Ailbhe McHugh from Carlow contacted us with a story so filled with unnecessary hassle that we were stressed just reading it. In May, she changed phone networks and signed up with 3 mobile. From that first weekend she realised there was an issue with its network and many people told her they were unable to contact her or kept getting a voicemail message when the phone was turned on.

“After that first weekend, I switched off the phone and reverted to my old phone and network and haven’t switched on the phone since, not to mind use it,” she writes. “In the contract it states that there is a 14-day cooling off period which I decided to avail of. I returned to the shop within the 14 days and was told I needed to ring customer care to get a termination code. It is from this point that my problems began.”

She rang customer service and was told she could not cancel the contract unless she allowed their technical department perform a range of troubleshooting steps on the network.

“I found this to be ludicrous when it clearly states I can return the phone within 14 days,” says McHugh. “After much debate, and numerous phone calls, I agreed to talk to this department. After this conversation, I was told I would be put through to another department to receive my termination code. This department then told me that I was actually through to the wrong terminations division.”

After an hour-and-a-half and six different conversations she was told she was supposed to return the phone to the shop and that it was only if she bought the phone online that she needed to make the call. “I disputed this with her, as I had been told otherwise in the store, and she gave me her name and assured me that this was the procedure. You can imagine the frustration when I arrived at the shop (for the third time) to be told this was not the case and in fact I was to ring customer care again.

“I explained my frustration to the employee and told him about the lengthy phone calls I have had to endure. I told him I no longer wished to deal with customer care as I had already gone through all of these steps numerous times. I also requested a manager call me, as every time I rang customer care I would get through to a different person and would have to go through my entire case again.

“The employee in the shop assured me that he would get to the bottom of it and ring me back. When I didn’t hear from him in over a week, I rang him only to be told that he hadn’t received any correspondence from 3’s customer care department, so there was no more he could do and that it was policy with 3 that customers must deal with customer care.”

McHugh had also requested a copy of any notes on her account from customer care only to be told this was not policy. “I have since been advised by the Citizens Advice Bureau that I am entitled to see any notes held about me due to the Freedom of Information Act and 3 must provide me with a copy of these.

“I received a letter yesterday stating 3 had passed my account on to a debt collection company. I have reiterated each time I have spoken to any member of 3’s staff that I have no problem paying for calls I made that first weekend I used the phone but the phone has been off since, while I have tirelessly tried to resolve this problem. It is utterly impossible trying to deal with them.”

Understandably, she has found the experience “extremely stressful and upsetting that nobody is willing to help me and every employee that I speak to seems to just pass the buck to another department. I have spoken to a number of consumer advice agencies and have been advised to make Comreg aware of my complaint. Failing that, I have no option but to go to the small claims court regarding this. I need a complaint reference number for Comreg, so I hand-delivered a letter to the 3 store in Carlow on August 31st last, requesting this number and a log of all the calls/notes on my account I made to 3 regarding this. I was once again promised by the staff member I would be contacted by a manager to discuss this.

“After a week when I still had heard nothing, I rang the store and was told the manager was unavailable but he would return my call – over three months later, I still haven’t heard a thing.”

Last week, she received a letter from a solicitor stating that the firm would begin legal proceedings if McHugh did not pay the bill within seven days. “How come they refuse to answer my calls or correspondence when I am trying to sort this matter out but yet they are very quick to begin ‘legal proceedings’?”

How indeed. We contacted the company last week.

3 has investigated this case and concluded as follows: “Firstly we would like to apologise to Ms McHugh for not resolving her service issues with us more quickly, we recognise that we fell short of delivering a good experience in this case and for that we are extremely sorry. Our customer service team attempted to identify the coverage difficulties that Ms McHugh reported at the time, however this was not done successfully due to a process error. As a result of this case we are undertaking a full process review and will make changes and implement retraining where necessary to ensure that this does not happen again.

“We have contacted Ms McHugh and apologised for the inconvenience caused as a result of this issue. We have cancelled her contract with immediate effect and we are refunding all monies paid by Ms McHugh to 3. Whilst this is an exceptional case, we will be reviewing the reporting process thoroughly and making changes where necessary. Ms McHugh has accepted this as resolution.”