Batter down your annual mobile costs article Discussion Area

Aura

I wonder if you could advise me as I am more confused then ever. I went to Carphone warehouse because my mobile doesn’t seem to be working properly. They said it’s something I have done because I get a irritating voice now every time I go from one page to another.


I keep getting conflicting advice at Carphone Warehouse. One says with the Nokia Lumia 635 that I can’t upgrade until the end of June, and that it would cost me £120 to get out of my contract.


I would also be paying £6.99 for insurance and still £17.50, as yesterday I was told I would only be paying £12.50 a month for the phone and £7.99 a month for insurance.


I keep being pushed to the Nokia 735 which is a bit more expensive at £8 a month insurance which she said was the better phone, I said how much would I be paying for that phone and she said she would have to see what tariffs were available in June which is a bit confusing. She seemed to get irritated with me because I was getting confused with the numbers, aren’t they supposed to be there to help.



In a right mess now because I don’t know what to do. Can you please advise me on what I should do? Should I buy myself out of the contract or what? Sorry to ask you this, as I’m not sure of the right path to take.

Supatramp

Aura wrote: »

I wonder if you could advise me as I am more confused then ever. I went to Carphone warehouse because my mobile doesn’t seem to be working properly. They said it’s something I have done because I get a irritating voice now every time I go from one page to another.


I keep getting conflicting advice at Carphone Warehouse. One says with the Nokia Lumia 635 that I can’t upgrade until the end of June, and that it would cost me £120 to get out of my contract.


I would also be paying £6.99 for insurance and still £17.50, as yesterday I was told I would only be paying £12.50 a month for the phone and £7.99 a month for insurance.


I keep being pushed to the Nokia 735 which is a bit more expensive at £8 a month insurance which she said was the better phone, I said how much would I be paying for that phone and she said she would have to see what tariffs were available in June which is a bit confusing. She seemed to get irritated with me because I was getting confused with the numbers, aren’t they supposed to be there to help.



In a right mess now because I don’t know what to do. Can you please advise me on what I should do? Should I buy myself out of the contract or what? Sorry to ask you this, as I’m not sure of the right path to take.

Well for a start, save yourself £7.50/8.00 a month by getting yourself some decent house contents insurance which includes mobile insurance.

Supatramp

From what I read here, and in the general press, I think times are maybe changing in the mobile market.

When it comes to bargaining, it wouldn't be the first industry to eventually say, 'enough is enough'. This is the price, end of story!

By all means shop around, but don't expect the sometimes 'silly' deals which were once on offer.

On the other hand, maybe I'm wrong!

mobilejunkie

You are. Cashback contracts take "silly" to another level and are alive and kicking, though not as prevalent as before.

Misshoneybee88_2

I thought I had a pretty good deAl with EE. My contract has just expired and I wanted to keep my phone a little longer. I rang them up after looking online and transferred to a SIM only plan going from £36 a month to £10 a month. So pleased I did this as after checking my usage I was nowhere near the limits I was paying for. Thank you! :T

Hillards

It sounds like I'm about to pay much more for less. I've been an Orange customer for over 20 years, back to the days when a £15 monthly contract got you 15 minutes !
Over the years I've added my wife on to the same contract and we've upgraded after the 12 or 24 month contract period. Usually we've had a good deal with the Orange team who have got us phones we like rather than any old rubbish 'cos it's cheap and they've sorted out tariffs to suit too. I also had a long running loyalty discount.
Our next upgrade is due after March 9th, just missing out on the March 1st deadline to get the last Orange deals. That means we HAVE to move to EE if we want a new phone and/or 4G, which we've waited for a long time.
I'm hearing nothing but bad news about this. If we go to EE then we have to have a new contract, which is usual, but we have to have a new tariff, we can't stay on what we had. We are very limited in what phones they will offer as we're not the biggest of users, we're on a low price package at present.
OK, we know that if we keep our current phones we can stay on Orange and on the same tariff - but only on 3G. We've had the phones 2 years and the battery needs charging daily, they are slow and may not last much longer anyway.
Going for buying our own phones and getting a SIM only package isn't any cheaper really.
I'm going to phone Orange on Monday (weekend as I write this) and see what they suggest. I've already looked at other providers and not found much better. Tesco have a deal on which closely matches EE, although I can add extra minutes or data if we've 2 phones on one contract - EE don't seem to do that. :-(
So much for years of loyalty...

J_B

Hillards wrote: »

if we keep our current phones we can stay on Orange and on the same tariff -

What's the tariff?

Hillards wrote: »

So much for years of loyalty...

The future's bright .............. well, the past was good anyway

Hillards

J_B wrote: »

What's the tariff?

Modified Racoon 20 (24mth) on 2 phones.
Unlimited landline calls, 200 anytime minutes, 300 texts and 500Mb data on each phone each month.
We kept that tariff for 4 years, they gave us the data for free last time when we got smartphones on our bi-annual upgrades.

Just thought - that would be bad news - they would keep charging us the same amount to keep that tariff, but we wouldn't get any new phones. :-(

Hillards

OK, called Orange, they answered as EE. I selected the 'upgrade' option and the chap in the overseas call centre told me he could only deal with an early upgrade which would cost me £xx as I had not reached my free upgrade date. still 2 weeks away.
I explained that I was trying to find out if it was worth staying or if I should be looking at other deals. He was actually quite helpful.
First, if we wanted to stay on our existing package they could do that. Obviously there are no free phones involved and he agreed that the tariff cost was then unbalanced. If we wanted to take that option they would look to reduce the monthly cost to something we were happy with.
The comparison there would be with Virgin as we are VM customers for cable and get discounted deals with them, and it's on the EE network. They only have 3G, which would match staying on an Orange tariff - we can get a choice of phones and pay only £10-11 a month for a suitable package.
My wife does not use data on her phone at all, she just uses it as a phone. I'd like 4G speeds for data, but it's not essential. I have a EE Kite on 4GEE and can use the wifi option on any phone to that if I want it.
On the other hand he says that we could move to a new EE contract and get new phones and a new tariff. He pointed out that using third party dealers may get us a freebie, like a tablet, but they cannot reduce the tariff cost. If we call back on the upgrade day they can look at loyalty (which someone suggested does not exist) and come to some arrangement.
I'm looking very closely at their tariffs and what phones they offer. I'll match as best I can with other operators and be ready to do battle on upgrade day... :-)
If they can't come up with something reasonable then I should have enough info by then to decide if I need to get a PAC and jump ship...

immuno

I have been with Vodafone for years and years, and have been on my current contract for 22 months out of 24, so was thinking of calling them up soon. I pay £45 for iPhone 5s, unlimited calls and texts, 2gb data. I want to get the cost reduced as well as upgrade to iPhone 6 - not sure if this is possible. However, I rarely use any of my minutes!
My partner is with Orange, but pay as you go, and wants a new phone (hers is a £15 one) which is available with Vodafone contract. Is it worth us somehow getting this arranged together? Ie. if I say my partner will get a contract with them, can they also offer me a better deal?!