E: 17/11/04 - 12 Month Rent Free Vodafone Sim

moose

Just ordered myself a vodafone sim with 12 months rental on the 200 mins x net price plan. When you sign up for 12 months, you pay £30 a month but they give you a cheque back for the whole year after your first month.

Have a look at https://www.fwdcellular.com for more info

Cheers

Moose

Spikey_2

Is there a catch? what are Fwdcellular like for sending you the cheque etc?

Spikey

hoyin

well it is free for 12 months .. but

only 200x mins for 7 months.

After the 7 month you must remember to downgrade your tarriff to anytime 30 which costs £15. As the money back will only cover this amount.

Otherwise you will be paying an extra £15 per month for the last 5 months.

In addition the actual card costs £29.94. So you are infact paying £2.50 per month.

However an added bonus is that Vodafone are throwing in free weekend calls to voda and landlines for the first 6 months. After that you must remember to cancel it otherwise you will be charged £5.

Also the 200x mins are rolled over each month, for one month. Which T-mobile do not do! GGGrrrrrr Otherwise the T-mobile deal would be better.

But saying that it is still a good deal. And I have just received mine today.

As for receiving cheque backs ... from what I have read in this forum they seem to be ok. I guess I will find out soon!

moose

The sim card is 9.99 for this week only. I forgot to mention that bit. It is normally about 30.

Two family members recently order mobiles on similar plans and got their cheques within 28 days. They had to pay the full amount up front them claim it back but this offer actually gives you the cheques up front after the furst month and then you pay your monthly contract amount each month.

Note: you must remember to down grade etc after 6 - 7 months. I don;t think the reduced minutes after 7 month will be a problem if the minutes keep rolling over each month (especially as weekend calls are free for the first six)

Figment

There is a thread about this started by Reestit Mutton here

Reestit_Mutton

Is there a catch? what are Fwdcellular like for sending you the cheque etc?

Spikey

Hi Spikey,

Although you can NEVER say that a cashback deal is 100% safe, Fwd Cellular have been around for over 5 years (I remember seeing their website in 1999) and they have been offering cashback deals for at least 2-3 years of that.

In addition to this, many people on these boards have used them in teh past and received their cashbacks with no problems.

They also have the shortest cashback timescale in the business, which limits the risk that they will go bust before paying out - IIRC, for this particular deal, you can claim it after only 1 month.

Although I have never purchased a contract from this outfit, I have a particular fondness for these guys as they have a good reputation over on usenet.

The only thing I will say is that it is a small operation and difficult to get through to on the phone - however, most people report having decent response times by email.

HtH
Reestit Mutton

FF99

Can anyone even begin to venture a guess at the economics of a cshback deal with repays you 100p in the £ and gives you a considerable value in terms of airtime ?

Whilst some deals are explicable these 100% deals seem just bizarre unless the networks have phenomenol overcapicity which they can give away in the hope that people will exceed their free mins and make charegeable calls.

Are there insiders out there who can shed any light ???

Smartasss

The network pay huge commissions to the retailers for bringing them customers. Forward are sharing this commission with you.

Also this is a SIM only deal - the retailer probably gets a good handset with the SIM from voda - they can retail the handset separately - which will make them 100% profit.

jaymee

I would be very careful about something like this.  The Mobile Republic had done something similar and had been around for years but recently they went bust, leaving a lot of people out of pocket.  With many losing over £150!

Woby_Tide

The network pay huge commissions to the retailers for bringing them customers. Forward are sharing this commission with you.

Also this is a SIM only deal - the retailer probably gets a good handset with the SIM from voda - they can retail the handset separately - which will make them 100% profit.

I think the Sims/contracts and handsets are sold seperately by the networks, it's up to the retailer to decide whether they want to use the commission to subsidise the handset or as in fwd's case just subsidise the contract normally

ZUBAIR_3

reply to jaymee
i have been with fwd for 2 years & had no problem with cashback, got it within 28 days of sending them copy of bill.