room5.net

July 27th, 2007 at 20:37:56

woot. a big bitch about three.

As I said a few weeks ago, I got a new phone.
Because three are, quite frankly, shit.

Started off in April of ‘06. The screen on my old nokia started occasionally going black. Wasn’t a major problem, just a bit inconvenient.

So I went to three, to get a Nokia 6280. since it seemed like a decent enough phone. Filled in forms and whatever, wasn’t exactly service with a smile, but it didn’t really bother me.

Anyway. Get in the car, put the battery in, turns on fine.
Take a picture or two to test out the 2mp camera. Seems quite good.

Then the screen went black. I figured it was just because there wasn’t much charge in the battery.

Aaaanywho, fast forward to a week later, and it had happened two or three times. Then the phone was actually restarting.
So I took it to the Chirnside Park 3 shop, and they said there’s a crappy firmware in the phone, and to come back later.
Kept coming back every week or so, and either got told to come back later when there’s a new firmware, or that I’ve broken my phone myself.

I found it quite odd that Three/Nokia/whoever were still selling this phone, despite having a shit firmware, but whatever.

Got a phone call one day, and when I tried to answer it, my phone froze. Then it happened all the time. I’d get an sms, or phone call, and the phone would freeze, so I’d have to reset the phone to get it working again.

Finally got told by three that I could get the firmware fixed, but I’d have to either go into the city and get Nokia to fix it, which’d take a day or two, or I could get Three to do that, with a $10 credit on my bill, but it’d take a few weeks, and I’d have no replacement phone.
I didn’t like the sound of either of them, so I called Three to bitch, and got told the same thing.
I was also offered a reconditioned phone, of the same model and age, which I told them no to.
I don’t see why I should have someone elses old phone, because I was given a new, faulty one.

Eventually it was getting too annoying. Couldn’t do ANYTHING on my phone without it freezing. Then the screen started going really bad. Inverted colours, upside down, pixellated, scrambled, fuzzy, pretty much anything that can go wrong with a screen did.

So I took it to three, and finally got someone there that wasn’t a cocky little turd. A customer service person that was actually nice, and helpful. So after I got over the shock of that, I showed her my phone and the problems, and was told that “it’s not your fault. It’s a fault with the phone”.
But even though they’re finally admitting fault, they told me that I was about a week too late to get my phone fixed under warranty.

So I called three and bitched, and was rudely told that “we tried to offer you a new phone, but you declined.”
To which I stated my opinion.

I called about cancelling my account, and was asked why, so I told them that it’s because of all the problems, and was told how much I’d have to pay to get out.

A month or so later, I called again to check, since I was further into my contract. Again I was asked the reason, so I made up some bullshit about going to England, and they said “Well it says here that you’ve asked before, and stated three’s service is the reason”.
When I asked them why they asked me, when they already knew, they stuttered some crap that I didn’t listen to.

Anyway, this sort of shit kept going on for ages. And I called up finally to get a fee so I could get out of my contract.
I was insulted several times, spoken to really rudely, and then asked a question about my phone. When I tried to answer it, I was interrupted about 6 times, which resulted in my yelling “Let me spea… let me… let me… GARY. let me speak”, then I was told that I’ve been offered a reconditioned phone several times, and rejected the offer. I told them to read their files and see why I declined it. Apparantly not listening to me, I was offered another reconditioned phone, to which I replied “I don’t want a fucking old phone. I want mine fixed“.

“Gary”, the call center dude, then said that “If I keep being rude, they’ll have to end the call.” I was pissed off by now, so told him to that I can end it for him, and hung up.

I looked up, and realised that I was standing outside a Telstra Shop, which seemed mildly convenient.

So I walked inside to ask for the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman’s phone number, and ended up looking at other phones, and picked up a hiptop.

It was a totally different experience to being with three. The people were quite friendly, and I’d just happened to mention my troubles with three. The lady arranging the phone left for a minute, and came back to tell me that she’d arranged $150 credit on my Telstra account, to help alleviate the costs of paying out the rest of my 3 contract.
I thought that seemed nice enough of them.
So that was all jolly and good. Happy with the phone, and it’s features. Definately happy with the price.

Decided I should give the old phone the treatment it deserves. So I threw it at someone, then put it under a car tyre.

I got a bill from Telstra a few days later saying I had $200 credit on my account. But because of GST, it was $220. That was good. it’s 3 months of phone bills out of the way.

So all in all, Telstra pwns 3. But 3 being the cause of 47% of the TIO’s complaints last year kinda says that anyway.

Yeah, I hate three.

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Entry Filed under: computer, random and bitching.

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