Three refunds £1,450 after 15 years of unauthorised debits

London — A reader’s billing dispute with Three, now Vodafone Three, illustrates how unauthorised post‑contract charges can trigger a bank-led remedy and a broader class-action against loyalty penalties in mobile contracts.

The reader said they signed a two‑year dongle contract in 2010 at £41 a month. The contract ended in 2010, but four months later small deductions appeared on the Halifax bank statement, starting at about £3.10 and rising to roughly £8.50 a month for more than a decade. After flagging the payments, the reader contacted Three’s customer service. The agent acknowledged the account had been inactive since 2010 but then directed the reader to loyaltypenaltyclaim.com, the site for a class-action alleging that mobile operators charged customers beyond usage after an initial contract. The class action covers contracts from October 2015 to March 2025, with eligible claimants possibly receiving about £104 each; participants do not need to sign up to be included, though they can opt out. The reader notes they were not technically a continuing customer once the erroneous payments started, which complicated the matter.

Three later reviewed the account and found no usage, but cited a 2016 systems switch that left records incomplete and did not mark the account as cancelled. With no clear explanation for why the debits continued, the reader pursued a direct debit indemnity claim with Halifax, which, like a chargeback, repays the customer and then asks the company to dispute the claim. The benefit is there’s no time limit for filing; Halifax normally reimburses within ten days of notification, and if the supplier is found to have erred, the money is reclaimed. In this case, Halifax refunded the money to the reader and then recouped it from Vodafone Three, and Halifax also paid £40 as an apology for not acting sooner on the initial claim.

Vodafone Three said the reader should not have been directed to loyaltypenaltyclaim.com and that the error is being investigated by customer services. A spokesman said the company was glad the issue was resolved and that refunds had been arranged through the direct debit guarantee with Halifax, which had recovered the funds from the carrier. The reader, who asked not to be named, said the final outcome was welcome but that £1,450 does not fully compensate for the time and stress of a decade-long dispute.

The episode sits within a broader debate over post-contract billing and loyalty penalties in the mobile sector, which now includes Vodafone Three following a shift with the earlier Three brand. The class-action site says it represents millions of consumers; if the suit succeeds, eligible participants could receive an average payout of about £104. The case is ongoing, with no court date announced.

For readers, the story serves as a reminder to review bank statements regularly and question unfamiliar deductions as soon as they appear. In telecom markets, where corporate mergers shape customer service, individual complaints can feed into larger regulatory and legal actions that could reshape how charges after contract end are handled.