Irish Roaming, 3's lies!

[paddyjames14]

My issue is very specific and probably affects very few people. However, I would like to try and get everyone together and initiate the UK equivalent of a class action against 3.

Essentially they have claimed that if you take a UK contract you will not be charged for roaming in the Republic of Ireland, whilst on 3 Ireland. Unfortunately, as 3UK is the home network there is no way of staying on 3ROI, so that during a call you can start on 3ROI, but during it roam to any other ROI network. This obviously creates a large bill and you then waste your time explaining to the banglacentre what has happened, they then repeat it to you, you say I know, 'I just told you' and eventually they may or may not credit you.

I contacted Kevin Russell, but as I indicated in another post, got fobbed off with a low level oaf Craig Stewart, who claims he is the only employee in CS resolution, so I couldn't talk to anyone else! They still owe me £25 for joining and I had to fight for every other promised incentive. My local Trading Standards has passed it to Windsor, who have regular meetings with 3 holding office and I've also contacted ASA because of their lying advertising regarding roaming.

If anyone has had similar experiences, please contact me.

Paddy

[1000Killahurts]

Really sorry you are not able to access 3 ROI all the time when you are over there.

However I cannot accept your point that 3 are lying in this case.

Their terms and conditions for 3 Like Home clearly state:

"We cannot guarantee access to or coverage on participating networks. If you cannot access a participating network while abroad, you may obtain access to another network operator in that country, and if you make or receive calls on that other network you will be charged the standard international roaming rates to make (and receive) calls and messages."

So whilst I can understand you are annoyed that you cannot use 3 Like Home all the time in the ROI - you can't really claim they did not make this condition clear.

I therefore fear your efforts with Trading Standards are doomed to fail.

As for your comments about the "bangla centre" and calling 3 staff in the Exec office (who I've always found to be really helpful in genuine cases) "oafs" - I dont really think those comments are appropriate...

[paddyjames14]

Your final points:- why have you needed to escalate issues to exec office?

My post was long enough without giving chapter & verse to whole history, but suffice to say that the oaf explained my failure to receive an email he promised me as 'but I sent it when I said I did'. Any company that has an employee in a position of responsibility who gives a 'dog ate my homework' excuse rather than having the cojones to admit he made is mistake is a company like.....3,dell, ntl/telewest/virgin media.

Regarding employees who speak 'hinglish', well that's the problem of trying to do things on the cheap. I trained salesmen on phone technique and all the cliches about the 'deadening instrument' are true; so much communication is by body language and when a phone is used an enormous amount of nuance is lost. Some of the employees have an amazing grasp of understanding native-spoken english and can converse better than many uk-born people. However, some of the employees have english as ****e as my french & spanish. For that reason, I wouldn't work in those languages.

Regarding the main issue (and clearly linked to the final point of the above paragraph) even employees of 3 suggested I send the phone in to them so it could have a software 'upgrade' to allow manual roaming. The management oafs at 3 hadn't even bothered to train their staff on this fundamental issue. Add to this that I wasn't given any of the promised incentives, wasn't called at any of the times requested (EVER) and its clear that 3 is a failing punt on customers gullibility. If a company can't administer 2.5 million contract customers, its a joke.

Do you work for them?

[seaniboy]

if you start the call with 3ire why is the call chargable, you are not to know you are non 3 sisiter company roaming with the handset to your ear, seems like technically the call should drop to make you aware you lost your 3IRE signal and thusfor your 3 like home privledge

[wenklaw]

I didnt realise whilst abroad your mobile did a seamless transfer to other networks, i know it does in the UK but i thought it would drop the call abroad so thats something worth knowing.
I have used my 3UK phone in Italy on 3ITA many times and found that it 'seems' to always default to 3ITA if in range, it would only connect to a non Three network if there was no '3ITA' signal and once there was a Three signal it would reconnect, thats what as i said seemed to happen.
It does this in the UK does it not?
Maybe it would be worth 'Three' enabling a facility online to only use 3 like home networks whilst abroad....

[Neil201]

Seen as Three disable the option to lock the phone manually to one specific network I'd say you've got a very good case for your argument. Best of luck.

[Commander Vimes]

Sorry to butt in but thats a good point to make.......I can't lock my new phone to 3 network...it roams as it pleases!

[Neil201]

Obviously I understand why they don't want people locking phones to Orange in the UK or their Irish GSM roaming partner but when it comes to things like 'Three Like Home' you don't effectively have control to lock your phone unless you select the UMTS-only option.

[Commander Vimes]

The problem is as I see it the phone is set to recieve the best signal it can by roaming.
Unfortunately by constantly roaming it obviously rejects a lower valued signal from a more suitable ( customer cost and service) network, obviously after having to lower their call costs they have found away to increase premium rate calling whilst being able to proudly say " we have more coverage".

