Three to refund €2.6m to former customers

Mobile phone company charged 173,000 customers after they cancelled their contract

Three only issued a refund if a customer requested it.

Mobile operator Three Ireland is to refund 173,000 of its former customers for overcharging after they cancelled their contracts with the company.

The company said it had begun refunding a total of €2.6m back to former customers, with all overcharged customers expected to be refunded by the end of September.

The matter came to light following a review by ComReg, Ireland’s communications regulator, late last year. Three Ireland (Hutchison) Limited said that, in parallel to ComReg, it undertook a review of its billing system to determine whether its customers were charged for services beyond the cancellation of their contracts, which are termed “post-cancellation charges”.

Rather than proactively refunding customers’ post-cancellation charges, Three kept them as credits on inactive accounts and only issued a refund if a customer requested it.

“Essentially any bill sent to customers during the notice period included the monthly recurring charge and this period related, at least in part, to a period beyond the expiry of the notice period,” Three said.

Three also identified that customers had other types of credits, unrelated to the post-cancellation charges, on their inactive accounts that had not been claimed or proactively refunded following the cancellation of their contract.

In January, Three advised ComReg that more than 173,000 customers were affected by the charging of post-cancellation charges and credits remaining on inactive accounts. This was made up of €1.28m in post-cancellation charges and €1.4m for other credits that remained on inactive accounts.