Cowboys of the mobile phone world (3 Mobile Phone Network)

Member Name: liz3yy

Product:	3 Mobile Phone Network
Date:	15/06/09 (62 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap phone initially

Disadvantages: Didnt want to help when things went wrong

I hadn't the 3 mobile network a second thought until I met my partner. I use Virgin personally and am very happy with them considering I bought my phone almost 7 years ago and have never ever had a problem with it or the network coverage. I did consider switching to 3 a year ago when I discovered my partner and I could get very cheap calls to each other, that is until he started having problems with this phone.

I forget the exact name and model of my partners phone but it's a clam shell design one made by Sony. He upgraded to this particular model a year into his contract and at first seemed very happy with it. After about 3 months though things started to go wrong, the phone would after being charged up for several hours suddenly lose all battery power and switch itself off after only a few minutes, once it happened during a call which was frustrating for him as I'm sure you'll understand.

We tried charging the phone again, letting the battery run down, not using it so much etc...but the problem remained. In the end the phone was rendered unsuable so we trotted off to our local 3 store to get it sorted, oh what fun that turned out to be.....

At first they were very apologetic and offered to return the phone to be looked at and repaired if neccessary, we waited a week then we told we could pick it up. In the store the phone seemed fine when the assistant demonstrated it and said all appeared ok now. When we got home however the problem with the battery started again so of course we had to go back to the store, again. This wouldnt have been so bad if our local store wasn't a 40 mile round trip away costing us time and money in petrol which we couldn't really afford.

The phone went back 3 times, after which the store refused to deal with us anymore claiming it was our problem and not theirs, well that's true actually as my partner was paying out each month for a service he couldn't use, how is that right?

Eventually my partner lost all paitience with 3 and sent the phone direct to the manufacturer to be restored, after which it worked perfectly and has done ever since, why couldnt the store have arranged that for us in the first place and save us all the hassle?!

My partner has vowed never to use 3 again once his current contract expires next year, sadly until the he is stuck with them as he cannot afford to buy his contract out and I certainly dont want anything to do with it. The staff at 3 were increasingly hostile towards us as we had to keep going back, in the end they wrote to my partner claiming he had been aggresive and threatened to ban him from ever going back! idiots...

My advise, steer well clear of 3, they are a bunch of cowboys who treat their customers with contempt when things go wrong.

Summary: Avoid