Network 3

...TV and he did his Network 3 sketch, saying how the signal was so bad if you didn't want your child to be bullied by text to buy them a Network 3 phone as by the time they got the offending text, they'd be about 45 years old. Oh how I laughed, "That's not true" I said. "Network 3 are brilliant" I said. Boyf just looked at me with a raised eyebrow.
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_And then it all went wrong._
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Firstly, my phone ...
...month. Now, if the network *worked*, I would have jumped at this but common sense prevailed and I declined.
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A few days later I got yet another call, this one more hostile saying "You were offered a really good deal by one of my colleagues, you refused. Why?!". I explained precisely why. I was then told "We have put a new mast near where you live". Really, in the space of around 5 days??! If you knew the council ... more

I'd been a loyal Orange customer right on back to the days when you'd call them and a real, live human bean would answer the phone rather than an automated "press 1" android, however, the shocking way I was treated by a member of sales staff at an Orange store when I went in for an upgrade made me demand my PAC code there and then and make my way to the "3" store.
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Once inside the 3 shop I signed up for an 18month contract for £21 a month, with a 500 mix of calls and texts and a nice new handset. As I was getting more calls and texts for less than with Orange I was very happy, and the staff couldn't have been nicer. A few days later I called the 3 Customer Services with my PAC code and they couldn't have been nicer or more helpful either so I was delighted.
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All was good.
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A few months later, Alan Carr was on TV and he did his Network 3 sketch, saying how the signal was so bad if you didn't want your child to be bullied by text to buy them a Network 3 phone as by the time they got the offending text, they'd be about 45 years old. Oh how I laughed, "That's not true" I said. "Network 3 are brilliant" I said. Boyf just looked at me with a raised eyebrow.
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And then it all went wrong.
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Firstly, my phone stopped sending text messages. Nothing I did resolved the problem so I had to go back to the shop where they did all the fixes I had done with no luck. Mysteriously, the problem rectified itself a few days later.
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My phone then went through a strange phase of being fully charged and then one hour later, having zero charge. This went on for over a week with the phone having to be re-charged each day.
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3 then introduced a charge for paper billing of about £3. This would be free if you paid by Direct Debit. I have a joint account with Boyf and this caused so much confusion with the call centre staff I ended up having to pay the extra for my bills each time as I'd pay them as they arrived.

Then my phone would just lose signal. The message "Emergency Calls Only" would appear on screen and the only way to remove this would be to re-boot the handset, doing the old I.T. fix of turning it off and switching back on again. My handset would sometimes do this 4 times in 1 hour.
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My phone then would just die, in that I couldn't make or receive calls or texts, but it'd be showing full signal and there would be no warning message on screen. Again, re-booting was the only fix.
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THEN in the style of an over-protective parent my phone started to 'screen' my calls. Instead of ringing, my phone would beep with a Voicemail message..... that was left 2hours ago. Sometimes it'd beep with a Missed Call icon when it hadn't even rung, 9 times out of 10, it was the Boyf ringing and he'd say that the phone "Rang and rang for ages" which was very odd. My phone then started to screen my text messages with messages arriving one or more hours after the other person had pressed send.
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All these things really bugged me but it was verbally ruled out by 3 shop staff not to be a handset, software or SIM card problem, but something network-y that "just happens sometimes".
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Recently I tried to email my Yahoo account a photograph. This facility had worked fine a few months prior but suddenly I was getting "Server Not Found" appear. I visited the 3 website and decided to speak to a technician using the webchat facility.
What happened next took over 25minutes and I ended the "chat" without the problem being resolved. I wanted to check that my phone was still contractually able to send and receive pictures to my Yahoo! Account (thinking maybe 3 had secretly removed this previous facility). I also wanted to run through the settings to make sure I had the right account details. Despite me listing the problem and also detailing my previous fixes and the email address I was trying to send the message to in order to save time and lots of questions, I was asked the following, not once but several times :-
1) Have you tried switching it off and on again.
2) Has it worked before.
3) What is your email address.
4) Have you spelt your email address correctly.
And the best one ever:-
5) Ah ha, I think I’ve solved it!!!! Put the first letter of your email address as a capital letter.
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Apparently I had him and his team totally stumped as he said they'd investigate further and call me back in 24hours. In the meantime I went to the 3 website to get the settings texted to me. I did this three times, nothing worked. I went to the Sony Ericsson site, got the settings texted to me and bingo, worked first time.
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Twenty-four hours turned in to 96 hours although I did get lots of "missed call" icons from a number that kept calling me and couldn't get through as the phone was doing its silent treatment so it could well have been 3. I finally got a call through asking me "Did you fix the problem?". "Yes I did actually. But you are Technical Services - weren’t YOU supposed to fix it?!". I told the chap that the 3 website settings didn't work and I had to get the settings from another site. He was confused by this and said he would investigate.
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I fired off an email to the executives at 3, complaining about the drop in coverage and all the other problems I experienced and suffer on an almost daily basis. I said they were not fulfilling their part of the contract and I wanted to terminate my contract early and without penalty. I was told by automated instant reply that they'd get back to me in 10 working days. I held out little hope.
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Interestingly, I checked on MoneySupermarket and found there was someone there experiencing the exact same problems. More interestingly, they said that they had live web chat with an adviser a fortnight prior to my chat and was told 3 were scrapping their 3mail (email) service as of 1st September 2009 which would explain why I could not send photo emails. I found it bizarre that the technical representative I spoke to on the 11th September did not mention this, nor did any of his team who he repeatedly said he was going off to speak to for advice!

