THREE MOBILE

I have my mobile account with Three. There was a reason for that at the time. Other members of my family were on three and we got free phone calls between us. That is no longer an imperative as most packages now include national phone calls irrespective of the operator at the othr end.

I'm on a €30 a month package. But I like to keep a little money in the account in case I get caught up in calls not coverd by the package.

Up to recently I had €23 under this heading.

And then one day it when I looked, it had gone. I was trying to figure out what calls I might have made that had eaten away at my store but couldn't think of any. A quick look at my log (but only for the last two months) didn't show any call charges.

So I took to Twitter, which is usually a place to get a prompt response because it's public, to ask Three about my money's disappearance. I got a quick response, transferred over to Direct Messaging and quickly got the explanation that Three had stolen my money.

They don't describe it that way of course. Apparently it had been there for 180 days and their terms of reference allow them to snitch it if it is unused by the end of that period.

Top Up Expiry

Effective from 1st December 2020, any top up credit on your account will expire after 180 days. Your Three Prepay account credit will expire 180 days from the date that your account was last topped up. For any pre-existing credit on your account as of 1 December 2020, the expiry date for that credit will start from 1 December 2020. If you do not use your top up credit or add another top up credit within the 180 days, the credit will expire and your balance will be set to zero. When you top up again, your expiry date will be 180 days from this new date.

Now the implication here is that I should have read the terms of reference more carefully, but really, you don't expect such bad a faith provisions to be included and even after reading them you don't normally think back when you decide to leave a bit of spare cash in the account for emergencies. For God's sake, I'm giving them €30 a month as it is.

Moreover, the piece appears to be badly drafted and does not justify them snitching my money.

I consider this provision, as it is drafted and implemented to be unfair and in bad faith.

I must check and see what is available from other providers.