Now it isn't very often I feel so negatively about a company as I do about Hutchinson 3G mobile. And as a result this is quite long and I apologize in advance.

But before I begin with the bad points, here is more about the overall situation with them.

~ What prompted us to take on the contract ~

My partner and I have had a contract phone now between us for many years. Our old contract with Vodafone was due to end and we were looking around for other options.
A couple of friends had been on 3 and both said they had been happy enough with it, and since they had an offer on for a phone we really wanted and the package overall was a good one, we decided to take on an 18 month contract.

~ The contract offered ~

The contract, on paper was good. We were given a brand new Sony Ericsson K850i.
The model features are basically:

5 mega pixel camera.
Bluetooth compatible.
Web Browser.
Java and 3D games
Standard messaging and phone connectivity.
Full o40 MB Phone Memory
Memory Stick Micro™ (M2™) with support (up to 8 GB)
Full Organizer.
Size approx 102 x 48 x 17 mm (If like me you still think in older measurements that equates to around 4.0 x 1.9 x 0.7 inches).
Weight around 118 grams (Just over 4 ozs).

The deal at the time was for a contract set to £27-00 per month allowing for a mixer package of Inclusive UK voice minutes (1100 mins) or Inclusive UK text messages (1100 txt) msgs or any combination of both

The charges were listed as:
Voice call Charges 3 to UK landline (Flat rate) £0.12 per minute
3 to 3 UK (Flat rate) £0.12 per minute
3 to other UK mobile networks (Flat rate) £0.12 per minute
Voicemail (Flat rate) FREE per minute
Video Call Charges 3 to 3 UK £0.50 per minute
3 to other UK mobile networks £0.50 per minute Off Peak £0.50 per minute Videomail £0.25 per minute
Other Charges
UK Text Messages £0.12
UK video messages £0.50

~ How did the service do? ~

Well the phone was exactly what we wanted, and so we were more than happy with that and for the most part, the contract was good as well. Initially, the costs were low because we had a 6-month refund (which was given in form of credit rather than actual cash back which is the fairly standard method for companies to offer this).

But our first bill arrived, and what we hadn't been told was the phone would cost £3-00 a month on top of the other costs - bringing the total to £30-00.
Okay, an oversight on the part of 3G and one we could accept - this time around.

The service on the phone was okay, but compared to the Vodafone coverage it wasn't great. It was enough but, some areas, for example around where my parents live - the coverage was non-existent.
Having been assured the coverage was at least as good as Vodafone, including the area where my parents live, and in some areas would be better than Vodafone offered before we signed the dotted line, that was mark number 2 against the company.
Either someone had wrong information or was telling porkie pies……. But again we just decided it was one of those things.

And then suddenly, the Bill's arrived with costs we weren't expecting! We had kept within our package (or so we thought) but the company would say every time our use had included other areas (for example using the Browser) even when we knew this wasn't true.
We contacted Ofcom, concerned we had no recourse to challenge 3G's claims on our phone use. Unfortunately they couldn't help us but gave us the details of a regulatory body that might be able to.

So, for the last 3 months we would get additional monthly charges of around £5-00 added on, sometimes as much as £10-00 added to our bills even when we knew it wasn't the case.
Mark number 3 against 3G.

Fortunately the time was drawing closer to being able to cancel the contract and since we had to wait 3 months to use the service for complaints against 3G, we decided to wait and just cancel instead and move, most likely back to Vodafone.

~ Cancelling your contract ~

Now, with Vodafone you just sent a letter, giving 30 days notice. Simple. No hassle, no fuss, just a nicely worded letter of acknowledgement back from Vodafone.

I wish the same could be said of 3G. This is when our nightmare really began! And I really hope you can follow all of this.

April 2007 - Wrote and told them we were giving the standard 30 days notice cancelling our contract.
Within 2 days of sending the letter, we get a phone call from their customer service department.
Now, I have a lot of Asian friends, so this is in no way intended to be seen bashing anyone from this continent. But I struggled to understand the person speaking the English was so poor.
Mark number 4 against 3G.

The reason for this call - to get us to go onto another package with 3G. 10 minutes later and they still didn't understand the concept of a single word - NO!

