Making money from 12m free contracts?

tomos42

Has anyone bought 12 month free contracts purely to claim the cashback from Quidco/rpoints etc. and to sell the phone on eBay?

Would this violate Quidco/rpoint's rules or the phone site's t&c's?

Also, if the contract came with a desirable number, would it be possible to sell this too?

Thanks for your thoughts,
Tom

Steve_xx

So long as you maintain the contract, the handset is yours to do with as you wish.

However, should you sell the handset and then fail to maintain the contract, I believe that it is possible that the networks could bar the handset. Then you may have a roblem from whoever you sold te handset too.

Quidco and/or RPoints would have no interest in what you did with the handset.

You cannot sell the number.

moneywasternomore!

Can they bar the handset if it has another sim card in it?

Anon

It may not be worth the effort - and as you get credit searched every time you sign up for a new contract, you would quite quickly be rejected for further contracts (also the networks may decide not to allow you another contract).

I take up the 12 month contracts (or as near as I can get them) so that I have free calls all year - if I don't need the phone, then I intend selling it. However, I am not going to sign up for other deals as well as the challenge of getting cashback is quite real and it would take far too much effort to keep up with it all.

Anon

Steve_xx

moneywasternomore! wrote:

Can they bar the handset if it has another sim card in it?

Yes they can

Anon

moneywasternomore! wrote:

Can they bar the handset if it has another sim card in it?

I believe that they can bar handsets using the IMEI number.

The main point though is that you could damage your credit rating (affecting credit cards, mortgage, bank accounts, loans etc) if you applied for too many contracts, particularly if in a short space of time.

There seem to be some people selling on mobile phone contracts on ebay (transferring the contract over to the buyer, but that assumes the network would allow this and would transfer). The problem with that would be you would then not get the bills to be able to claim the cashback.

I believe networks are getting wise to this and are making concerted efforts to stop the practice of what they term box-breaking (effectively buying network subsidised phones on payg and selling the phones on in UK or overseas without the SIM for closer to the retail price). One visible result of this is the 2 handset limit in many shops and their next plan is we will increasingly see them registering the SIM/phone before you leave the shop/receive the order.

Anon

tomos42

Thanks for your thoughts on this.
I'm inclined to agree that it's not worth the hassle for the c.£50-£70 that would be made (assuming that all the cashbacks are claimed successfully) from Quidco and selling the handset.

Tom