtp server is down for everyone so anyone who has a phone with Three or a USB broadband modem with Three cannot send email on their network until it is back up.
If they don't fix it their service is no use to me.


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## Steven Barrett (17 Feb 2017)

Go on the offensive. Tell them that you are not going to pay for a service that does not work. They either get an engineer out to your house next week to fix the problem or you are going to cancel the contract for non performance on their side. 

Mobile companies and broadband providers usually treat their customers very poorly, knowing that people need their services. They will leave you waiting ages to fix the problem unless you go at them. At the end of the day, they still want your money and you need to go heavy at them to get a solution. 

And ask them to send you copies of every conversation that they are taping...just in case. 

Steven 
www.bluewaterfp.ie


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## leesider (18 Feb 2017)

As a result of not being able to send emails yesterday I had to drive an hour to my nearest Meteor store (I live in the countryside). I had to buy a Meteor sim and €30 worth of credit (because I don't know how long Three's email server will be out of action and I need to have email access all the time). I can now send emails after changing my settings to Meteor's smtp server and installing the sim in an old Meteor modem I had.
I am in the process of starting a new job and the HR person has been emailing me so it was quite embarrassing not being able to reply to her.
Will Three re-imburse me for this credit I had to buy?I am going to ask them anyway.


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## MrEarl (18 Feb 2017)

SBarrett said:


> Go on the offensive.....



Spot on !

In fact, I would take it a step further and take a case against them via the Small Claims Court.  It does not cost much, no need for legal representation etc.  

Do not let this drag on, as the longer you leave it the more difficult it is to then justify trying to disconnect from them.

Three are an absolute disgrace of a company.  There is endless evidence of the company not providing a reliable network across the internet, even on their own "Talk to" section on Boards.ie so have a look there if you want supporting evidence or want to contact others having a similar problem.

The Regulator is failing is miserably when it comes to not dealing with Three's failure to meet the terms of it's licence.  I personally have written to the Regulator to complain about Three and know others who have done the same, complaining about Three's failure to provide a satisfactory basic service and yet the Regulator does nothing other than try to fob us all off.


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## leesider (18 Feb 2017)

I made a terrible mistake moving from Meteor to Three. I had Meteor mobile broadband for a year and I was happy enough. I decided to take a look at Three's equivalent service and I saw in comparison to Meteor that Three's upload and download was much faster. I signed up with them and had their modem on 14-day approval. I used it a fair bit over the 14 days so if it wasn't up to scratch I could cancel without penalty.
It was very good over the 14 days, consistently high upload and download, I could watch live streams in the evening no problem. Lo and behold after the 14 days elapsed both upload and download speeds dropped like a stone. Now I have this carry-on with not being able to send emails.
I am tied into them for next 17 months. They also charged me €50 over my download with a sneaky hidden charge.
I will try the small claims court to get the €30 I spent on the meteor credit but I would much prefer to leave them completely.


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## MrEarl (20 Feb 2017)

leesider said:


> ....I will try the small claims court to get the €30 I spent on the meteor credit but I would much prefer to leave them completely.



I am not 100% up to speed with what can and cannot be considered in the Small Claims Court, but I was actually thinking of you taking an action against them for breach of contract (not providing a merchantable service), rather than the €30 cost.  Hopefully the risk of potential negative publicity if they were to lose the case might be enough to get them to agree to destroy your contract and part company, once they became aware that you were taking legal action....

In the meantime, all you can do is the same as others and keep telling everyone what a disaster of a service they provide etc. and hope that others won't get caught out the way you did.

I also suggest you put a complaint into ComReg about them - while it may not do any good, sooner or later all of the complaints about Three will have to get them to take some sort of action.


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## Steven Barrett (20 Feb 2017)

MrEarl said:


> In fact, I would take it a step further and take a case against them via the Small Claims Court.  It does not cost much, no need for legal representation etc.



I had to do something similar with Vodafone years ago. The mobile reception in my house for Vodafone was always pretty weak and I got an upgrade to the Blackberry Curve (it was that long ago!). Anyway, got home and zero reception. As I had taken the phone from the box, they wouldn't let me return it. They did tests on the phone and said there was nothing wrong with it. I argued that I used to have a phone that worked, now I had a phone that didn't. If it wasn't the phone, it was Vodafone's poor network, either way it was there problem, not mine. I told them that I had all the time in the world to go to the small Claims Court to get my money back. How much would it cost Vodafone to turn up there? More than the €250 I was looking back from them. They paid me back the €250, I cancelled my contract and got an iPhone from O2. 


Steven 
www.bluewaterfp.ie


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## cremeegg (20 Feb 2017)

JoeRoberts said:


> Could they keep your number though and refuse to let it pass to new provider ?



So far as I know they cannot keep your number if you are not in arrears with them.


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## MrEarl (21 Feb 2017)

SBarrett said:


> ....I cancelled my contract and got an iPhone from O2....



Well played !

... although you have my sympathies now that Three have taken over 02 and started making "improvements" to the combined network (the endless complaints from former 02 customers on the Three forum on Boards, says it all !)


