Scheduled top ups errors

[Add_53995]

Hi Three Ireland,

I have just come across an issue / issues with the “Schedule Top Up” option on MyThree.

My top up offer expired on 31st December 2023, so pre-empting this and knowing that 1st January is a bank holiday and with the New Year activities, I decided to schedule a top up for 1st January to activate my offer.

It went through OK – it was 7am when I got the text to confirm, so not ideal if I was using data from Midnight until 7am but given it was New Years I assumed it was just a bit delayed, so did not make anything of it.

When using the Schedule top up service, I did notice a line on the screen “Your topup will be scheduled for the selected date and will repeat every 28 days from then”

There was no option to “Opt in” or "Opt out" to this repeated top up – the name of the service is “Schedule top up” not “Schedule Repeat top up” so it is a very misleading service for customers.

If there was a button to opt in or out of the repeat top up, I would have clicked the option to not opt into it, as should be my right as a consumer.

On 30th January 2024, I noticed that my offer had expired, and there was no sign of any automated/repeat top up so I decided to make a manual top up myself to activate my offer.

This went through and my 28 day offer started on 30th January 2024.

This morning however, on 1st February 2024, I woke up to a text from Three and notification from my bank saying that I had been topped up by €20 by the repeat top up service.

Essentially I have topped up twice for the same period – but the offer expiry date is still showing as starting from the date of the first top up instead of the most recent.

There are issues here that need to be urgently addressed:

1. On the “Schedule Top Up” option -it needs to be made more abundantly clear that it is a REPEAT Scheduled top up
2. The repeat element of the scheduled top up needs to be optional
3. If it is to be a recurring top up, the message states it will be every 28 days, but in my case it was 31 days meaning I am vulnerable to unknowingly fully using up my credit in the intervening days and I could possibly become stranded on the side of the road with a breakdown without being able to call anyone.

A repeat top up that is on the 1st of each month is absolutely useless when Three have made the top up offers last for 28 days

1. There is no visible option on MyThree to cancel the Schedule top up repeats – surely a breach of consumer laws?

Whatever way you look at this, there has been an error / errors made by Three with the end result being that I have had an unwarranted second top up of €20 that must be refunded to my bank account immediately, and the repeat top up serring on my account cancelled.

This issue is in addition to another one that has been going on for months where my credit was used out of sequence resulting in €80 of my credit incorrectly expiring and all I have received in the meantime is a €15 goodwill credit gesture and continuous messages from the Three team that they are investigating for the last 4 months (discussed on another ticket raised by someone else).

You can therefore understand how my patience with Three is becoming very much strained.

Please update me at your very earliest convenience about when my €20 will be returned to my bank account and the scheduled top ups on my account will be cancelled.

Thanks,

Brian

[Three_Niall]

Hey @Add_53995 , I’ll be happy to help you with your query about Scheduled top-ups and you can find out more information in the “How to Schedule a Top-up" article here. 

When you are setting up a scheduled top-up on your My3 account you will select the date that the first top-up is due to be processed and then every 28 days after the top-up has been applied the next scheduled top-up will take place and this is a continuous reoccurring scheduled top up that will take place every 28 days. When you enter the date for the scheduled top-up, under the date field it explains “Your topup will be scheduled for the selected date and will repeat every 28 days from then” to make sure you are made aware before you place the request. 

You can manage your scheduled top-up through your My3 account by going to "Schedule Top Up" on the dashboard > Select "Scheduled Top-Ups" at the top of the screen > from the list of the scheduled top up you can select Delete to remove this in the future. On this screen, you can see the number that you have a scheduled top-up set up for, the next payment date, the amount and also the option to “Delete” the scheduled top-up.  

If you decide to top up while you have a scheduled top up in place, the scheduled top up will automatically go through on the scheduled top up due date. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t be able to refund the credit directly back to the bank card however I’ll be happy to check the account here further to look at these top ups, pop through to me here on PM along with your full name, mobile number, address and date of birth and I can check the account here for you.

[Add_53995]

Hi Niall, 

Thanks for looking into to this for me.

There are still a few issues that remain unresolved however:

1. On the MyThree app it is not possible to see the scheduled top ups, only on the website version after you mentioned it. Considering the majority of users would use the app instead of the website this is either an overlooked flaw or else an underhand tactic by Three to trick people into topping up manually by not seeing any scheduled top ups on the app. The scheduled top ups should therefore be made visible and easily accessible on the app.

2. I scheduled my first scheduling top up on 1st January, but the next automatic top up did not take place until 1st February. This is therefore a breach of contract by Three when the top up did not take place 28 days after the last, meaning I had no choice but to top up manually when my offer expired on 28th January. 

Given the automatic scheduled top up did not take place on the date advertised by three it can be understood that the agreement was voided by three and should not then have taken place a few days later on 1st February, so should be refunded.

3. Why can it not be possible to schedule a single top up at a date in the future without having to sign up to top ups automatically every 28 days/one month?

I will send you a pm with my details shortly but it think the above points could be of interest to other people so it might be useful to have them on public display here. 

Thanks,

Brian

[Three_Niall]

Hey @Add_53995 ,

Thanks for messaging me on PM and I will look into the specifics of your query once I have checked your account. However, I am going to answer each of your points below that I can answer without discussing the account. 

1. I have checked this here on the app and I can see that you are correct about editing being available on the web only,I have passed this feedback onto the relevant team however you can access this on your phone by logging into My3 on a web browser on your phone.

2. We are aware that a small number of customers did not have their scheduled top-up applied on the correct date and it looks like this includes your number however I can see you PM'd me here so I will check your account and discuss this with you there. This has since been resolved and scheduled top-ups will continue to apply as normal.

3. The Scheduled Top Up is a top-up that is scheduled to apply every 28 days until this is cancelled by the user on My3 via the web however you can also access this on your phone by logging into My3 on a web browser on your phone. 

While you are unable to schedule a one-off top up, you can set up the top-up for a date and then cancel it once it has been applied. To make sure that customers are aware that this will occur every 28 days we have placed a warning under the date selection field stating "Your topup will be scheduled for the selected date and will repeat every 28 days from then"