Three mobile

Three mobile, you are crap it has to be said. Presumably named 3 as that's the percentage of the time you have good signal.My previous dealings with them, particularly trying to cancel my mobile broadband have been documented:

http://andrewdrisc.blogspot.com/2012/02/three-mobile-you-just-made-list.html

Anyway I while back I went with three as I liked the 'all you can eat data' idea for my mobile, doing as much shit as you want seemingly a perfect fit for smart phones, and they (well not they, phones4u who were cracking in this instance!) supplied me with a nice iPhone4. All the normal checks were done and I was informed the signal was good in my area.

For the first 2 maybe 3 months it was, but then particularly at home, it started to get worse, much worse until the most common words on my phone screen were 'No Service' or 'Searching...'. Shit. After a few weeks of this I decided to complain, went to their website and sent an email, after first receiving a standard reply, they did get back to me, in the middle of working hours, so I quickly explained the situation, they said the signal was fine, I disagreed, they said they'd get an engineer to ring me back. Good stuff I thought and asked them to ring me after 6 due to work.

For the next 4 days I received calls at 3pm on the dot, which I of course was unwilling and unable to take. Eventually the first woman I spoke to called me back to see if anything was resolved I said no and that's the last I heard about it.

Months later, I'm still getting shit signal most of the time (it's generally ok in Cardiff), their twitter team confirmed they're doing nothing about the signal in my area, it's highly unlikely I'll be able to finish the contract early without paying through the nose. Their entirely outsourced call centres have no grasp of what I'm saying most of the time. They're a bad bad company and I can't wait to be rid of them. Motherfuckers. Unfortunately that's still some time away, but I would warn anyone away from using three for anything.

Imagine what it's going to be like to cancel, I'm already dreading that call and it's over 12 months away. I'll have a non-uk call centre worker offering me his first born child, an iPhone7, ten grand in cash and a hamster to stay with them, unable to grasp that the phone wont work without signal.

In fact this blog would have been done and out this morning, but do you know why it wasn't? Using my phone as a hotspot and... CRAP SIGNAL. 30 mins and nothing then a little dot. Motherfuckers!

It's easy to offer something like unlimited data when you know people are going to struggle to use much. Take me to an Orange shop someone please!

Three mobile you just made the list

Dear readers, I've noticed from my stats page over the times that my most popular blogs tend to be about getting married, or some dickhead company I've had the misfortune of dealing with.

My yodel blog still gets hits every day and my cash generator one was a big hit by my lowly standards.

In that case this one should be a fucking record breaking entry.

I have 2 items with Three, my mobile 'phone and my mobile broadband. I've come to the conclusion over time that having both is somewhat excessive and I plan to cut stuff down. So I decided mobile broadband, you gotta go.

I don't know why I was expecting this to be easy in any way, but I did, so off I went. I call type in my mobile bb number, press 1, then 2 then 2 then 3 then 2 then 1 then 5 then 4, OK an exaggeration, but you know what I mean. I then wait patiently, being regularly assured my call was very important to them, whoever they actually are, while listening to popular modern numbers such as, 'Moves Like Jagger' and other pap I don't know the name of.

 Eventually I get through to an Asian (I'm guessing Indian) lady, start getting through the call, including giving the number I've already typed in, and then I say those words, "I'm looking to cancel my mobile broadband.".  Next thing the phone is dead, I do that weird, repeating hello down the line like that'll resurrect the connection or something, thing that people do, but no, the Three rep has hung up.

I'm now pissed off.

I ring back up, another 42 button presses, a telephone number entry and I'm back on hold. This time it's about 12 minutes and I'm through to a cheery chap. I know what to expect at this point, I'll try to cancel, assuming he doesn't hang up, he'll offer me something to keep the business, I'll say no. Job done.

He starts into the sales thing, he offers me discount, better service(!), a free netbook, I say no, just cancel please, which he finds funny and starts pissing himself down the phone, I ask to speak to a manager, I'm told there isn't one, then she's on another call, I go whatever... cancel. He carries on the sales work for longer, I reiterate the cancellation request any number of times, until he tries one too far and I demand the manager.

