From the 12th of December 2011 Three have stopped allowing customers to downgrade from their current contract in the second half of the contract.

I took out an iphone contract when I already had a Blackberry Contract on the basis that I would be able to downgrade the Blackberry as I didn't want to be paying £70 in total a month.

I had been told on 4 occasions over the phone that I would be able to downgrade in January this month as I would be 12 months into a 18month contract.

I rang up a couple of days ago to downgrade only to be told that Three have changed their policy, they no longer allow downgrading as they were losing too much money.

I have complained and am waiting for a call from their complaints department.

I understand that they are a business ..but the only reason I took out the iphone contract was because I was told I could downgrade.

Just a warning to everyone

IMO it was wrong for them to change this for people mid-contract.

They should have made it so that anyone taking out a contract from now would be subject to the new rules.

O2 also did this a while back. They made it so by changing tariff you had to accept new terms and those new terms made it so you could only downgrade once

They didn't get away with it with me when I threatened to cancel multiple accounts under the material detriment get out clause and ended up having to honour my original terms and conditions

Be interesting to see if this was simply policy allowing you to do this in the past or if it was something that was in the contract that has been changed recently. If it's the latter then the OP may have options open to them.

I can see why Three have done this with people finding their wages worth less than before and generally the country starting to feel the pinch of the new Government's **** ups.

They've clearly realised that that there's a good chance of seeing an increase in people tightening the belt and dropping their monthly mobile spending so they've stopped it.

Of course there's always the early buy out option for the OP if they are desperate?

O2's change was different, they didn't stop downgrade s. As you say they let you downgrade, but the new tariff you moved to, only allowed one change.

Its being reported that 3 aren't allowing any downgrade.

Could this be used to get out of my three contract.

im also in dispute with them because of a 6 month old phone they wont repair.

i just want to get rid of the awful company

i would never recommend them. there customer service leaves much to be desired

To be fair most of the mobile operators have placed restrictions on downgrading within the duration of contracts. The original cost of the handset is the major factor which is not really negotiable for them.

At the end of the contract you can bargain for a downgraded deal but experience has led me to believe that you can obtain a better deal from a dealer (like CPW or Phones4U) if you want to remain with a network on a lower tariff with a new handset.

They offered me a downgrade the other day.

Having got another contract, I phoned 3 to cancel a 24 month contract which has just over 5 months left to run. I was fully prepared to pay the early termination fee and told them this.

The guy in retentions said if I kept the contract running for the remaining 6 months, he would downgrade it to £19 a month (from £35 per month). This working out cheaper than the early termination fee, I agreed to this.

It seemed a bit strange to me as they were losing revenue doing this, but I was happy to take this offer as it saves me money.

Thanks for all your replies, I am still awaiting a call back from 3' but it is really interesting to note that the retentions department are still offering a downgrading deal.
I will post when I get hear back from them as to what the resolution was

Update
Just had a call back, from 3 complaints, they have listened to the original recording made back in September when I was promised I would be able to downgrade and have said they will honour the original promise.

Thats fine by me, that was all I wanted

well done. i'm not impressed with 3 as a network operator but always found their CS to be helpful and efficient.

Three mobile.
They don't allow you to lower your price plan but if you wan't to change your price plan more mins and that they wan't a £10.00 admin fee to do this.
Naturally I refused to pay the admin fee as I would be giving them more money per month anyway for a change in price plan.
The advisor asked me to hold while he checked to see what he could do. He waived the fee as I have been with three since 2008.
Sounds a bit like ryanair with all these fee's ha!

Surely they have to honour what they sold you? Did you get anything in writing? When agreeing a deal it's always a good idea to get it in writing in future.

I on similar situation as strawberry66, on took iphone with 24 months contract, im on 13th month now, just call them, they say only thing they can do is downgrade to one level down, £1.5 cheaper with tena admin! the only problem is i dont have anyone voice record as ... any idea? i have been out of job for a while now...