I’ve been living outside Ireland for years, but I wanted to keep my Irish phone, just in case. As a result, I’ve added €10 top ups fairly frequently so the number doesn’t get deactivated and recycled, and also so the credit wouldn’t expire. It accumulated to just shy of €500 over a few years of doing this.
Recently, it all disappeared. That’s a lot of money to just be gone, so I obviously logged onto the chat in the my3 app to talk to someone and figure out what’s going on. I spoke to a fella called Harsh.
He told me (after a lengthy investigation) that I had changed plans back in March so all my accumulated credit expired after 180 days. I personally think that’s a pretty terrible policy. It feels like a blatant money grab on 3s part, but here’s the real kicker… I didn’t change anything. I told Harsh this, more than once. I explained numerous times that I didn’t even know or care what plan I was on. Why would I? I’m not even in Ireland. I’m just trying to keep the number alive.
Harsh kept telling me that I did it. I kept telling him I didn’t. I asked if they could tell the location of the browser that did it. They can’t. I asked for the transcripts of every conversation I’d had with 3, and he kept putting me off and telling me I can’t have everything. Eventually he relented and gave me an email address to send my request. I asked if I could speak to management a few times while Harsh danced around it. Eventually, Harsh told me that management couldn’t be accessed through chat, but even if they could, they’d just tell me the same thing. Then he ended the chat while I was in the middle of typing a response, which felt was a little, well… harsh.
I’m posting this as a last resort, before contacting the ombudsman, to see if I can get some sort of resolution. I’m not an unreasonable person, but it’s a lot of money to just be “ah, feck it”, you know?
I feel like I was robbed.
