Three say they can't port a number within their own network?!

In 4 days, my Three contract ends. When I phoned to cancel last month,
they offered me everything except what I wanted, which was a 6 month
contract.

So, I went online, to the official Three store, and ordered a 6 month
contract and phone on a 300 mix plan £15/month. Suits me fine.

At the end of the process, it asked if I was already a Three customer,
and could I please enter my phone and account numbers. Which I did.
The phone and contract will start in 2 days - so that's 2 days
crossover.

I then phoned the call centre just to check that there would be no
interruption. (It only took 28 minutes and three people for them to
comprehend what I had done).

They are now telling me that the only way for me to keep the number I
have had for 7 years (across various networks) is to either:
Keep with the current tariff (which will now be £30/month - yeah
right!).
OR
Port my number to another operator, then port it back to 3.

This seems nuts, nonsensical, bad business and surely not legal? But
then, this IS the place that told me to repair a broken key by taking
the SIM out...

The other thing I found weird, was that yet again they were trying to
bully me into taking more mins/texts than I needed. I do not NEED 700
minutes and texts.
"But you always use very high amount". They just could not understand
why anyone would call a mate for an hour and send a few sms jokes at
the end of the month just to eat up the units. In fact, they even said
that most people don't even use half their allowance - doesn't that
mean that 50% of people are on the wrong tariff?!
If I have more than 10 mins or texts left, I've done badly. I've
thrown money down the drain.

Anyway, back to the original question - were they really not
understanding, or can I really not transfer an old three contract
phone number to a new free contract number?

(Before anyone says "but if you hate them that much"....well, 300
units is exactly what I need, and it's the only place doing a 6 month
contract at that price, with a new phone. But I DO need that number).

Jonathan wrote:

>
> Anyway, back to the original question - were they really not
> understanding, or can I really not transfer an old three contract
> phone number to a new free contract number?
>
> (Before anyone says "but if you hate them that much"....well, 300
> units is exactly what I need, and it's the only place doing a 6 month
> contract at that price, with a new phone. But I DO need that number).

It is correct, you have to port out and back in again. To be fair I
believe all networks operate like that. When I enquired recently for a
friend, the Retentions Dept at 3 said you have to leave them for 60 days
before you can port back in, not sure whether they made that up just to
try and get her to take the deal they offered.


In the end she took the number back to Virgin mobile last week, she can
then get a brand new deal with 3 at a later date if she so chooses.

On Jul 21, 8:11*pm, BC <bacillus.cer...@nospam.gmail.com> wrote:
> Jonathan wrote:
>
> > Anyway, back to the original question - were they really not
> > understanding, or can I really not transfer an old three contract
> > phone number to a new free contract number?
>
> > (Before anyone says "but if you hate them that much"....well, 300
> > units is exactly what I need, and it's the only place doing a 6 month
> > contract at that price, with a new phone. But I DO need that number).
>
> It is correct, you have to port out and back in again. To be fair I
> believe all networks operate like that. When I enquired recently for a
> friend, the Retentions Dept at 3 said you have to leave them for 60 days
> before you can port back in, not sure whether they made that up just to
> try and get her to take the deal they offered.
>
> In the end she took the number back to Virgin mobile last week, she can
> then get a brand new deal with 3 at a later date if she so chooses.

Well, thanks for confirming it. Seems madness. They'll just end up
losing me then.

Anyone know which is the quickest network to port into then?

In article <cb2e8b4c-fae6-4c25-aad9-5e3ffa594e00@
79g2000hsk.googlegroups.com>, digitaltoast@gmail.com says...
> This seems nuts, nonsensical, bad business and surely not legal?

There's nothing illegal about it. In terms of it being bad business,
offering you a 6 month contract along with all of your other demands
might have been bad business sense.

> Anyway, back to the original question - were they really not
> understanding, or can I really not transfer an old three contract
> phone number to a new free contract number?

Of course you can't. Thats called "an upgrade", a process which you have
tried to circumvent by pretending to be a new customer.

> (Before anyone says "but if you hate them that much"....well, 300
> units is exactly what I need, and it's the only place doing a 6 month
> contract at that price, with a new phone. But I DO need that number).

So pay the requisite sum of money and stop whining!
--
Regards
Jon

Well, thanks for confirming it. Seems madness. They'll just end up
losing me then.

