People are leaving. In large numbers from what I've read elsewhere.

Well in answer your question. I was on the One Plan £15 12 month contract that expired Dec 2014. I threatened to leave and requested my PAC code. They offered me lower value versions first, but I said unless they did better I would go.

I notice some on here got the same deal for £9 pm. It is actually billed at £20pm with a recurring discount of £9pm. Whereas the One plan was billed at £25pm less recurring discount of £10pm..

Patrick

Some of the people moaning do make me laugh, not on here but on moneysavingexpert. Some are acting like Three just murdered their family.

Not surprised that Three put a stop to it as it was a stupidly good value plan. Quite honestly i'm happy that a lot of them are leaving as it frees up the network for proper mobile usage, some areas on Three were horribly congested.

Can you link to this thread? I can't find it.

I doubt it would affect Three. I'm sure 60% of people wouldn't have either not read the letter or can't be bothered complaining. The other 30% would have got the £20 deal and the last 10% would leave. I have made up these numbers but it is what I would expect.

I thought your Three contacts would have helped you get a better deal. I'm also not sure if they would invite you anymore to events as you've exposed them twice. I'm not saying what you did was wrong by the way.

But three in trying to find a way to ditch AYCE data by hoping not too many accept the 30 quid deal with AYCE data so they can suddenly quietly ditch it, but only continue to offer AYCE data if demand is high i.e. more than they hope accept the 30 quid deal and then charge more and more so that those customers are eventually have to pay 100+ quid for the privilege say 10 years down the line is ridiculous to say the least.

Integrity mate. I could have asked for a special deal but what about everyone else?

And if that means I'm not invited to any more events then so be it. I think they've done wrong with this and are misleading people over Feel at Home too.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/....php?t=5106267

There are a few but this seems to be the main one.


I don't think AYCE data will ever disappear from Three but i do think the prices for it will be very high. That already seems to be coming true. Pretty much what you said really.

I also think if they're going to keep AYCE data, it will be priced such that it's not appealing to most people.

Everywhere else, data is at least roughly £1 per GB, Three were taking a bet that people would use 3GB or so a month back in 2011, 2012, 2013 etc which the majority did. Every year we see usage grow a lot, a small, but ever growing amount used a lot on tethering, using it for home broadband, like 1000GB, which at other network prices would be £1000 a month (if they even let you buy it), the biggest main plan EE do is 50GB for around £50.

We knew this was coming to an end 2 1/2 years ago when Jabbamk told us to buy the One Plan if you're thinking of getting it as it is being removed from sale, then almost 2 YEARS ago they stopped selling it. Now they're moving people off it for understandable business reasons and still remain good value even with the increase and tethering limited at 12GB.

A very good deal has ended 2 years ago, and people are unhappy that they have to pay more for less I get that, but there's not a lot they can do. Some of the posts on MSE are frankly rediculous, try getting the deals they want elsewhere, they basically want to pay fish and chips prices for unlimited everything. It's supply and demand pricing, mobile data capacity is finite unlike fixed, Three also don't necessarily want very low paying, very high use users, that's why they aren't entering into negotiation.

The term busy fools means doing an activity which keeps you busy but ultimately makes you no money. The One Plan was introduced because of consumer research about bill shock and data use anxiety, which came right at the top of some of the consumer concerns. It worked very well initially, and was good for all parties, but it largely got highjacked by people who thought they would replace their expensive home broadband with unlimited tethering and use up to 1000GB, this was the nail in the coffin as you only need a small number of those users to cause such a big impact to the network.

It's £15 to £30 that's the issue. They can do it, but doesn't mean they should. This was what was said back in 2014 so isn't new.

Sending out thousands of letters has caused the sudden interest. It's a lot bigger than just my blog article!

Has anyone else ever stung someone with such a big increase even if they could?

It was £25 with a £10 discount initially, although let's say it wasn't as say it was just £15 as there's some confusion on that point. There is a new plan which is £5 more which has unlimited texts and handset data, 12GB of tethering and 200 mins (3 hours) of calls. Many could go onto that if they don't want to pay the extra for the top package.

There's no confusion. The people who bought in at £15, were told it was £15. No mention of £25 on the sales literature. No confusion. That the bill said "£25 minus two discounts = £15" is irrelevant.

Even if it was "£25 but £15", the fact is that 3's proposed new plan is still over 2x more. It doesn't matter that it's "meant" to be £25.

That's correct. It was sold as £15, not £25 with a discount. I only saw this when I got my first bill, as I suspect many others did too.

Yes, it was perhaps way too cheap but Three offered it and I accepted. I'm still waiting for examples of other networks that have done this sort of thing.

Agreed. It's setting a very dangerous precedent and frankly it's something I would rather no company does again. But it seems Three will just be able to get away with this.

The issue is that they're moving customers to equivalent price plans...... which aren't equivalent because they're double the price for some people and remove certain features.


It's just a normal out of contract price hike, they're not adding an extra x months to the tariff or anything. So I'm not sure if Ofcom will say anything about this to be honest.


Three's social media have been inept for ages. Even I've known more than them before they do and I don't even work for the company.

What irks me here though is that they say "we haven't put up prices" which is very very technically true. Except it's not because the new price plans are higher in cost for the 'equivalent' usage.


Anything you can disclose here?


I don't see them discontinuing All You Can Eat data at this point. Although data usage continues to grow at a record pace so I wouldn't be surprised if they do introduce further traffic management policies/tools to manage congestion in the future.


