Wireless data max billing issues

[timmy wimmy]

Hi,
Has any one else had problems with ordering wireless data max, £5/month for 'unlimited' internet with a 1gb data limit

I ordered this service using "my3" on my handset and was told that it would take a few hours to activate, So a couple of weeks later Ive been billed £153 for the 90mb of data that I used since applying the addon. A very insignificant amount of it was in the few hours following ordering the addon but most was at least a week later.

I phoned up three to ask what on earth they were playing at. The first person that I spoke to said that I had gone over the 1gb fair usage limit and that I had been charged accoringly, she said that the limit was 1gb and that I had used 90mb. She then conceded that 90mb was infact not over 1gb and told me that I should check my bill to see how much data I had used. I gave up with her as she was pretty useless and I phoned in again.

This time I got through to a guy who seemed to think that the addon might not have been activated until the start of the next billing cycle. (When I ordered the addon it said that as I was currently in the middle of a cycle (roughly half way through), it would scale down the amount that I was allowed to use and the amount that I would I have to pay).

For some reason he then started asking me about wether I use the internet on my handset or if I use my handset as a modem for my laptop (I have used my old handset a couple of times the month before as a modem for my laptop but not since ordering the addon which I did on the day after I got my new handset).

As an aside, does anyone know how they actually tell if you're just browsing the web on your phone or if its a laptop using the phone as a modem?

I then went into a three store and spoke to a very helpful woman there about the issue although she was as confused as I was about why the wireless max addon had not appeared on my bill for that month and sent off an email for me.

Has anyone else had a similar problem with this addon or any of the others? Did it get resolved?

Thanks :)

[Samboro]

Wireless Max is exclusivly for Handset usage only. It clear says in the terms and conditions of the Add-on that PC usage is NOT allowed. Some people try their luck and use their PC.

I don't know HOW 3 know the difference between handset & PC, but they do.

There been some REAL horror stories floating around here....

[timmy wimmy]

Well thats the thing, all this usage that theyre billing me for WAS on my handset.

I used the internet a small amount on my old phone but it was a bad phone so i never used it very much. I tried using it to get my laptop on the internet a few times which worked nicely although was expensive so after it decided it wanted to download windows update automatically i stopped it!

Thankfully it only got a few meg through windows update so it didnt cost me a fortune. (I concede I should pay for this, it shows as about 2meg data on a date before I got the max package)

A contract upgrade and a phone upgrade later, (I got the N95), I had a go at going on the net with the N95 and was sufficiently impressed with how it handled my sites that I signed up for the wireless data max package. I havent even tried connecting the N95 to my laptop. All this disputed data charge is for dates I used the internet after the date I signed up for the package which I have used exclusively on my handset, not on the laptop!

[squawkBOX]

I would double check the package name, however I feel that you are talking about the "Add Internet Max" which is £5 month.

With the Nokia N95, can I confirm why you are not using X-Series Silver (at £5) to access the internet? As you get to use Skype ontop of having more ports open on X-Series compared to Add Internet Max.

[timmy wimmy]

Hi, I checked and you're right, its "Add Internet Max"

Don't know why I didnt get the X-series, just got the N95.

Im not too bothered about ports, I only need http, pop and imap. I run servers for people and I find this package really useful for configuring things remotely and general browsing the web. It would be nice if three let you use all ports as I'd like to be able to use SSH. I've got enough free IP addresses though that I just set the SSH deamon to bind to port 110 on a free IP.

I spoke to three today and the reason I've been messed around is because I was also changing price plan and normally an addon would be applied within 24 hours but if your changing price plan it doesnt get applied until your next bill. Supposedly they told me about this but I didnt see it.

I had a bit of a go at them though, they kept sending me messages saying "You have used 'X'mb since 'date', for more information visit mobile.three.co.uk/3prepayweb/usage"

When I visited that URL from my phone it would tell me how much data I used, given it was giving me an amount of data and the URL included "3 Pre Pay Web" and "Usage" I was assuming it was telling me how much I had used the pre pay web but according to 3 CS thats not the case!

