Customers of Three mobile network have received as much as £20 compensation in the form of a credit on their bill after last week’s outage.
The company won’t be contacting its 10 million UK customers, many of whom were left without phone signal or internet connections for hours. Affected customers have to get in touch in order to claim compensation and Three will assess each case individually.
The amount of credit offered will depend on factors such as the level of inconvenience that the outage caused each customer.
A Three spokesperson said: “If you’d like to talk to us about compensation, please call us and we will consider each case on an individual basis. Please be patient because we are experiencing high call volumes.”
The company has not specified how much money it will refund, but MoneySavingExpert reports that some customers have received £20 credit towards their bill.
Widespread problems affected millions of Three customers on Wednesday and Thursday last week.
Three initially suggested that the problem was with individual devices or SIM cards before conceding that it was a nationwide issue.
Customers can call 333 from their mobile or use the live chat facility on Three’s UK website.
Advice from The Independent's money editor, Kate Hughes
The expectation that the services you pay for will work properly and consistently is enshrined in law under the Consumer Rights Act 2015. It states that you are entitled to services to be carried out with reasonable skill and care.
If they aren’t, you may claim a full refund for the time you were unable to use your phone as a result of the outage. When you break it down, it’s probably not huge amounts, unless you’re paying a crazy amount of money for your contract.
The key thing to remember is that you’re also entitled to redress for any out-of-pocket expenses you incurred as a direct consequence of being unable to use any of your phone’s usual functionality.
For example, if you had to use a payphone to make calls, the cost of those calls could be the subject of a refund. But it may also cover your costs if you incurred bank charges because you couldn’t transfer money.
Keep a detailed note of what impact the loss of functionality had, including the times, actions and direct financial consequences and then once the system is working again calculate your losses.
