Overcharged prepay plan

[Naomi_22394]

Unbelievably bad service.

I have been under pressure to top up due to work. My top ups have been rejected due to technical issues.

Fine, so I will try again later.

I try again a few hours later, still technical errors telling me my payment cannot go through. Fine.

Then I see my bank balance. 6 times I've been charged! 120€ for a 20€ top up!

I immediately contact customer service to ask what can be done. I speak to a Pratiksh. They tell me I will be refunded in 3-5 working days. I ask them how this will work and if I can get assurance of this since I know with prepay there can be problems with refund. And they tell me to just trust them.

When I ask for a surname or an agent number so I can follow up they cut the connection.

How can this be let happen? Is there anything I can do??

[Julia_56432]

Had the same issue yesterday - didn't work through AIB app top-up option. But somehow it went through the web page payment. I can see the payment is pending on the bank app, but my Three balance is 0, no internet. Tried to call  customer service - they say offices are closed (at 8.30 am, while page says they should be open at 8.00 am ?) You are lucky to get the support, I am still trying to get a hold on some real person rather than a chat bot that is useless.. Not sure why they spent money on it, better hire real people who can listen and help.

PS. there is none report on the webpage, Three twitter or Facebook ,or anywhere about the issue.  This is a very poor performance with PR communication department.

[Three_Shane1]

@Naomi_22394 Hi Naomi & welcome to the 3Community. 

I'll help get this sorted for you. When you look at the 6 top-up charges in your bank account do they all show as pending, complete, or a mix of both? If you look at your My3 account does it show any or all of the charges have been added to your account? 

[Three_Shane1]

@Julia_56432 Hi Julia & welcome to the 3Community. 

Is the top-up charge still showing as pending on your account? If it has been more than 24 hrs since you tried topping up and the charge is still pending it will be returned to your bank account. The pending charge is normally refunded back to you in accordance with your bank's return policy which is normally 7-10 working days.

[Naomi_22394]

Hi Shane,

Thank you for your reply.

They are still all coming up as pending at the moment. I'd call my bank to cancel, except I can't because my phone won't work despite having been charged 120€ for this service.

[Naomi_22394]

Hi Julia,

Thanks for your reply, glad I'm not the only one! It's unreal that they have no warnings about this and their system runs so poorly that they can just take money that they have to refund.

Even if they do refund it there should be processes in place to prevent this sort of thing from happening. This is why I won't go for bill pay, these problems are way too common.

[Three_Shane1]

@Naomi_22394 Thanks for confirming they're still pending. If they've been pending for more than 24 hrs, the charges will revert to your account. With the charges showing as pending they have left your bank account but not reached our system which puts them in a limbo state. 

If we've passed the 24hr mark with the charges showing as pending they will be sent back to your account in accordance with your bank's return policy which is usually 7-10 working days.

[Naomi_22394]

So an update: Still pending, good thing I haven't rent payments to make or anything! (Which was sarcasm thanks!) Also still no phone service, no network and effectively a bricked phone because I can't switch providers without a new phone but also NEED to because three just eats my money and provides zero of the services it's supposed to.

I know it's not your fault Shane and thank you for trying to help.

But this is unspeakably bad service from a company! I need my phone for work, and I haven't had one for over a week with no sign of resolution!