Batter down your annual mobile costs article Discussion Area

colchelle

Asked Three for my PAC code last wednesday - They gave me it on the spot with no offers.I was on a £15 a month contract

Got a text message saying if i didn't use the PAC code within 30 days it would expire and if i wanted to cancel my contract i would have to phone back. So i did.

The guy at customer services spent about an hour offering me a couple of pounds off a months compared to new customers and a phone upgrade to one that had been out for ages.He was saying they hardly made any money on their £15 a month customers and this would be their final offer today. I said i didn't even want any offers i just wanted to cancel

I finally could tell he wasn't in a postion to give me what i was looking for and kept cutting him off and insisting he cancel my contract. He was desparate for me not to do this - saying i should use my PAC code and this would effectively cancel my contract when i used it. Eventually he gave me my 30 days notice (i made a note of my cut off date in case no-one phoned me back so i could cancel the cancellation)and abrubtly hung up on me.

I then received two calls from other people in the next 2 hours. Still the offers were no good.

Then received a call today saying as i was such a good customer and as a special loyalty bonus if i kept my phone i could get 250 minutes and 50 texts a month for the rest of my life for £5 a month.

I cheekily asked for a phone upgrade as well but the guy as expected blew me out the water.

You just need to steer past the run-of-the-mill customer service people first until you can speak to someone who can give you what you want.

Result!!

Rainy_Day_2

colchelle wrote: »

Then received a call today saying as i was such a good customer and as a special loyalty bonus if i kept my phone i could get 250 minutes and 50 texts a month for the rest of my life for £5 a month.

What an excellent result. I'm in the last month of a 6 month contract with 3, currently paying £15/month tariff (300 minutes/text, mix & match). May I ask whether you requested your PAC code during the last month of your contract or at the end?

I currently have the skypephone handset and would like to upgrade to the new version when it's eventually released however, if I can wangle a £5 tariff and keep my free SKYPE and messenger minutes/messages, I'd be happy to pay £70 for the new phone alone!

How do you rate my chances?

colchelle

Rainy_Day wrote: »

What an excellent result. I'm in the last month of a 6 month contract with 3, currently paying £15/month tariff (300 minutes/text, mix & match). May I ask whether you requested your PAC code during the last month of your contract or at the end?

I currently have the skypephone handset and would like to upgrade to the new version when it's eventually released however, if I can wangle a £5 tariff and keep my free SKYPE and messenger minutes/messages, I'd be happy to pay £70 for the new phone alone!

How do you rate my chances?

I waited until i was just into the last month of my contract before phoning them up.

In my case i also asked to be switched to the mix and match 300, but was told this offer was only available for the 250 minutes and 50 texts (no 3 to 3 free 300 minutes) and no other tarriff. Now it may have been i could have knocked back their offer and waited to see if they improved it but i decided to accept what was on the table.(i do know people who dig their heels in and then no-one phones back!)

Good Luck!

Lankyboy

It seems Voda, maybe others too, are starting to wage war on us! I was phoned by their customer services dept. 1 month before my stated upgrade date (ie after 14 months). The lady on the other end was looking for me to blindly say "Yes sign me up for another 18 months for £25/m" - I asked her to match 100 mins and 100 txts for £10 as offered by Virgin to existing home phone/TV customers. She said she couldn't and to wait for the actual upgrade date in 1 month's time. I duely did:

A different lady phoned yesterday and asked to discuss an upgrade and said she could offer £10/m but only with 100 mins and 50 txts I said I'd go to Virgin and asked for my PAC code. She said I'd have to call disconnections. This I did - the guy on the other end asked why I didn't go for the £12.50/m for 150 mins and Stop the Clock*see below* and 250 txts {now this sounded better!!} I said I hadn't been told about it so he hooked me up with the above tarrif and the new Sony Ericsson G502.

Things worth considering that came up in this conversation:

This is an x months at half price offer - in this case 15ms of an 18m contract (but you can upgrade on Voda after 15ms)

Pay an extra £2.50/m (ie £15/m) and you can basically have your pick of their phones.

*Stop the Clock means that evenings after 7pm and at weekends you can talk for upto 1hr and only pay for 3mins!

No non-network dealership (including Phones4U the company who originally sold me the handset) has been able to come remotely near the magic £10/month and while I'm spending an extra £2.50 I have managed to cut 50% off my bill.