15 Minutes later and I warned the woman calling that should this garbled conversation continue any longer, I would do something I abhor, and that was putting the phone down on her. I then said that we wanted the contract cancelled, nothing else and that we expected 3G to honour this request.
Within 2 minutes, I just said, enough is enough - and did put the phone down on her.

Mark number 5 against 3G.

May 2007 - We get a bill which we believed to be our last. Oh how I wished it that had been……..

June 2007 - Hold on, another bill from 3G? Okay, a smaller amount that it had been, but a bill all the same.
Cue, calling the sameCall centre, (Somewhere in Asis but god knows where!) but fortunately I did get someone with a reasonable grasp of English this time around. This is the only positive I can find about this particular call.
We were told that we had agreed to a new contract with 3G while talking to the woman in April! Hence the new bill!
After recovering from the shock, it would appear the previous customer service representative had taken my comment of "We're going to be here until midnight" as meaning if we didn't contact 3G before midnight they would start the new contract!

This phone call resolved nothing, with 3G refusing to accept that the customer service representative had done anything wrong.

Off goes another letter to 3G - Not only complaining about the situation but also requesting a refund for the money taken on the Direct debit which we hadn't cancelled, not realizing the contract was still going.
Then to the bank to cancel the Direct Debit that I now wished we had cancelled ourselves in May.
And await some kind of response from 3G.

July 2007 - Still nothing from 3G - And so another letter went off. Two days later, a bill arrived saying we owed them xxx Amount for the previous month and the direct debit had failed!
I've now lost count as to how many marks this is against the company.
So another phone call was made and someone assuring me they would look into it and I would be contacted.
Yeah….. right. As if that happened.

Another week went by, and apart from a red demand from 3G, nothing more came from them.

I then wrote again, saying I was about to contact the regulatory body (as given to us by Ofcom) if they continued to ignore the complaints and we weren't given a refund for the money taken in error.

August 2007 - Finally, we get a phone call. But this person seems to know nothing about the on-going situation and is only phoning because the previous months account has not been settled!

Oh joy - So another letter to 3G, this time having filled in the online form for the regulation body, and instructing 3G we now wanted all communication in writing.

September 2007 - A letter from 3G eventually arrives, apologizing for the situation, but saying we didn't cancel our contract because we agreed to a new one verbally, as noted by the customer representative in April.
I then demanded that if that were the case, was the call recorded - Otherwise they could not prove it and the complaint against them was going to continue.
This was met with silence initially and eventually a letter with nothing more than a promise someone would get back to us.

October 2007 - Eventually after a number of other letters to 3G, the intervention of the regulatory body and a couple of phone calls later (despite my request to do it all in writing since we no longer trusted their verbal communications), we did get acknowledgment that the request in April to cancel the contract should have been done.
A week later, a demand for the July, August and September bills 3G kept sending out arrives on our doorstep not from 3G but a debt collection agency threatening further action.

Another phone call to the Debt collection agency is made, and they are sympathetic to the situation and on receipt of our correspondence to not only 3G but the regulatory body would not take further action and direct it back to 3G.

November 2007 - Finally. We get full acknowledgement in writing from 3G who said the contract was officially cancelled and a promise of refund within a week.
A refund arrives - but they can't even get that right and manage to only give us the refund for the month taken - and not an additional £20-00 as they promised to compensate for the problems we had encountered.
We didn't bother to chase up the £20-00!

~ Our advice ~

Simply don't use 3G - and if you do, be prepared for the worse cold selling of a new contract if you want to cancel I've ever encountered!

If you do have any problems and its been going on for more than 12 weeks, you should write to 3G and ask them for a Deadlock letter.
You can then go to what is known as the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) scheme.
There are two different sectors for this, and 3G belong to
www.otelo.org.uk

~ Final thoughts ~

The phone was great and we've now had it unlocked and are still using it. Had we known the problems we would have encountered though we would have just bought the phone in its own right. This is the only good thing that came out of the whole saga.

A company can ultimately only be as good as its service.

3G seem to have no idea what the word service means. Let alone Customer Service.

If I could leave negative stars I would do. I hope this hasn't come across as a rant but as it happened and the problems we faced because I would hate for anyone to face something similar from this company.

Minus stars from me. Shame I have to give them at least one………