Anyone know which is the quickest network to port into then?

But to be honest, although I do sort of emphasise with you a bit, at £15 a
month you're really not a very valuable customer.

"Jonathan" <digitaltoast@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:cb2e8b4c-fae6-4c25-aad9-5e3ffa594e00@79g2000hsk.googlegroups.com...
>In 4 days, my Three contract ends. When I phoned to cancel last month,
>they offered me everything except what I wanted, which was a 6 month
>contract.
<snip>
>They are now telling me that the only way for me to keep the number I
>have had for 7 years (across various networks) is to either:
>Keep with the current tariff (which will now be £30/month - yeah
>right!).
>OR
>Port my number to another operator, then port it back to 3.
>
>This seems nuts, nonsensical, bad business and surely not legal?
<snip>
>
That is correct, what you want to do is called migrating not porting,
and is seen by the networks as an attempt at a cheap upgrade.
Try googling "migrating"

Most popular Port is out to a Virgin sim, and then back in a few weeks later

Steve Terry

On Jul 21, 9:11 pm, Jon <s...@jonparker.plus.com> wrote:
> In article <cb2e8b4c-fae6-4c25-aad9-5e3ffa594e00@
> 79g2000hsk.googlegroups.com>, digitalto...@gmail.com says...

> There's nothing illegal about it. In terms of it being bad business,
> offering you a 6 month contract along with all of your other demands
> might have been bad business sense.

What "other demands"? And that's odd - each time I ring up, they spend
a couple of minutes telling me what a highly valued customer I am. Are
they lying then?

> > Anyway, back to the original question - were they really not
> > understanding, or can I really not transfer an old three contract
> > phone number to a new free contract number?
>
> Of course you can't. Thats called "an upgrade", a process which you have
> tried to circumvent by pretending to be a new customer.

How is an "upgrade" going from £35/month to £15/month - sounds like a
downgrade to me.
And where was I "pretending" to be a new customer? What was I
"circumventing"?

Would that be the bit on the website (which I've already explained)
where it asked "are you already a three customer", and then I entered
my phone and account numbers?

> > (Before anyone says "but if you hate them that much"....well, 300
> > units is exactly what I need, and it's the only place doing a 6 month
> > contract at that price, with a new phone. But I DO need that number).
>
> So pay the requisite sum of money and stop whining!

Why? Am I not free to not choose another 18 months of Indian Call
Centre Hell?

On Jul 21, 10:23 pm, "allatsea" <allatsea55@£msn$.&com&> wrote:

> But to be honest, although I do sort of emphasise with you a bit, at £15 a
> month you're really not a very valuable customer.

LOL! I certainly was emphasising something!

On Jul 22, 12:05 am, "Steve Terry" <gFOUR...@tesco.net> wrote:

> That is correct, what you want to do is called migrating not porting,
> and is seen by the networks as an attempt at a cheap upgrade.
> Try googling "migrating"
>
> Most popular Port is out to a Virgin sim, and then back in a few weeks later

Which is almost exactly what I'm doing. By some freaky fluke of button
mashing, I actually got through to someone in the UK (Glasgow) and for
the first time in 18 months, I found myself having a quick, friendly
conversation which someone actually HELPFUL, who told me that they
couldn't help me directly, but told me exactly what to say to Three
CS.
I had to be insistant to the point of rudeness when I got through to
CS: "If you do not understand what I am telling you, please put me
through to someone who speaks English".

Sorry if that sounds a bit rude (it HAD been 20 minutes of being
fobbed off) but oooh, guess what, suddenly what I was asking WAS
possible.

Amazing! It's almost as if they were deliberately lying to keep me on
a higher contract! But as I clearly explained at the end of the call,
if I was so valuable as they said, they wouldn't make it so difficult
to keep me as a customer.

"Jonathan" <digitaltoast@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:cb2e8b4c-fae6-4c25-aad9-5e3ffa594e00@79g2000hsk.googlegroups.com...
In 4 days, my Three contract ends. When I phoned to cancel last month,
they offered me everything except what I wanted, which was a 6 month
contract.


Welcome to the standards of customer service on 3.

Is your SIM glued in? If so it may be difficult to port, let alone migrate.

In order to avoid being burned by 3 it was necessary to phone them within 14
days of entering into the contract, and even then they would probably have
taken DD's from your bank...