Gill Douglas has been a customer of Three Mobile on a pre-pay basis for several years now. The company runs a promotion that sees customers pay €20 a month for all-you-can-eat data, free text messages and some free calls for 30 days. Gill avails of this offer each month.

“However, when I travel I top up by much more, just for incidentals and to ensure I have enough to cover data roaming. Over the past year or so I had accumulated more than €290 credit,” she writes.

On December 31st the monthly promotion period ended, “and unfortunately, unlike most networks, Three don’t have the facility to issue a message informing customers of this, so I am usually met with a message that says, ‘You have spent €5.36 on internet since November 30th’, for example. I use this as an indication that the promotion period has ended and I must top up.”

On New Year’s Eve, however, she got messages at 2.16am, 5.18am and finally at 10.17am telling her about her data usage. The final message told her she had spent €141.38 on internet services in less than 12 hours overnight.

“The messages were sent to me through the night as I slept, which gave me no chance to rectify the situation by simply topping up and avoiding these charges. I purchased my €20 top-up first thing the following morning when I realised my promotion period had ended, so it seems ridiculous that I could have incurred these charges in such a short space of time overnight,” she writes.

She queried this with several Three Mobile staff, who all replied that there were nothing they could do. She was told that the company charges €1.01 per MB of data used outside of a promotional plan. “It is very easy to run up a large amount, but it is important to note that apps such as iCloud running in the background could have been responsible for accumulating these charges as I slept. While there may be no error or mistake in the actual charges, my issue is how Three chose to notify me of these charges, giving me no chance to remedy and opt in to the promotion before it was too late.”

She points out that she is “a loyal customer” and says she would expect more from the company, “who, up to this point, have been fair and decent to deal with. It seems extraordinary that a company like Three could penalise me to this extent for a couple of hours outside a promo plan while they have €290 of my money sitting in credit on my account.”

We contacted the company and received the following statement. “The customer acknowledges that the charges incurred for data services used outside of her package were valid. To avail of included minutes, texts and data services, pre-pay customers must make their top-up every 30 days or they are likely to incur extra charges. Customers can monitor their account usage and payment dates using the My3 online service. As a once-off goodwill gesture Three has in this instance credited the customer’s account for the cost incurred.” Fair enough.

Car insurance transfer woes

A reader from the west of Ireland got in touch to tell us about an experience she had with her car insurance.

“I had a problem with my car, so I sent it to the dealer to be looked at and repaired. When I went to pick it up, the fault returned so they kept it to relook at it,” she writes.

She asked if they had a temporary car to cover her for 24 hours as she needed it for work. “They duly obliged. When they went to transfer my insurance for 24 hours, the insurance company was looking for between €25 and €50 to transfer my insurance. I refused,” she says.

“I shouldn’t have to pay an ‘admin charge’ of that nature. My insurance is fully comprehensive and I am licensed to drive other cars.

“I stuck to my guns, refusing to pay it, and the insurance company said they would waive the fee if the car was in an accident only. The fault with the car wasn’t caused by me. Rip-off Ireland is alive and well, it seems.”

It certainly seems to be. The reader did not identify the insurance company, although in our experience there are more than a few that think nothing of charging seemingly arbitrary sums for what seem like basic administrative tasks.

In the end, the dealer offered to cover the transfer cost.