Vodafone – time to haggle!

astrobhoy

hi all,

my contract is up with Vodafone, and i don't really have a clue what the best deal is that i can get out of em! My bills are roughly about £20 per month. Don't know how many free texts or call time i get either, but i think it's something like 200 minutes a month and 100 texts.
I've been with them for a few years now,with no problems at all, however, i would consider moving but only if i could take my number with me as i use it for business.

Does anyone know if you can 'haggle' with vodafone, and what would be a realistic target to go for?
Or should i change over to another provider?

Thanks

AstroBhoy

kai666

I have recently tried haggling with vodafone, they were having none of it, telling me that they were no longer allowed to give people really good deals for renewing their contract. They offered me a phone that is free anyway (Sony Ericson v600), and a bluetooth headset when i pushed them, only if I signed up for an 18 month contract.

I am on an old contract, which isn't very profitable for them though. 600 off peak mins for £10.20. So they really want me to change onto a more expensive tariff, which I obviously don't want to do

I have the PAC code, but don't really want to use it

wigginsmum

I phoned Vodafone at the weekend to cancel an old contract phone for which I'd been paying £33/month. When I said I just wasn't using it and in fact had another phone elsewhere, the guy was all eager to try and make me offers to get me to stay. He even said 'What would it take to keep you as a customer?'

So phone them and try - play it really cool, and you might get somewhere. Point out that you've been a customer for years, be armed with quotes from other mobile providers, and see if they'll match it. They're not to know that you really want to keep the number for business; as far as they're concerned, you might easily cancel the lot.

Jules

laxatif

Debt at highest (October 2005) = £28,000
Debt currently (November 2005) = £26,866
Interim goal = £23,400 (May 2006)
Debt Free Date = June 2009 (44 months to go)


cor.. wigginsmum.... Good luck!! :beer:

Bigun28

I've got 2 phones on a contract with them that finish at the end of the month. I initially tried ringing them twice to try and get a better deal and quoted to them better offers from other people. The first one said they couldn't do anything and I needed to put my request to cancel in writing. The second just tried to offer me the standard web based offers.

Last year (before I realised all of this process) I was with Vodaphone and really just wanted to upgrade the 2 phones I had. Went through the same process as above (to no avail) and ended up taking out a new contract with Vodaphone anyway with a new number from one of their shops and wrote to Vodaphone to cancel my old contract. A few days later, Vodaphone called me and said they could have done a better deal.

I said I had tried to offer them the chance to do it but they turned it down. It seemed that the initial disconnections dept I spoke to could only really offer the web based quotes at best. However, when I forced the issue by putting my request to cancel in writing, it went to another dept who could offer better (so called under the counter) deals.

astrobhoy

as i thought, they aren't offering anything good in the shop. I'm was on an 'Anytime 100' package with 50 texts a month for £15 - but apparently my mobile bill last month was £85!!!!! Last month was probably untypical of my usage, but i will need to study my bill to see where i'm phoning.

Do you know if you can take you're mobile number with you to another network?

AstroBhoy

UKays_Finest

astrobhoy wrote:

as i thought, they aren't offering anything good in the shop. I'm was on an 'Anytime 100' package with 50 texts a month for £15 - but apparently my mobile bill last month was £85!!!!! Last month was probably untypical of my usage, but i will need to study my bill to see where i'm phoning.

Do you know if you can take you're mobile number with you to another network?

AstroBhoy

Hi Astro,

To answer your second question first, yes you can take your mobile number with you. You need to contact Vodafone and ask them for a PAC code, which you would then give to the network your moving to. It should typically take a week to 10 days to transfer your number across.

To address your initial point. It looks like your on too low a tariff for your monthly usage allowance. I would recommend examining the last 6 - 8 months of bills to give a you good idea of your average monthly usage. Then switch to a higher tariff to reflect that usage.

Reason being, mobile networks make most their money when customers go over their monthly allowance of x-net minutes, as the call charges per min are ridiculous. By switching to a higher tariff, you may of course be spending more p/m on line rental, but you will be saving a huge amount in call costs by staying within the allocated p/m minutes. An added bonus is that many phones are also free on contracts with higher p/m line rental.

Hope that clears up a few a things up.

Somerset

I had a Vodafone contract £ 15.99 pm 100 fee calls 100 free texts pm. I was well out of contract but stayed because everything worked well. But I knew I could get a better deal if I could be bothered. I rang Vodafone to check no cancellation charge - they didn't care. I then rang to give notice period for cancelling contract ( + e-mail ). Still no interest from them. About 2 weeks later I got a call 'what can we do to keep you?'. It seems THIS is the dept that tries to snag leaving customers. I was happy with my new deal - same phone, same 100calls/100 texts, 12 months but @ £ 7.50 pm.
One word of caution : the ppl doing these deals seem to foul up a lot ie when I rang call centre ( first bill wrong ) all the agreed bits/price plan weren't there and they'd said it was 18 months. They'll do anything to get you to stay but the correct info doesn't always get put on system.

astrobhoy

thanks for that advice chaps.

I'm not too clued up on the mobile phone deal shopping, so it's great to get advice.
If i were to say, have a £30 budget per month – what kind of deal should i be holding out to get from the like of Vodafone do you think?

Astro

vansboy

Mrs V had a simi;ar problem, outdated contract & old fone.

She ended up with £40 month 350mins & 100 texts (texts were the 'free' part) 12month deal.

But even had to pay £10 for her Samsung e720!!!

Would have swaped to O2 - much better deals, https://www.o2.co.uk but poor reception where we live!!

TRY THEM AGAIN!!

VB