After one hell of a wait (phone call getting expensive anyone?) I get his manager... a man... no idea what happened to the woman on the other call. At a guess either a freak headset accident or I'd say she never actually existed. The manager gives the very standard complaints type start, I know it as I've probably done it before in my time, lots of pretended empathy, completely transparent of course, but bravo for the effort squire. Then he goes into the same sales spiel as the first guy did, only offering me more stuff.

I reiterate my desire to cancel and cancel only, saying I no longer want the service (if I could get rid of my phone with them I would too) he carries on, mentioning, free netbooks (again), iPads, discounts, offering me cash at one point to stay with them. After 15 minutes of explaining, the signal is crap and I don't want it any more, him offering more, engineers to call me, signal boosters etc, I'm feeling physically tired just from speaking to these numptys but he's appeared to have agreed to just cancel it. That's when he confirms, what he's going to do, to give three the chance to give me better service, he'll put the discount through and if I want to cancel in future I could and that was my choice.

At this point I wanted to just fly to Mumbai/Bangalore or wherever he was and slap him firmly over the head with something heavy. I repeat again, in the simplest terms I can. C.. A.. N.. C.. E.. L.. and he agrees, as long as I'm sure and after 35 mins on the phone I'm back to the first guy who explains the cancellation situation. He does so and it's exactly what I was expecting. Then he has one more go.

Un-fucking-believable.

He offers me more data for the same money.. I've never used my current amount, but he offers me 15Gb instead of 5. I'm rude at this point, I explain the heavy handed sales techniques or him and his 'manager' (just as likely to be the dude sat opposite him) use are crap, obstructive and I didn't appreciate the time I've been kept on the call. He apologises once again and offers me £5 as a goodwill gesture. £5... I say ok but I will be complaining further.

Oh and believe me I will.

45 minutes to do what should really take about 5. Cretins everyone of them.

I'm expecting a call off them tomorrow to try and change my mind or something, I'll just fart down the line and hang up.

RIP iPhone

After between 22 and 23 months by my side with almost unfailingly decent levels of service, my iPhone will die today. It no longer wishes to charge itself, and being an iPhone, this gives it a very short life expectancy.

Sadly this also leaves my mobile phone-less until I'm due an upgrade, which thankfully isn't too long, so if you need to get hold of me... tough.

The phone went through some tough times, it lost it's volume buttons, but it carried on. It took a tumble through a massive hole in my pocket onto a harsh Tenerife street (you know the typical Spanish kind with the little squares) and cracked its screen, but it carried on going. But like so many older devices, it started to get confused, telling me the accessory wasn't optimised for iPhone, when I hadn't actually got anything plugged into it... freezing up during calls, and sometimes not even wanting to receive them at all.

Now it looks like the little weekend away in Burnham on sea was it's last action as a useful device (thanks Gracie), it's farewell tour if you will. Now it's refusing to be fed, there's just 24% of the battery left of its life, so about an hour and a half then!

Not wishing to sound heartless, throwing away my long time companion and replacing it with a newer shiner model without a second thought, but it's only a phone! This does open the door to be acquiring an iPhone4! Yes, of course I know the iPhone5 isn't all that far behind, I am a fully paid up member of geek you don't have to tell me, but circumstances have forced my hand. Plus the 4 will be more than adequate for my needs.

I've already started having a look around, and I've already assumed o2 are not going to offer me a decent deal and will frown at my data usage and the early leader is three. For the same as I'm paying now, they'll give me ludicrous amounts of texts and calls and most vitally, 'unlimited' data (I haven't checked the old t&c's yet and am fully aware there is probably some kind of cap or fair use policy, but it's still better than 500mb) all with an iPhone4 (either colour... woo-hoo...) for exactly the same as I paid for my 3GS all those many many months ago.

I will ring up o2 and give them a chance to explain their early upgrade procedures before I laugh in their general direction when the price is mentioned. Or I could wait a month 'til they'll upgrade me anyway. Not sure when I'll ring, or indeed on what, but I'll ring! Have to asses my options from that point.

Last night I frantically backed up music, photos, but not contacts... hmm oversight there and it's only just occurred to me, oh well...