Creative Deletion

About 6 months after I complained to Scandinavian telco “3″, they have called me and said that they no longer want me to pay 7000+ (~1000EUR) for something that was supposed to be free. They promised a free trial of up to 3+Mbit mobile Internet access. I took them up on the offer and used the connection while sailing in the Swedish archipelagos.

In the summer of 2007 I was about to go sailing for a few weeks in Sweden. I wanted to be able to go online during that time. If I hadn’t been able to get Internet access I probably wouldn’t go sailing for more than a week or so.

I had seen an ad for “mobile broadband”. 3 offered more than 3Mbit (today the offer up to 7.2Mbit) Internet access via a USB dongle made by Huawei. Because 3 is a Swedish company with coverage in both Sweden and Denmark, the price was supposed to be the same in Denmark and Sweden. 3 offered a free trial for 30 days. So I ordered it to use in Sweden. A box with the hardware arrived and there was a brochure in the box saying that in foreign countries you would have to pay a rate per MB in addition to the Danish subscription, but that Sweden was exempt from this. Very well. I tried it out in Denmark and it worked well.

Then we set off from Rungsted Havn and sailed south towards the Stockholm Archipelago. The first place we stopped at is a tiny island called Utklippan. There was no fresh water available for the visiting boats or in the latrine. Fresh water probably has to be sailed to the island. Visiting boats have tanks with fresh water so it’s not a big problem. While there was no running water, there were two different open wifi networks with internet access! I tried the 3 adapter too, but that couldn’t me online on Utklippan.

There were a lot of seagulls on Utklippan:

I took a picture of the toilet/latrine. In traditional Swedish style, yellow with heart shaped windows:

We then sailed on to harbors at large towns and natural harbors in the “wilderness”. The wilderness was not too far away from areas with Swedish summer houses though. Surprisingly, even in rather large towns the coverage was not good enough for a stable Internet connection through the 3 USB modem. For instance in the harbor of Kalmar I could not get online. Some places I could get a connection with decent throughput though.

Heavy clouds over Västervik - the “3″ mobile broadband coverage wasn’t very good here:

After I came home I sent the 3 USB modem back to 3. Eventually I received a letter with a invoice of more than 7000 DKK (more than $1300 USD). Wow, that’s a lot more than the price of “free” I was expecting. So I called 3 customer service, and they told me I had been using the network of Telia - another Swedish telco. I said that the brochure said that usage in Sweden was supposed to be free. But the guy from 3 told me that it was my responsibility to know that I was using Telia’s network and that it wasn’t free.

I did not plan to pay for something that I was told was free. As far as I was concerned the agreement between 3 and I, was that I could try the product for free for 30 days, and it was free in Denmark as well as Sweden. At no point did I get any warning on my computer that the 3G USB modem was roaming and using another network and that this would cost me money.

So, then I wrote an official complaint and sent it to 3 with certified snail mail. I got no written response but someone from 3 called my on my phone and told me that I should pay the invoice.

I then sent an official complaint to “Teleankenævnet”. A private institution that handles complaints related to telecommunications. After a while I was called up by a “Retention Solution Consultant” from 3 who told me that I didn’t have to pay the invoice afterall. He said that I might receive a request to pay the invoice anyway. I made him send me an email stating that I did not have to pay. This request later proved to be a prudent move.

I later received a letter from a lawyer firm/collection agency stating that I owed 3 some money. Then I called them up on the telephone briefly told them about the situation and forwarded the email stating that I didn’t owe 3 anything. Finally the lawyer firm/collection agency sent me a letter stating that things were settled.

The whole thing took up a lot of my time, but I’m glad that it is settled now.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 16th, 2008 at 2:59 am and is filed under Mobility. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.