[UPDATE 16/9 - we've now published a full guide to help you cancel your T-Mobile contract. You'll find it here.]

As expected, other mobile providers are stepping up to make significant changes to their call charges. After Orange and Virgin Mobile, Bitterwallet reader Nirave has been in touch to tell us the news that T-Mobile are planning significant changes to their roaming charges.

This article at Mobile Magazine states that T-Mobile “sent text messages out to its customers to inform of the changes, which will affect all PAYG, contract and some business customers”. However, the article states the service provider is “increasing charges for calls made and received outside the EU” which would presumably affect UK customers, but also that T-Mobile are “increasing roaming charges for all customers outside the EU” which might suggest the changes wouldn’t affect UK customers. Regardless, the increases will see roaming charges almost double in some cases, and are due to come into effect from 26th October. If these changes are applicable to UK customers, it may be the case that they prove detrimental and so provide justification for cancelling a contract.

If this is something you’d like us to look into, we’ll need a little help from you, the dear reader. We’re contacting Mobile Magazine to determine the details of the changes; in the meantime, let us know if you’ve received a text from T-Mobile – if so, what did it say? And if you are a T-Mobile customer, is there a direct link to your terms of service online? We’ve picked apart the T-Mobile site but are struggling to find any. You can contact us through the comments below or by emailing bitterwallet@gmail.com.

We told you yesterday about 3 scrapping its 3 Like Home service, which allows you to use your 3 mobile or broadband in several countries abroad without additional roaming charges. As was pointed out by ourselves and other readers, 3’s justification had more than a whiff of horse manure about it.

However, one reader asked if the change would be enough to force 3 into allowing customers to cancel their contracts early, because of “detrimental changes” to the terms and conditions. All mobile phone contracts have similar wording in them, to the effect that if they want to raise prices or make changes that will have a “detrimental” affect your contract, they a) have to tell you in advance, and b) give you the option to cancel without penalty.

Here’s what your 3 contract has to say about detrimental changes:

4.1 If you are a Pay Monthly Customer, we will let you know at least one month in advance if we decide to… make any variations to your agreement which are likely to be of detriment to you

10.1(d) You can end the agreement within one month of us telling you about a variation to your agreement (which includes your Price Plan) which is likely to be of detriment to you. You must give written notice to 3 Customer Services within that month and your agreement will finish at the end of that month once we receive your notice. (A Cancellation Fee will not be charged.)

However, 4.1 also says:

Subject to the above, you will not be able to end the agreement if such variation or increase… relates solely to Additional Services

So the question is, is 3 Like Home an “additional service”? 3 will no doubt argue it is, because they don’t want you going anywhere. We’d disagree, for three reasons:

• if you make regular use of 3 Like Home, there will be no way to receive the same service without your bill increasingly significantly

• like other aspects of your contract, you don’t pay extra for 3 Like Home (on top of your monthly contracted rate) yet it can have a dramatic effect on your billing – it’s an inclusive service rather than an additional one

• if you read through the terms and conditions for 3 Like Home, there’s no mention of it being a service in addition to your contract; indeed, the text states that this service is entirely dependent on your minutes and SMS allowance – again, it’s inclusive rather than additional

In other words 3 Like Home isn’t an add-on, because if the terms of those additional services are changed, you can choose not to receive their service and simply stop paying for them. Additional services are those you opt-in to, whereas 3 Like Home is already part of the service to begin with.

If you travel abroad to any of the countries covered by 3 Like Home, and you use the service on a regular basis (several times a year, perhaps once a quarter) then we think you have a case for cancelling your contract, because the change can be proved to be detrimental to you, and one that will cost you.

If you do square up to 3’s notrious customer services, remember to tell us how it goes.

How odd. Earlier today, we reported that Vodafone is attempting to retain customers and bring in extra business by scrapping international roaming tariffs over the Summer. Now we learn that 3 is going to do precisely the opposite, no doubt in a move designed to further heighten hatred of the company by customers past and present.

3 operates a roaming service called 3 Like Home – it’s means that 3 customers can use their handsets in specific countries, without incurring additional roaming charges. It also applies to 3’s broadband tariffs too – you can use your dongle in one of several countries without it costing £3 per MB of data. That’s all changing from June 30th, because 3 are scrapping the service. What’s the reason for binning one of the provider’s few good points?

That might make a micron of sense if the British Pound had decreased in value “by around 35%” but it hasn’t – at least, not in the last 12 months:

If you’re very strategic about your maths, and compare the peak in October to trough in December, then the British pound dropped around 0.27 Euro in value, or 21 per cent. It’d be almost true to say the pound fell 0.35 Euro in value (although it wasn’t quite that much), but that isn’t what 3 are saying – there’s a country mile of difference between 0.35 Euro and 35 per cent.

Regardless, the difference in the strength of the pound between a year ago and now is roughly 10 per cent. Please help us out if our A level Maths has let the side down, because otherwise it might appear that 3 is employing some remarkable bullshit-baffles-brains to justify its decision in scrapping a useful service.

Shocked by your mobile roaming bills every time you go abroad?  A plan to cap retail prices for sending SMS text messages and mobile internet roaming is now being backed by European telecom ministers, which may alleviate some extraneous (and extortionate) charges.

The EU executive body, the European Commission, proposed in September that both the retail and wholesale prices for text messaging be cut, suggesting caps of €0.11 and €0.04 respectively. The Commission estimates current average retail prices to be around 0.29 euros. It also proposed a €1 per megabyte cap on the wholesale price for downloading data as well as further reductions in roaming charges for voice calls. I would say that the latter is what needs focussing on, no?

Under this proposal, customers travelling abroad would also receive an automatic message with data roaming charges for the country they have entered, and would soon be able to specify in advance how low or high their data roaming bill can go before the service is cut off.

[PC World]