iphone - CPW or o2 Direct?

richardo

And don't be tempted to try Carphone Warehouse either as you will be lucky to leave with an iPhone let alone have any accessories thrown in!

I had the following experience which I found quite unbelievable. I bought the iPhone online from Carphone Warehouse going through a cashback site and used my American Express card to pay for it (so I could get even more cashback). I asked them to deliver the phone to their shop round the corner from my work rather than to my home address (as I am not around during the day to take delivery). There followed a series of problems, but the one that was insurmountable was that in order to pick up the phone from the store I had to validate my identity by using the chip'n'pin machine in store with the card I used to purchase the phone.

This is when it was discovered that although the website explicitly states that it accepts American Express, and they had deducted payment from my card already, the shops themselves do not accept American Express cards so they could not verify my identity and give me the phone! I really think you are better off buying the phone direct from o2 and giving CPW a miss.

pmanek

Thanks for sharing your experience. My sister has recently had some problems with them too - I think they are not even on my list - its either the apple store or o2.

richardo wrote: »

And don't be tempted to try Carphone Warehouse either as you will be luck to leave with an iPhone let alone have any accessories thrown in!

I had the following experience which I found quite unbelievable. I bought the iPhone online from Carphone Warehouse going through a cashback site and used my American Express card to pay for it (so I could get even more cashback). I asked them to deliver the phone to their shop round the corner from my work rather than to my home address (as I am not around during the day to take delivery). There followed a series of problems, but the one that was insurmountable was that in order to pick up the phone from the store I had to validate my identity by using the chip'n'pin machine in store with the card I used to purchase the phone.

This is when it was discovered that although the website explicitly states that it accepts American Express, and they had deducted payment from my card already, the shops themselves do not accept American Express cards so they could not verify my identity and give me the phone! I really think you are better off buying the phone direct from o2 and giving CPW a miss.

davidg_croydon

I had nothing but grief from Carphone warehouse today. I decided to get an iPhone for my birthday and went through a cashback site to get £60. I chose the 'collect from store' option, placed the order, and then toddled off to the store.

After waiting 10 minutes the girl went off to the stockroom and came back with a phone, but the system wouldn't let her do the authorisation. She called the manager over, who couldn't get it to work either. He said I could cancel the previous order and just buy it new - but I'd lose the cashback.

I rang the number on the collection receipt, to be told that the astonishing news that as I'd ordered on the web, I needed to wait for them to deliver the package to the store - not so much a 'collect from store' as a 'deliver to store' option. There was no mention on the Confirmation sheet that you print off that you needed to wait 2 days for it to be delivered.

No, they couldn't just give me one from the shop stock, they then wanted to know why on earth anybody would order anything on the Internet and then go to the store.

I circular discussion continued for a while, before the agent hung up on me. The next guy was better, but stil couldn't help, he sent an e-mail to the 'Internet' team to change the order to my home address. So I left the shop. I got home and an hour later got an SMS from CPW that they were cancelling my order and thanks for shopping with CPW!:mad:

All in all I'm not impressed.

silo24

Have to say, I would (and will once my 3 contract expires) buy direct from an O2 store.

The reason being that with a bit of thought you can end up with what may be a better deal.

I am looking at the following, which is a business tariff, but can be put through for a sole trader, i.e. an Individual:

£42.89 inc VAT per month for: 700 mins (500+200 bonus for duration) 450 Texts (50 standard + 400 Bonus for duration), Unlimited Internet, Unlimited O2 to O2 calls, Unlimited Voicemail, Unlimited calls to 10 nominated 01/02/03 Numbers, Calls to Europe @ 8p per minute and best of all 24 hour faulty handset replacement.

It's a pretty good deal, with the only drawback being you're tied to O2 for 2 years......BUT you can upgrade your phone after 1 year by resigning for a minimum of another 12 months, so basically it's a mid term upgrade, with probably a 25 month total duration.

It's a good tariff for people who are comfortable with the O2 service and are happy to commit for a longer period.....

Oh, yes, almost forgot: The 8GB Iphone 3G is FREE and the 16GB is £59.99 on this tariff.

It's basically £2 per month cheaper than the £45 Consumer tariff, admittedly with less X-Net minutes, but if you are happy to re-sign with O2 after a year, you get an early upgrade, for when the iPhone 3G Mk2 appears........which knowing apple, it will.

lufcgirl

I got mine yesterday...walked into o2 and asked an assistant if they had any in stock. We sat down and ten minutes later I walked out with the phone. Couldn't fault their service at all, it was very easy and set up online billing for me there and then. IMO CPW are rubbish. Last week when I went in they said I couldn't get an add-on on an iphone so I decided to wait for o2 to have them in stock cos it blatantly said on the o2 site you could. CPW could never give as good a service as they'd have spent at least fifteen minutes trying to get you to get insurance!

parisv

Yeah cpw are pretty useless. They were the only store near me with iphones in stock. I went into the store and the bloke on till said can I help you so I said yeah I want an iphone. So he took me to the back of the store and sat me down by a computer. He didn’t really know what he was doing. I began to realise I should have gone to the back of the store and avoided the guy on the till! The first iphone he got he couldn’t seem to scan through then he got another and after a while he managed to get that scanned in ok. Then he went to take my credit card details and had a lot of problems for some reason. There was a guy next to him on another computer who was showing other staff photo’s (probably on facebook or something). He kept asking him for help and the other guy really knew what he was doing but only helped a little as he was too busy on facebook! If he took over it would of gone a lot quicker.
I was trying get him to throw in an invisible shield screen protector which costs £14.99 but they don’t give you any deals when buying an iphone.
Eventually he got a contract printed out but before I signed I noticed somehow he added on a text bolt on and a minute bolt for an extra £30 a month. Because the account was setup with o2 he had to ring them and get me to speak to them to cancel it! My car was on a meter for an hour and it was coming up to 55 mins. He could tell I was getting really frustrated so he got an invisible shield, opened it then emptied the contents into the bag, so at least I got that for free but all in all not a good experience!

leehal

Bought mine from CPW Teesside and received excellent service, they even fitted a screen protector for me free of charge.

Had to take a faulty handset back today and they replaced it with a new one no quibbles.

Thumbs up from me for CPW, still I suppose it depends on which member of staff serves you.