[timmy wimmy]

Just to follow up on that, they are outright refusing to refund anything to me.
Apparently there is nothing they can do! What utter rubbish. It just seems like an excuse to charge me loads of money. Surely this can't be a rare occourence? Has anyone else been caught out by threes "if your changing price plan then addons wont be applied until your new price plan comes into effect"?

[L0sT]

Sorry to hear about the problem you have. But I am just wondering why you didn't double check to see if the ad-don is actually activated before start using the net? I found it to be quite an obvious thing to do. I had a look on "My 3" online and they have stated:
"Most Add-ons are ready to use in a few minutes although some can take longer. Sorry if you have to wait.
Check back here to ensure your Add-ons are active before using them."


Another thing, did you use to have another internet ad-don before (casual internet or something like that)? because if you didn't then you wouldn't have been able to access the internet at the first place, hence it seems your Wireless Max ad-don was active, therefore they messed up.

You can protest with a point that they should have exclusively stated that this ad-don won't be applied until your next bill cycle. Goodluck.

.

[L0sT]

timmy wimmy,

I think XSeries silver would have suited you more. Port 22 is open so you can easily run an SSH client without the need to bind it to another port.

As to how 3 can tell if you are browsing on your phone or using it as a modem, I *think* they can tell from
1) Bandwidth you are using
2) PC will connect to more ports(connections) per session than phone
3) Higher data bursts per webpage (compare loading a webpage on the phone and on the pc - all the graphics/flash/scripts)
etc.

So if they have a program monitoring all these and if certain threshold expected for normal phone usage is exceeded, they can investigate and can tell for sure that some of the stuff/programs/clients you were doing online are in no way possible to do on the phone.

And if they are not doing it this way or not doing this at all, and they decide to go with this idea, I have no problem. I can let them use it and we can sort something out - I can do with a free contract with unlimited of everything! :)

[timmy wimmy]

Sorry to hear about the problem you have. But I am just wondering why you didn't double check to see if the ad-don is actually activated before start using the net? I found it to be quite an obvious thing to do. I had a look on "My 3" online and they have stated:
"Most Add-ons are ready to use in a few minutes although some can take longer. Sorry if you have to wait.
Check back here to ensure your Add-ons are active before using them."


Another thing, did you use to have another internet ad-don before (casual internet or something like that)? because if you didn't then you wouldn't have been able to access the internet at the first place, hence it seems your Wireless Max ad-don was active, therefore they messed up.

You can protest with a point that they should have exclusively stated that this ad-don won't be applied until your next bill cycle. Goodluck.

.

Well admittedly it did say that the addon wouldnt be applied immediately, but when I started recieving texts with the URL I mentioned above I took it to meant that I was now using the 3 pre pay web.

Yeah I did have the casual addon.

FORTUNATELY this issue has now been resolved. I managed to speak to someone else at three who for one reason or another didnt wind me up quite the same way as the first few people (maybe I had calmed down a bit). He was very understanding and offered a big credit on my next bill to offset what I paid for all the data transfered.

He said that it was too late to stop the large amount of money going out of my bank by direct debit so he said that if I could pay the normal amount by card now then he could completely cancel the direct debit. We did that and he says he's going to call me back after my normal billing date to reapply the direct debit.

I don't know how this guy was able to be so helpful when the previous people I had spoken to had been so awkward to deal with but I am eternally grateful to him!

(Yes, I probably should have double checked the terms and conditions but I really did get the impression from the texts they were sending me that the addon was now active).

Regards the X-series, I guess I didnt even know about it when upgrade time came. I don't understand though why more ports would be open depending what device you have, is this just some pointless policy they have?

I wondered if that was how they knew if you were using the device or using a laptop, I guess if you throttled the speed on your laptop and did some clever firewalling you could fool it but not worth the risk i'd say!

About six years ago I had a Genie sim card that had unlimited free WAP calls, used to be able to use an pcmcia adaptor and an old mobile phone to get unlimited wireless internet. At an astonishing data rate of 9.6k! , I used this so much it was untrue. Alot of stuff didnt work just because the bandwidth was so slow but it was fine for msn, web, ftp, limewire, kazaa and irc. Sadly they cancelled it about four years ago.