3’s idiot data policies for their USB modems
SMS Text News reader David runs a highly successful mobile internet startup in the UK. He’s been having no small amount of trouble with 3UK. I wonder, has anyone else had similar issues?
Over to David to
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Hi Ewan
I wanted to share my experience with 3 yesterday.
I bought a 3 mobile broadband modem on pre-pay for my son who has broken his leg to so that he can use his laptop when on hols. Great value for a little peace and quiet 
So I get a call from him asking me to to top up his credit. Easy me thinks all I have to do is sign in to My3 add a card and add some credit. Having eventually retrieved mobile numbers and passwords from said son.
I signed in and added a card. Apparently it takes 7 days to confirm a card (what utter crap me thinks) but the nice people at 3 charge £10 to the card enough for 1Gb me (me thinks) problem solved, happy son I can get on with my Sunday.
3 hours later I get a call from my son saying “Dad I am out of credit again!” I quizzed him “What have you been downloading, uploading, streaming?” but it appears that he had been using MSN.
I called 3 broadband customer support number, only to be told to dial 550 from my 3 mobile. “But I don’t have a 3 mobile, I have a 3 Internet dongle!” I exclaimed. Eventually I was transferred but got lost in the system so repeated the whole process again.
“Well sir I can see that you topped up by £10 but you did not use this purchase a £10 extra so your data has been charged at £1 Mb. You have to purchase the extra to get the 1Gb.” If I can borrow some your own words “What utter arse!”
“But sir it is clearly explained in the terms and conditions in the book that came with the USB Modem.” Like I still have the book and why if this is really necessary (because programming the online and billing system hasn’t gotten done yet) didn’t it say that when on the Web page when I spent the money?
After a further 10 minutes of remonstrating what a ridiculous system this was and asking to speak to the supervisor they applied the credit to my account. I had to phone my son and ask him to unplug the modem otherwise any data would have been charged at £1 Mb immediately.
Total cost £10 top up, 30 minutes of calls to an 0870 number so probably another £10 and a good bottle of red wine to lower my blood pressure.
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David, thanks for taking the time to document your experience. Ridiculous. So you actually have to phone up and tell them that you’re BUYING AN EXTRA for 10 pounds and THAT gets you the 1GB of data?
That’s a bit of a creakingly crap billing system…
When cash onto the account, you get a choice what you want to do with it. i.e. just pay for calls, SMS or data as you use them.
Alternatively, if you want to purchase a specific addon (i.e. broadband, Flex12 mins, international calling, mobile tv etc.) you need to do this seperately. The reason that this is done is simply due to the SIM cards that are provided for the USB modem are just PAYG USIMs, there is no differentiation between them and therefore its the same setup for your broadband modem that it is for a kid with a PAYG mobile. At the same time, the my3 service which allows you to topup for PAYG is generic again. So when you topup, there isn’t any info relating specifically to your use.
Therefore you need to define exactly what you want to do with the credit and in your case, you need to purchase a 1GB or 3GB broadband internet addon. Otherwise as you stated, you will be charged £1 per MB.
OK, the billing system aint great - i.e. 3 cannot actually put the broadband addon on your account on their side for some reason, the main system doesn’t allow them to do that, the customer always has to purchase the internet addon via my3 however as customer services stated, its really clearly stated in the information you get with the purchase.
Although I am not 100% sure on this, I have a feeling that no other operators currently offer a PAYG mobile broadband service other than 3…
Posted by squawkBOX on April 8th, 2008 at 1:02 pm.Oh Forgot to say, if you don’t have a broadband addon you get the following message when you try to browse the web for the first time:
“You need to purchase an add-on or you will be charged by the MB”
Posted by squawkBOX on April 8th, 2008 at 2:47 pm.