And then I got the phone call...

On Friday 24 September, my phone rang. It was one of the people who I'd emailed in the Executives office. The first thing he said was that my mobile connection was so awful, he could barely hear me so he would call me back on a landline.
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After telling me that he absolutely loved my complaint letter, everyone in his office had read it and found it very funny (I've found that injecting humour into complaint letters works MILES better than a full-on rant) he set about putting all the wrongs right.
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I was told that my call records had been checked and they showed that I had a very high percentage of 'dropped' calls - if by some miracle a call would get through, it would often cut off after a minute - if that, and that I hardly ever used my phone to make calls. I explained that was often because the dang thing wouldn't actually work most of the time.
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The man on the phone said that 3 were in the planning stages of putting a new mast near where I live which would boost my home signal strength, but said this would take several months. He went on to say that because of all the problems, I could either upgrade my handset early or be given a PAC code and terminate my contract early without penalty charges being incurred. Needless to say, I opted for the PAC code.
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Those pesky call centre staff - AKA Liar Liar, Pants on Fire

On Monday, I got a call from the 3 call centre, offering me an upgrade. I refused, explaining I had a PAC code.
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I then got another call two days later offering me a brand new handset, 500mins text / call combo all for the reduced price of £7 a month. Now, if the network *worked*, I would have jumped at this but common sense prevailed and I declined.
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A few days later I got yet another call, this one more hostile saying "You were offered a really good deal by one of my colleagues, you refused. Why?!". I explained precisely why. I was then told "We have put a new mast near where you live". Really, in the space of around 5 days??! If you knew the council where I live you'd know that it took them about 2 years to approve half a dozen plant baskets on roadside railings so how long they'd take to decide on a mobile phone mast is anyone’s guess!
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Then I tried to pay my phone bill, only the automated service wasn't working so I had to ring through with my card details. Again, I got questioned in a fairly hostile manner about why I wasn't accepting an upgrade.
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At the weekend I went into Carphone Warehouse and signed up to be migrated over to the O2 network - and I am so happy. I have full signal strength in all the areas where 3 used to be stone cold dead, texts are sent and received with no hassles and call quality is simply amazing.
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The moral of the story?
Listen to Alan Carr. Each of the mobile phone shops I went in to when looking for a new handset asked which network I was on [to work out pricing deals]. When I said "3", they all went " ahhh" and gave a sympathetic smile - each of the shops (Phones4U, Vodafone, Orange, Carphone Warehouse and O2) even went so far as to say they get many ex-3'ers in there with the exact same problem and many users are being locked in to a dud 3 contract. Irritatingly, 3 mobiles are locked to 3 - I have heard rumours 3 handsets cannot be SIM unlocked ==at all==, so if that is the case you have a useless SIM *and* useless handset too.
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In future I will be sticking to the big names I know about, ones that have proven service so for me, it’s a very loud good bye to 3 - I just have to resist the urge to run into the 3 shop and tell the customers in there signing up for the latest low-priced deal not to do it, they'd be better off with two yoghurt pots and a piece of string.

For me, two stars - and that's being generous.
 

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