Except it was sold at £15. No customer was ever told it was £25. It was just the way that Three's billing system worked. In fact all their old price plans used to have discounts applied or extra charges applied depending on the actual price of the tariff.

If 3 wanted to be nice about it, they could at least give longer than 30 days to arrange a new plan, or give each customer their own plan recommendation based on actual usage - so light-usage one planners could actually be saving money.

But we know they won't do that, because that's more effort and (assuming people don't manually downgrade or leave) lower profit than £33 one-size-fits-all

If they looked at my usage, I'd have been offered a 200 minute plan. And the £3 discount on that too.

As stated, they've not picked a more appropriate plan for the user but rather the most expensive one based on unlimited calls and texts. Neither of which I need unlimited numbers of.

And telling me I'll get Feel at Home, AYCE data and 4G at no extra cost is taking the mick when I already get that.

Three saying that over and over has done it no favours either as everyone has picked up on that, and said some things far nastier than I have.

I'm not on Three but I think this is really bad when they're promoting "make it right". They've got more bullshit than all the other networks combined yet they claim they're "making it right". The only thing they're doing right is misleading consumers.

It was sold at £25/month for a the first couple of years. I know because I was a customer on the One Plan at £25/month in 2011. It was a great deal at that price. I was happy to sign up for a year because I wanted to be locked in at that price & would still be happy to pay that price for the One Plan. I later switched to a contract at less than £40/month for an iPhone with £120 cashback which meant my iPhone cost me hundreds less than buying it SIM-free from Apple.
Subsequently Three dropped the price from £25 to £15 which is/was an unbelievably good price. They must have had their own reasons for doing this but I was happy to pay £25/month for the One Plan & would still be happy to pay £25/month.

This is I believe the first time that a Mobile Operator has forced customers to move from their existing contract when it comes to the end of the minimum term. Usually operators are happy to leave the old contract in place as they are making more money from it than on a newer contracts. The most obvious example is when the contract involves a phone & at the end of 24 months they are quite happy that the customer keeps paying the premium over a SIM-free price & it's up to the customer to notice that the 24 months is up & downgrade to SIM-free.

I am paying £41/month for the One Plan plus a 16GB iPhone 5s & my contract ends in March. It will be interesting to see how keen Three are to move me off the One Plan. I have never been a heavy user of data or minutes so my usage would be accommodated by the 12GB/200 minute plan but if I were a heavy user I think that I would still be happy to pay the £41 as the deal cannot be equalled anywhere.

This is a unique case though, unlimited tethering has had a negative effect on other users of the network, with just a small percentage using the majority of the capacity. The plan was introduced because consumers were worried about bill shock and data use anxiety, which came up as one of the top concerns. People wanted to not have to worry, watch or meter usage and it was a great idea. However over the years it has be been used for broadband replacement or usage so high that it has impacted the 98% of ordinary users, or risked getting to the stage where it is costing too much to run.

Three hasn't ended any other plans, only this one as it is unique and has specific reasons for doing so, partly in the interests of the majority of other customers on other plans and mobile broadband packages.

We had that over a year ago already when the first batches were moved off, it is understandable that people are upset when they are moved off a very good deal that they've been on for years with no price change.

Customers are being invited to call up in the letter and they are being given different plan options, inlcuding one which is £5 more. Three are still the only network to continue to sell unlimited data, if they were just going to "be like the others" as somebody suggested, they would end that too.

Somebody admitted to using 30GB a month on speed tests the other day, we have to acknowledge that these forums and people using them are obviously very upset because the people complaining as in that high usage category usually. We see how mad people go for the EE 100GB sims, ordering multiple of them with different email addresses and getting upset when some don't come. The users here are often not typical customers, they are the ones making the most noise because they are the ones most affected by this.

When the new SIM-only plans started in the summer of 2014, the cheapest plan with AYCE data was £15 a month (and initially it seems this was available on a 1 month contract, though later only as a 12 month contract).

Now the cheapest AYCE data plan is £20 a month on a 12 month contract (or £23 a month on a 1 month contract).

(Only 200 minutes too... enough for many I'm sure, but too few for me. Next step up is AYCE data with 600 mins plan at £25/£28 a month for 12/1 month contracts respectively.)

Bit of a change from having AYCE data (obviously without tethering) for £12.90 a month, 12 month contract, under the old plans. (The standard £12.90 AYCE data plan came wiith 200 mins, but you could instead get a £9.90 plan with 600 mins and combine it with a £3 a month AYCE data Add-on!)

If tethering was causing an issue Three should have just changed the T&C's and removed the unlimited tethering element, keeping everything else as is.
Three should have been more pro active in managing the one plan and adapting it to suit.

Yesterday I was in a city centre, and most of the three shops seemed deserted, EE, O2, car phone wherehouse,and particularly vodafone were all pretty busy, three on the other hand, almost deserted with bored staff sat there poking their phones or just staring into space.

They chose to end the plan as it hadn't been sold for 2 years as it was. It was also too cheap and needed a price rise anyway given the explosion of mobile data usage with a finite amount available. Even now at the new price it still offers what other networks don't and is still competitive.



Scientific study there.

That's the problem as this plan was ideal for the heavy users in the urban areas with decent coverage. However I suspect they are also the people who can move to VF or EE quite easily. I'm surprised some network hasn't ran an offer trying to get in three customers.

Of course if your just out of the city then the three coverage I've found isn't all that great, so can't see how anyone could eat that much data.