PO Phone Service. Warning.

auditbabe

Can some advise me what to do. My daughter lives in Coventry and I live about 100 miles away so the phone is important to us. The problem is that both her and her husband only have mobiles thus making calls is expensive. I am going to pay for the line rental for them, who would be the cheapest provider for them?

I'm with BT for the line and AOL for my calls. I pay at least £10 per month calling her. They are on a very low income so costing is very important can any one help me please

Shiggaddi

Hi auditbabe.

I think you might have been better off starting a new subject with that sort of question, but thought I'd answer anyway.

You would be better off going to a site like e2save (and get cashback via greasypalm or other cashback site)

Basically most mobile sites dish out mobiles and you pay the line rental, then on top of that, the company selling the phone gives chequeback rebates for things like 12 months free line rental. Some companies make claiming very hard, to discourage many people from putting in a claim, and make up things like "your claim is invalid, as it was lost in the post" after having to hang on for 20 minutes on an 0870 number (they deliberately disconnected their London code number) Dial-a-phone please take note!!!

If you make most of your calls during the evenings and weekends, then go for something like O2, that gives 1000 minutes to O2 and landline numbers.

If you make a few calls during the day, then go for "3" that gives anytime, any network minutes.

At the end of the 12 months, remember to cancel the contract, and take up another offer!! You will also have a spare handset that you can either use as a 2nd phone, or you can sell it on ebay or local paper for about £20-30.

pawpurrs

Excel, i got that from the PO site,

The £50 will be credited to your bill in two instalments of £25 - starting with your first bill that includes call charges.

But am guessing that call charge could be 1p

Shiggaddi

I remember that wording as well.

I think what they mean, is the first bill they send is calculated to be 3 months in advance, and cannot possibly include call charges as it's only for the line rental.

After 3 months, then someone who makes calls, would of course incur call charges, but someone who doesn't obviously won't.

However it depends on how literally they take the wording. They also state on their website, that it's the bill at month 3, and month 6.

But what I find interesting, is if someone were to cancel after month 6. You've already paid in advance but received a £25 credit as well. With BT, when you cancel, BT will refund the portion of the line rental that is paid for, but not used.

If I cancel soon after month 6 (say month 7), and say the bill was £30, but the £25 credit makes the bill £5, then I would be due a refund of £20 as that is line rental that is paid in advance. However they might argue that as the last bill was only £5, then they won't refund against a line rental that I didn't pay for in the first place.

Might be best to wait till month 9, when the billing is all back to normal!!

However if they maintain being £1 cheaper than BT, then there would be no reason to cancel anyway as I don't make any calls (but I think I will make a few just to avoid that loophole!!)

Heinz

auditbabe wrote:

Can some advise me what to do. My daughter lives in Coventry and I live about 100 miles away so the phone is important to us. The problem is that both her and her husband only have mobiles thus making calls is expensive. I am going to pay for the line rental for them, who would be the cheapest provider for them?

I'm with BT for the line and AOL for my calls. I pay at least £10 per month calling her. They are on a very low income so costing is very important can any one help me please

I think Shiggaddi latched onto the 'her and her husband only have mobiles' part of your post and missed the fact that you are going to pay for their LANDLINE rental (or that's the way I read it anyway).

If that is the case, there is very little in it and, although BT have now been forced to allow others to re-sell their landlines and they offer line rental at small discounts, the savings are minimal and, sometimes, non-existent.

The safest way (because it's a guarantee that they'll be able to make outgoing calls using any of the many cheaper-than-BT call providers now in the market) is to rent the line from BT but be choosey with how you make outgoing calls.

The classic money-saver is for them (and you) to use call1899.co.uk for calls to UK 01 and 02 numbers (the cost is 3p connection and 0p per minute for a call of any length at any time). That means that £10/month you're currently spending calling their mobiles would pay for 333 calls to their landline each month!

There's more to be saved though - please see my regularly updated post HERE.

auditbabe

[If that is the case, there is very little in it and, although BT have now been forced to allow others to re-sell their landlines and they offer line rental at small discounts, the savings are minimal and, sometimes, non-existent.

The safest way (because it's a guarantee that they'll be able to make outgoing calls using any of the many cheaper-than-BT call providers now in the market) is to rent the line from BT but be choosey with how you make outgoing calls.

Thanks for your advice for the immediate future they aregoing to have incoming calls only with BT and when they both visit me we will go on line and look at the alturnatives on your site so thanks again :T