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## Dan Murray (21 Feb 2017)

I really don't like "Boards" - much prefer this place!..........I was actually thinking of switching to Three.........is the consensus here that Three is best avoided? If so, how do people rank the various providers?


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## Steven Barrett (21 Feb 2017)

That was a good few years ago. When I set up Bluewater, I was with Eir Mobile who I thought were great. Reasonable priced, same fees every month, even when on holidays. I went for an upgrade a year ago and first of all they lied as to when the phone would be available. After 4 weeks of lying to me, they rejected my request for an upgrade even though I always paid on time (after weeks of hassling them, they admitted they had made a mistake). I had jumped ship to 3 mobile. They lied about their charges. For what is supposed to be unlimited calls and all you can eat data, my phone bill varies from month to month and is higher than they told me. Once my contract is up, I'll be leaving them, probably back to Eir. 

Dan, they are all awful. They all have similar enough contracts. Coverage is the big thing for me. Once you have decent coverage and a reasonable priced contract you shouldn't really have to contact them and end up wanting to go postal!!!

Steven
www.bluewaterfp.ie


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## MrEarl (21 Feb 2017)

Hello Dan,

I was not suggesting that we all move over to Boards, but more so using it as a point of reference - because there is a specific forum (entitled "Talk to Three") where Three staff answer questions for customers and try to deal with problems.  The amount of unhappy customers on that forum is incredible, many reporting the same core problems with the network not being up to scratch etc.

I was a Three customer (in fact, we had two accounts on two mobiles with them from my family) - they were a disaster.  A fancy logo, some high profile advertising but little substance behind them. Their basic service is unreliable - the signal quality drops to zero regularly across majour urban areas, I can't speak for the entire country, but certainly across many parts of Dublin and Wicklow for example, where I have first hand experience. Many others complain about similar problems across other parts of the country.

The offer "all you can eat" data, but the signal is so bad on occassion that you'll go hungry from lack of something to eat !

They charge you for picking up your voicemails as part of their business model on many (if not all) of their packages, but because their service was so bad my phone usually never rang, but guess what... I got text messages shortly afterwards from them telling me I had voicemail and then had to dial in (at additional cost) to get the messages I never should have had to pick up, if their network was reliable.  This was a daily occurace across many parts of Dublin, not just specific to one area etc.

Finally, their customer service is primilarly based on "foreign parts" (I think India) where there are communication issues. The general approach is to bog you down with doing things like monitoring instances of occurances you are complaining about and then reporting them back, so they can "investigate". They once asked me to log calls over a 48-72 hour period, which I foolishly did and brought back the findings to then be told there was nothing wrong on their end it must be my handset (the second phone in our house on the second Three mobile account was having the exact same problems - different handsets, both relatively new phones etc.)

I could not warn anyone strongly enough to stay away from Three - cheap is not always best !   By extension, I can only but mention that the likes of Tesco Mobile and Virgin are using the Three network (it was part of the deal when approval was granted to permit Three take over 02, to encourage competition) so as long as Three's infrastructure is not good, you can only assume that any operator using this infrastructure will have problems.

I moved to Vodafone and so far, I am relatively happy.  They are quite expensive compared with other operators, but their service has worked for me and ultimately when I get a mobile phone service, I want to be mobile and have a working phone.  They offer a service called "sure signal" where you can buy a signal booster that runs off your WiFi for boosting the signal in your house or office which is useful and does not seem to be on offer from other mobile operators and while it's accepting that there are signal issues indoors, it does provide a fix.

I hear that Meteor's signal is good from a couple of friends. I don't have first hand experience unfortunitely.

Hope this helps.


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## Dan Murray (21 Feb 2017)

MrEarl said:


> I was not suggesting that we all move over to Boards, but more so using it as a point of reference....



MrEarl - thank you for taking the time to write such an informative post. Your counsel has been duly noted!

[Apologies for the confusion about my reference to Boards - your point was clear, mine was not!]

Thanks again....


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## Chris2014 (21 Feb 2017)

Went through a different provider every month for 5 months as a test. Meteor was by far an away the best so i stuck with them. Fast 4g pretty much anywhere. usually between 10 and 20meg.

Three were by far the worst reception. lucky to get .5meg anywhere. Barely ever hits 4g. Absolute Joke of a network.

Was not surprised to see they disabled a large percentage of their masts last year.

Avoid them at all costs.


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## Dan Murray (21 Feb 2017)

Thanks Chris,

Very methodical approach and useful feedback. Appreciated.


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## peemac (4 Mar 2017)

Chris2014 said:


> Was not surprised to see they disabled a large percentage of their masts last year.
> 
> Avoid them at all costs.


They disabled a lot of the legacy O2 masts which were old technology - O2 did virtually no upgrades for the 2 years prior to being sold to three. They upgraded a huge number of their own masts and also upgraded other O2 masts where they needed extra coverage - but those who want to listen to fake news will never seek out the real information.

