3 pays punters to receive voice calls and text messages

To be honest I am still getting my head around this one, but it appears that UK 3G network 3 is now going to start paying customers to receive voice calls and text messages.
Of course they don’t receive cash, but rather credit which allows them to make more voice calls, send messages or watch snippets of video.

It is all based around a new pay-as-you-go price service from 3 called ‘WePay‘. Basically WePay customers receive 5p credit for every minute for calls and 2p per text message received. The credit is added to their account the next time they top up their card.
For example, when a customer receives a five-minute call, they earn enough credit to send two texts, or send a picture message or watch the highlights from two episodes of Coronation Street.

Graeme Oxby, 3’s Marketing Director, explains: "It pays to be popular. Anyone who regularly receives calls and texts could end up much better off by moving to 3. You pick up, we pay up; it’s as simple as that. "The introduction of WePay means we’ve raised the bar on rewarding loyal PAYG customers and at the same time created a way for everyone to enjoy music and TV on their mobile."

The reward strategy might seem a little bonkers at first sight but there appears to be sound business logic to it. The pay-as-you-go market in the UK is very complex and many PAYG users have more than one handset and will use different phone sot make different calls at different times as the tariffs vary so much. 3 obviously hopes users bin their other handsets and focus on their network. It is clearly an interesting move. Let’s just hope that 3 has got its sums right. The amount of texting that goes on round here could be enough to bankrupt the network.

How it works.
A customer on WePay who receives 100 minutes of calls and 50 texts a month will earn £6.00 credit. He or she can claim their cash credit when they purchase a new WePay Top-up, and the credit can then be used to purchase any 3 services.

WePay cash credits are valid for 30 days.

As soon as a Top-up is purchased the 3 customer has 30 days to generate as many calls and texts as possible in order to earn maximum cash credits again.