Batter down your annual mobile costs article Discussion Area

littleorangelobster

Follow-up to my previous post about Orange and the horrible person who hung up on me:

Called them up again just now as they've been calling while I've been out of the country, and spoke to a very nice woman called Sophie who immediately offered me more minutes and a £10 reduction in line rental. So now paying £25 for 500 mins and 500 texts where I was paying £35 for 200 mins/500 texts. Also got a new phone, and £100 credit on my bill! Result!

It's not as impressive as some other people's, but I got what I wanted plus a cherry on top in the form of the £100 credit, so I'm happy.

The_Saving_Man

Just renewed my 02 contract at the CPW. Went straight through to the option concerned with ending my contract, and got put through to retentions. Used a bit of chutzpah and said to the guy there, with a broad smile on my face that radiated down the phone, "As you can see i've reached the end of my contract and I want to cut to the chase, what can you offer me to stay with you?" From there on in there was a really gentle negotiation, but by the end i'd got the brand new phone i wanted, as well as lower line rental, account credit, double rollover minutes and texts for 3 months, and a free insurance trial for a month (which is when most new handsets play up). Very pleased. Thank you Martin.:money: :T :j

Lisey_Loo

Hi, just spoken to a nice young man at 02.

My current 02 tariff is the online offpeak 500, and my contract ends in 2 days. He has offered me a 12 mth contract of £15 per mth with 200 mins and 500 texts, but I have to pay £49.99 for the phone I want, which is the very sexy Motorola V3iM with MP3 player built in. I umm`ed and said that I`d seen a good deal with Virgin with the same phone for free, but he wouldn`t budge on the offer of making the phone free. He did offer to do 100 mins and 500 texts for £10 per mth but still having to pay the same for the phone. He said these phones retail for £300, (I know they aren`t cheap) because they come with a memory card for the music.

I really, really would like this phone (I don`t ask for much in life), but the MSE part of my brain won`t let me pay for it!!

Does anyone have any good advice as how I can negotiate my way to getting my hands on the phone of my dreams, without compromising my MSE beliefs too much?

Thanks...

zurox

I was on O2-200 which was 200 mins and 50 texts for £25/month. I got my contract through E2save with 8 months half price by redemption, which obviously I religiously claimed. The total cost per year worked out at £200.

Now, having come to the end of this deal I contacted the Carphone Warehouse (E2save are part of them), and said I wanted to know what deal I could be offered to stay with O2. Anyway as it goes, I don’t use all the minutes on my old deal but I spend money on texts every month, so when I told the gentleman he suggested O2-100 which is 100 mins and 100 texts for £25/month. To this I replied that I still don’t think I would use the minutes, and as O2 are giving away sims which when you top up £10 you get 50 mins and 300 texts that I might as well cancel and go PAYG. This seemed to get the process going and I was finally offered a Sony Ericsson W810i for free, free next day delivery, 400mins off peak and 150 texts for £13.50 a month. He then went on without any pressing to say they would also send me a cheque for £90 making the line rental per month on ave £6 or £72 per year!!

I might even consider selling the phone on Ebay for £200 ish and making some profit!

So I had some success, although this deal will most definitely not suit all people due to the lack of free X net mins. Give it a go, and as Martin says, be nice and polite and the process is painless.

gazza007

Just renewed my T-Mobile contract today.
I was on a euro 290 mins + 50 texts for last 2 years & Nokia 6230i which I got free last year. Have been reguarly going over my limits so bill has been more like £40 instead of the £29 of the plan as been using about 500 mins +. So I have been interested in the Flext 35 price plan (£180 of calls/texts month). I don't do much texting so gives me up to 900 mins a month. Would like a newer Nokia 6233 to replace 6230i but it's not due out yet, so I was quite happy to settle for another 6230i as Nokia's come with 2 year warranty.
Spoke to retentions dept this morning saying I had seen better offers, the lady said that the best she could do was £29 & 6230i, I said not good enough but she wouldn't budge. Called back later this afternoon & said that I was leaving as they were messing me about, the guy was very helpful & said he would do it for £26. I'm happy with that so plan changes tomorrow & my son can have my old 6230i for his birthday.

Vyas

coxinio wrote:

Hi there this thread seems like it has potential unfortunately I haven't the time to trawl through every page.

My question is; has anyone had any success using this method with T-Mobile?

Any comments appreciated.

Matt

T-Mobile seem to be very tight fisted. After being with them for 3 years, I just recently tried negotiating a good deal with them. But they wouldn't offer any great discounts like people from other networks reported. They didn't mind losing my custom. So, switched to Orange.

Gallop

I've just put a house full of teenagers and myself on Easymobile pay as you go. It cost total of £5 for us all and £120 worth of free credit. In this case the sim costs £1 and you get £5 free air time with it. If you use a friends number to act as your referral when signing up you get another £10 free credit and so does your friend for referring you. Call costs are 3p min at all times and 1p a text to other easy users. If phoning other networks its 15p a min.
Unfortunately the offer ends on 17th May and is limited to 5 sims per household but we've all got grannys and extended family we can use!!

Sorry not expressing myself very well.

Money_Man_Steve

I have an old Genie tariff (now O2 online) for which I have been paying £20 per month line rental for a couple of years. It allows me 50 off-peak minutes per day (O2 and landlines only) and 600 texts per month.

I called O2 online customer retentions today (0870 600 7102) and was offered a few deals, but the one I went for enabled me to remain on my current tariff. They gave me:

• 1/2 price line rental for 12 months (i.e. £10 instead of £20) plus:
• a £100 credit on my account

This effectively saves me £220 as it makes my total line rental £20 for the next 12 months, instead of £240!

On my side of the deal, I didn't upgrade my phone (I've just bought an unwanted upgrade from a friend) and I agreed to a new 12-month contract.

Not bad really...!

Money Man Steve :j

Kido

My mobile contract is comming to an end and I know the phone I want to get so I now need to start negotiating. Does anyone have a phone number for 02 retentions.

Thanks,

Kido.

rappius

Has anyone else had this problem? My wife wanted a new phone so we went to carphone Warehouse (cpw) a. to get her one and found that the chapest she could get was an upgrade with Tiscali. we spent a considerable time discussing the pros & cons of the arrangement and decided on their deal for £25 plus £10 for prepaid calls on a payg scheme. When we got the phone home and opened it up we found that it didn't have a camera, needed for pics of recent grandchild---shows you how old and decrepit we are-- so we took it back to another more convenient store. We were then told that Tiscali doesn't allow 7 day cooling off period and if we didn't like it we should return to original store. This we did and waited over 40 mins to have some attention. No deal. Only thing we were advised to do was to contact Customer Services which we did and were advised to email to cdunstone@cpw.co.uk which we did and received a rply from an underling who wanted more information which he could have got from my account. Sent him reqd info and heard nothing so sent followup email still no reply and yesterday sent 3rd email and as yet no reply. How can Tiscali get away from the rule of returns policy of 7 day cooling off. I think it's outrageous. So any advice you guys out there, please.