Three will NOT automatically compensate customers for outage – but will consider payouts if you call and plead your case

 If you were hit by the recent outage on Three’s mobile network, don’t expect to be awarded compensation automatically.

The operator has said it will only consider awarding compensation on a case-by-case basis and customers will have to call customer services and plead their case if they want to claim.

The network was down from around 11:30pm on the evening of Wednesday 16 October until 4:00pm the next day and customers were left unable to take or make calls, send or receive messages or use their data. At the time, Three admitted it was experiencing “technical difficulties with voice, text and data”, and warned some users might be suffering with “intermittent service.”  

As MoneySavingExpert is reporting, Three began apologising to affected customers advising them them to get in touch “if they wanted to talk about their options”. This is a different tack to the one taken by O2 which suffered a similar outage last year and automatically gave 25 million affected customers credit for subscription charges, a top-up or a discount on a bolt-on purchase, depending on what type of contract they have.  

Reports suggest customers who have already contacted Three have received from £5 up to £20 off their next bill. People who were left out of pocket by the outage, such as those who use their phones for business, may be entitled to more but the onus is on them to prove they lost money as a result of the downtime. 

If you were affected by Three’s technical difficulties, you can call 333 from your Three mobile or use the live chat on Three’s website. You can additionally escalate your complaint to Communications Ombudsman after eight weeks has passed since the original complaint. 

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.”