Rainy_Day_2

colchelle wrote: »

I waited until i was just into the last month of my contract before phoning them up.

In my case i also asked to be switched to the mix and match 300, but was told this offer was only available for the 250 minutes and 50 texts (no 3 to 3 free 300 minutes) and no other tarriff. Now it may have been i could have knocked back their offer and waited to see if they improved it but i decided to accept what was on the table.(i do know people who dig their heels in and then no-one phones back!)

Good Luck!

Thanks! Attempted to terminate my contract tonight but must have called too close to home time because by the time I was transferred to 3's "cancellations team" it had gone 9pm and I was left on hold for 10 minutes before I decided to give up to try again tomorrow.

The 3 things that I would like to keep are: free skype, messenger and voicemail so it'll be interesting to see what I can negotiate!

Chuffy

Has anyone tried to end their '3' contract early following the change to their billing?
They're rounding up all calls under a minute up to a whole minute.
Previously a 20 second call would take 20 seconds out of your allowance - now it takes 60 seconds.
Calls over 60 seconds take the appropriate length.

If you make a lot of sub 60 second calls, this could make quite a different to your bill. This could be considered a detrimental change to T&C's and allow early termination of a contract.

ricriley

Hi everyone,

How do you rate my chances on getting a deal on the new iPhone?

I have seen lots of people getting deals on very expensive new phones like the Samsung Toco and Nokia N95. But what about an iPhone? Do they haggle with this or do they stick to their plan?

My £25 per month contract with O2 ends in a couple of weeks. I also have £7.50 per month broadband with O2 (Orange offer it for free) I might be able to use this as some bargaining power.

Thanks

matthewking26

Hi all,
I wrote recently of getting a £35 orange contract down to £10 with free home internet and a new N82. Well for the last 2 months I've been charged £20 per month. I rang up to be told I wasn't on a £10 a month contract, I had been moved to a £20 a month one.

(Well I found that out the second time. The first time I rang I was put through then put on hold for 15 minutes before they disconnected me)

They were going to give me a £10 per month discount from September meaning I'd pay £20 per month for 3 months, then £10 after that.

I pointed out that wasn't the terms of the contract agreed. The adviser asked "were you under the impression your discount would start from the start of the contract?"

I had to speak to 4 different departments, 6 people including 2 supervisors and was on the phone for 40 minutes.

In the end they agreed to honour the £10 per month they originally offered (how generous of them!) and refund my overpayments made so far.

So a word of warning, be careful that when your new contract starts, they actually give you what the retention department offered in the first place!

TreborOx

Seeing as the Gent above reported problems with Orange customer service/billing, I thought I'd post a "good news" report. I called today to discuss changing to a cheaper tariff (I use less than half my "inclusive" minutes - the free landline calls are main use, followed by text, then data, then mobile-mobile). Changed data plan from £8/month for 10MB to £7.50/month for 250MB! The lady battled with the system for about 20 minutes, trying various options, but couldn't do much with the talk-plan cost (due the the phone I wanted - HTC Touch Diamond) .....I was resigned to sticking with what I had (hey, 50P less than before for 25 Times the data - better than nothing)...when she said "Oh, I've just noticed, your contract expires in 30 days. Your best bet is to hold off for a month, and call back the day your contract expires - we'll be able to do MUCH more for you then - or of course, you can simply terminate your contract at that point - we'll send you the PAC code to unlock your phone to another network". Whilst I (and I'm sure most of you) already knew that they're more flexible when you're in a position to walk away, I thought it was very refreshing to actually have somebody there explicitly point it out! (I thought I had a few month left on my contract, so 30 days is not really a problem). Apologies for the rambling post - just wanted to let you know that sometimes they *are* on "our side" Will post back in 31 days to let you know how it goes!

confusedkate

Im new to this haggling business, and was looking for advice...

Have been with Orange for 18 months with the contract up for renewal in 6 weeks time, currently Im paying £35 (plus £6 insurance) per month for 600 minutes and 'Unlimited' texts (which is actually 3000 under a fair usage policy), of which i generally use around 1000 a month. I was just wondering how much people reckon I'll be able to save? I would love to get it for around £15/20 a month!

Also is it really worth paying so much for the insurance? Im sure I can get it cheaper through house insurance?