3 Like Home … isn’t quite, in Australia

By on September 17, 2008 in Operators

MIR reader, Steve, had what we mobile industry watchers call ‘bill shock’ recently.

He bought a 3 pay monthly deal for £25/month from 3 UK a little while ago. That’s been serving him well as he’s taken a tour around Australia for a few months and has been, obviously, roaming on 3 Australia.

All was good until he was whacked for £140 recently.

3′s Customer Services tried to explain that he was roaming on a non-3 network, hence the charges.

He was roaming on 3 Australia.

Insert confusion here.

3 eventually admitted to some technical problems relating to outgoing calls.

I gather that Steve won’t have to pay these extraneous charges. If you’re planning to roam in Australia on 3, make sure you’re not being overcharged whilst these technical issues continue.

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  • nuttyphilt

    Similar problem here. I do a lot of work in Sydney and having the 3 Like Home feature is so useful. I checked my usage on My3 and it's currently showing about £40 of unbilled calls which have definitely been made on 3 Australia – I have a unlocked HTC phone and have my network settings set on manual to 3Telstra which is 3 Australia.

    I've had no problems with billing last year and earlier this year so something's obviously gone a bit screwy this month.

  • MarkW

    Still, this is good news in the sense that they recognise it's their fault and he hasn't got to pay. I mean (and this is going to sound a bit 3UK fanboy!) it's not as if they've said 'yeah, roam as if you're at home' and then fallen back on small print to nullify that.

  • Mike42

    Show me a billing system that doesn't screw up from time to time and I'll show you a UK tabloid that doesn't actively hunt out sensationalist mobile-related headlines.

    Er, ok, to clarify: neither exist.

    It's kinda inevitable that any MNO's call centre will follow scripts and if it looks like a duck, will call it a duck.

    Until you or they prove it's a turkey, in which case Steve gets his dosh back.

    I've had similar experiences with Voda's Passport service, particularly in the France/Switzerland border area, where the phone was hopping between Passport- and non-Passport MNO's and ended up with a major hassle to untangle the bill, which of course arrived several months after the fact.

    Sad to say I think international mobile users should be resigned to this sort of thing happening every once in a while.

  • Michael Davies

    I'm roaming on Three in Brisbane now and getting whacked by three every time I make a call, they have even charged once or twice when I received a Skype call. My inclusive minutes aren't decreasing but my balance is increasing.
    The first time I called three about this they told me that I must be roaming off their network, which is absolute trash as we have carefully checked every time before making a call, they denied that they had problems and put me on to a tech guy who told me to set the network manually, I had already done this but did it again just for the record. The next call I made to the UK cost £8. Been on to three again, they admitted that there was a problem and are looking into it meamwhile my bill is still increasing.

  • http://www.mobileindustryreview.com smstextnews

    Really, really annoying!

    2008/9/21 Disqus <>

  • http://www.mobileindustryreview.com Ewan @ MIR

    Really, really annoying!

    2008/9/21 Disqus <>

  • http://www.mobileindustryreview.com Ewan

    Really, really annoying!

    2008/9/21 Disqus <>

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