I'm probably with Three for 10+ years - I've only needed to call their customer service once and got good response. Remember people who are happy with a service don't shout about it - that applies to everything from hospitals to service providers and as three have about 1 million customers and many of them young who expect everything to be 100% perfect 100% of the time you will get them on forums with their niggly complaints. Notice how its usually the same names cropping up with their "anger" on various issues and services.

For some, it won't suit if they are in a poor service area. For me its perfect - I get constant 20mb+ downloads on their mobile BB, phone service has never been an issue and between phone and Broadband I pay less than €60 a month. - Going up by €4 next month and still cheapest service for me. (I can't get fibre BB)


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## Daenis (5 Mar 2017)

I have been with 3 for about 6 years now and have been very happy with their service most of the time, just got out of my current contract because of their price increases and switched to the sim only plan.


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## Chris2014 (6 Mar 2017)

peemac said:


> They disabled a lot of the legacy O2 masts which were old technology - O2 did virtually no upgrades for the 2 years prior to being sold to three. They upgraded a huge number of their own masts and also upgraded other O2 masts where they needed extra coverage - but those who want to listen to fake news will never seek out the real information.
> 
> I'm probably with Three for 10+ years - I've only needed to call their customer service once and got good response. Remember people who are happy with a service don't shout about it - that applies to everything from hospitals to service providers and as three have about 1 million customers and many of them young who expect everything to be 100% perfect 100% of the time you will get them on forums with their niggly complaints. Notice how its usually the same names cropping up with their "anger" on various issues and services.
> 
> For some, it won't suit if they are in a poor service area. For me its perfect - I get constant 20mb+ downloads on their mobile BB, phone service has never been an issue and between phone and Broadband I pay less than €60 a month. - Going up by €4 next month and still cheapest service for me. (I can't get fibre BB)



Struggling to make a 3g or LTE connection in the middle of Waterford City when Meteor have a solid 20meg at all times is unacceptable.


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## pjq (10 Mar 2017)

I saw some posts elsewhere saying that 3 Irl customers could get out of contract because of a price increase due Apr 1st.
pjq


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## leesider (14 Mar 2017)

pjq said:


> I saw some posts elsewhere saying that 3 Irl customers could get out of contract because of a price increase due Apr 1st.
> pjq



Yes I just cancelled my contract as a result of that contract change. I got a letter about it last week. They increased the monthly charge by €3 and roaming has been removed from the contract. They said this gives me the right to "move to another tariff" (must be some legal requirement that forces them to do it as they sure as hell aren't doing it out of the kindness of their hearts).
They don't tell you that you can cancel your contract, not just move to another tariff. I'm delighted anyway, really delighted.

Edit:I still don't trust them so I have asked them to send me a letter confirming that I have ended my contract. The lady I was talking to said that it would appear on MyThree account.


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## Learner2015 (14 Mar 2017)

I'm with three, got a letter off them last week saying they are REDUCING my monthly amount by €9.75 a month from April? 

Great news but why the hell are they doing this, I read in the news they were increasing plan costs !?!?


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## MrEarl (15 Mar 2017)

Learner2015 said:


> I'm with three, got a letter off them last week saying they are REDUCING my monthly amount by €9.75 a month from April? ...



Assuming you are happy with their service and they were not previously overcharging you, then congratulations - thats a great result.  However, I would be checking my previous bills very carefully, as it's an extremely unusual situation to find yourself in.

If you are not happy with the service, then I wonder if a price drop still gives you the right to cancel ?


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## Learner2015 (15 Mar 2017)

If you are not happy with the service, then I wonder if a price drop still gives you the right to cancel ? [/QUOTE]

Yeah unlike a lot of people I am very happy with the service, good signal on both phone and 4G. I had a quick scan of my bills over the last 12 months and they were always bang on €39.75 or €1 or €2 cause of lo call numbers.

One point to note is I'm not in a contract, I'm SIM only month by month.

I'm tentatively taking this as a win!


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## Firefly (22 Mar 2017)

Only seeing this now. I had the misfortune of trying to cancel a Three contract a number of years ago. My contract had expired yet I was put through the ringer. I would never go near them again...


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## peemac (22 Mar 2017)

[/QUOTE]

Yeah unlike a lot of people I am very happy with the service, good signal on both phone and 4G. I had a quick scan of my bills over the last 12 months and they were always bang on €39.75 or €1 or €2 cause of lo call numbers.

One point to note is I'm not in a contract, I'm SIM only month by month.

I'm tentatively taking this as a win![/QUOTE]
Yep, there's now just one SIM only plan. All calls, all data, €30 a month. Mine dropped too - and like yourself,  have very good coverage, so very happy with the change.


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## johnwilliams (28 Jul 2017)

if you wanted to make a complaint about them (billing issue )
is to comreg or  that consumers protection association (cant think their exact name at moment)


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## Lightning (29 Jul 2017)

Comreg.


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## MrEarl (1 Aug 2017)

Yes and put pressure on ComReg if you find they won't take any action - they seem to like trying to side step any form of conflict with the mobile operators over things like poor signal etc.  Perhaps someone needs to remind them why they were established ?


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