Six months in to a moblie contract with 3, the charger became faulty. I called 3, and asked for a replacement (as instructed by the store I bought it from). 3 told me. It's too expensive to repair the charger - we have to send you another phone. I questioned the waste factor but they were insistant. I asked for clarity "I'm not entering into another contract am I?" No no ...came the reply. "OK... well I suppose that will have to be OK....as long as I'm not entering into any kind of agreement". My year contract ends on February 27th 2006 ..... in a few days time. I have just called 3 to cancel my contract as I want to change provider, I have been told I will have to pay until Sept 2006 - as they now claim I had an upgrade. I explained the circumstances of the change of phone, and they said 'not according to our records". I have asked them to access the recording of our conversation from September last year and they say they can't do that. (In fact the phone they sent me was only cosmetically different from the one I already had). I have since spoken to a colleague at work who has had a similar thing done by 3. The retailer declined to change a faulty handset and told him to call 3. Three sent him a replacement, but subsequently told him that his contract ends 4 months after the date of his original contract.
I have experiencef massive failures of care and honesty from the Telecoms industry generally. Letters mostly go unresponded to. One Tel has been the worst. Carphone Warehouse, who have just taken over One Tel were also dreadful. I suggest that persons doing business with these companies record all calls yourself, as evidence of your agreements. The law allows you to record all conversations that you are part of. It does not allow you to record calls of people if you are not part of the conversation. Companies have to say they are recording the call. You do not. In any event, lots of companies give you permission to record them as they all rather amusingly say "Calls may be recorded". What they DON'T say, is they only access the recorded information, when the outcome is likely to be in their favour.