Expiring credit

[Roithriun]

I received a text a few weeks ago that my credit was about to expire and I needed to top up to extend the expiry of my credit.

I topped up as instructed but, contrary to the information in the text from Three, the expiry of my existing credit was not extended.

To make matters even worse, usage since I topped up has been deducted from the new credit rather than my existing credit, which is still due to expire in a few days. The same thing happened last September - usage depleted my new credit and a few euro of my old credit was expired despite my attempts to use it up.

What's going on..??

[Three_Niall]

Hey @Add_53995, Yes our technical team has put a fix in place and we are currently working through issuing credits back to customers who were affected by this issue. The credit is being issued back in batches to customers so you should have this credited to your account over the next few weeks.

[Add_53995]

Hi Niall,

Thanks for getting back to me, I can see that the credit has been restored to my account today.

Thanks for the help in resolving this.

*Edited by Mod

[Add_94874]

I also got a refund. It seemed a little on the small side, but I have not had the time to go back and make sure everything was dealt with in the correct order.

One small concern is I can see that I have 14 euro credit expiring in February, 14 euro in march, 1 euro in April, then 20 euro from May onwards. So it seems like the ordering has still not been corrected i.e. all of my credit expiring in February should have been used before starting to use my March credit etc. So I'm still being forced to use some credit earlier than I should be, and I'm a bit concerned this means the corrections and refunds being made are also not doing things in the right order and under-refunding us.

[Three_Stacey]

Hi @Add_94874 I'd love to have a look at this for you. Can you please PM me your name, number, full address and date of birth and I'll pull up your account and check on this. 

[Add_53995]

Hi @Add_94874 ,

I was happy enough with the amount of credit restored to my account but now that you mention the sequence of credit being used, I see today that the credit "refunded" to my account which is set to expire in August is being used first, whereas I think it should be my normal top up that is scheduled to expire on 14th March that should be used first.

I agree that if this is the case, then the refunds and corrections are not fully rectifying the issues.

@Three_Stacey  would you mind also having a look at that for me too, or do you need another PM for details?

Thanks,

Brian

[Three_Stacey]

@Add_53995 I'll need you to pop me a PM just with your name, number, full address and date of birth. Once I have these I'll have a look at your account.

[Add_94874]

The PM I received:

"I've had a look at your account. I can see that you were speaking to one of my colleagues back in December and credit was applied to your account. This credit as it was manually applied and not a top up is used prior to any pre-existing credit."

My response:

"A couple of points.

1. Do you also see my point about the March and April credit being used before my February credit?

2. I would have expected the manual corrective top up to be set to be used last, not first, at the minimum as a gesture of goodwill but mainly because it seems the right thing to do. It is the fault of Three that this mess has happened, and now you are making us use a big chunk of refund before we can use our next naturally expiring credit (February for me) - it is not fair to force us to rush to use a load of credit asap to avoid even more expiring due to a mistake on Three's part.

"

I am happy to discuss all this on this thread. As long as personal identifying details are not revealed it's ok with me. It is not an easy problem to stay on top of as a customer, discussing it openly in the thread will hopefully mean more people can keep track/contribute and have the correct action taken to rectify.

[loki7777]

That's why while I'm waiting for my credits to be refunded  I'm not going to add any new credits to my account(€0 atm). I know that sometimes you can't do as I did.

Good luck.

[Add_53995]

I received a similar PM stating that because the reimbursement credit was a manual top up, it will be used first.

I'm sorry but that is simply is not good enough from Three.

This whole issue arose as a result of credit being used out of sequence due to an acknowledged Three error and the solution proposed by Three involves credit again being used out of sequence?

There is not a reasonable individual in this country that would believe anything other than this is a cop out by Three to avoid fully reimbursing customers who have been wronged because it is inevitable that it will lead to the expiration of more credit while this credit is being used.

I think most people top up by €20 every 28 days to get their offer and given that the original issue went on for so long, most people lost a few months of top ups. If everyone has then had the amount they lost restored to their account but have to use it first, it will take them a few months to get through that credit based on normal usage. Three must be aware of this and know that they are not really giving back to customers the full amount that was taken due to their error because they know they will get a fair chunk back in future expired credit.

After months of waiting and lost credit, it seems the solution put forward by Three is nothing more than a thinly veiled token gesture. 

[Three_Stacey]

@Add_53995 & @Add_94874 The issue you experienced with your credit has been resolved and going forward credit with the closest expiry date will be used first. The system in place uses credit applied by the Customer Care team first. We understand this is not your preference and have taken your feedback on board. And I can assure you we are looking at alternative solutions. We’ll have an update on this next week.