[Neil201]

The problem is as I see it the phone is set to recieve the best signal it can by roaming.
Unfortunately by constantly roaming it obviously rejects a lower valued signal from a more suitable ( customer cost and service) network, obviously after having to lower their call costs they have found away to increase premium rate calling whilst being able to proudly say " we have more coverage".

When you say it rejects a "lower valid signal from a more suitable network", I presume your meaning using Three's own network rather than their GSM roaming partner, be it the UK or Ireland? If so, the phone should always search for the home network, thus being 3UK or 3IE. None of Three's national roaming partners or international roaming partners offer cheaper call/data rates than their home network so I presume it is this way around you refer to it?

[Commander Vimes]

Which ever way you look at it I would rather have 1 bar reception of my own network than 4 bars of roaming reception of another network.
Particularly if there was going to be charges involved without notification simply because the preset network, simcard or settings dictate the change.
Obviously in PJs case, hes on 3UK, he roams for free in ireland on 3ROI but when the network turns him over mid call to a roaming partner that doesn't allow this free international roaming with no notification of the impending charges.
Obvisously 3 are "keeping" thier contract by allowing the connection, but there shouldn't be charges simply because the phones automatic roaming settings have found a stronger signal.

Its something that the majority of 3 network uses don't know anything about or just accept because of their budget.

[Neil201]

Obviously in PJs case, hes on 3UK, he roams for free in ireland on 3ROI but when the network turns him over mid call to a roaming partner that doesn't allow this free international roaming with no notification of the impending charges.
Obvisously 3 are "keeping" thier contract by allowing the connection, but there shouldn't be charges simply because the phones automatic roaming settings have found a stronger signal.

Its something that the majority of 3 network uses don't know anything about or just accept because of their budget.

I wasn't aware when roaming on 3IE as a 3UK customer the call handed over to their roaming network partner mid-call, like you say, effectively initiating roaming charges! I reckon he's got a good case against them for this as he has no control over being charged on what is sold as a free service (obviously as long as he's roaming on 3IE when the call is initiated).

I presume on 3's Sister networks, the neighbours are set up similar to that in the UK whereby you should only hand over to a 2G BTS if your on the edge of their 3G coverage area? For example, if you made a call in the centre of Dublin and walked in to a building, should the 3G field strength be lower than the corresponding field strength of a BTS on the network of their 2G roaming partner, the phone probably won't hand over to this and the call would drop instead.

Unless Three have changed their policy on Node B neighbours, you'll find as a customer, you would only handover to a 2G BTS when on the edge of a 3G Node B's coverage with no corresponding Node B to handover to. I left the network back in October and I still had O2 as well as Orange in the UK as a roaming partner, probably only Orange now for everyone? Orange and Three may have different arrangements for handovers but certainly my phone would on occasions in some places still prefer O2 rather than Orange when doing a HHO from 3G to 2G.

[turkeytaken]

If it was me, I would set it so my phone only could access UTMS Networks...

[Neil201]

If it was me, I would set it so my phone only could access UTMS Networks...

I forgot to mention that but yep, thats one option and will stop this happening.

[Rexton270]

hi guys,
how about this : when roam just change the network setting from automatic to manual. this give u chance to choose which network to be used. btw irish 3 has poor coverage, in country side they are using Vodafone's network.

[1000Killahurts]

If this is the case - how come no one else has reported this?

When I was in rural Italy in Sept me phone keep changing from 3ITA and I didnt get charged.

I'm sure I am not alone - how many 3 users go abroad each year and use this service yet he is the only one to get charged.

and for what its worth I still think his earlier racist comments make him looks a pleb

[Neil201]

hi guys,
how about this : when roam just change the network setting from automatic to manual. this give u chance to choose which network to be used. btw irish 3 has poor coverage, in country side they are using Vodafone's network.

Now you mention this, you've just jogged my memory and yes, you can sort of lock the phone to a chosen network roaming on Three by manually selecting a network.

The interesting thing though is that as Three have disabled this feature when using their home network, it worked differently on my phone then than now I'm with Vodafone. With Vodafone, and presumably the other 3 main GSM/UMTS networks, you can manually force the phone to one network and if there's no coverage on that particular network, the phone asks you to choose a network manually.

With Three and when roaming, I found you could 'prefer' a network and it would stay on that network when there was coverage. If you lost coverage for that particular network the phone would roam on to another but as soon as coverage returned for the first, it would switch back again. Not sure why this differed on Three but I guess it's something to do with disabling manual network selection when in the UK? Eitherway, I sort of liked this feature as it always guaranteed you coverage for incoming calls and being contactable whilst still being able under normal circumstances to manually prefer the phone to stay on one network abroad (ie another Three sister network).