Dialaphone and sales of BlackBerries

himupnorth

Hi all. First post, so be gentle.

Does anyone have any experience of buying a BlackBerry via a third party seller? I've just signed up to a deal from Dialaphone for a BlackBerry Storm. The free handset comes with 300mins/unlimited texts and mobile internet for £30/month on Vodafone (who have the Storm exclusively in UK). The Dialaphone deal seemed sweet enough: it comes with £100 auto cashback and a free 8Gb memory card.

However...

I got the parcel on Saturday. First off - no memory card. Okay, for a tenner's worth of kit, so what? I posted a query on Dialaphone's CS site. My main concern is with the data plan.

I had trouble setting up the BB for my personal email. I called Vodafone and they informed me that was because I was not registered for the BlackBerry Internet Solution. This enables internet access and personal email and costs £5/month on top of my contract. Not best pleased.

My question is, is this par for the course when buying a BB from a third party? Did I not ask the right questions or delve deeply enough into what was included? Or should it be reasonable to expect a BlackBerry Internet data package be included when buying a BlackBerry? The Vodafone CS agent did say, if I'd gone direct to Vodafone they would have put me on a price plan inclusive of this package.

I'm going to call Dialaphone later today and ask them the same questions. I note some recent positive experiences from posters on here when dealing with Dialaphone, so I hope my issue can be resolved too (hopefully Dialaphone stumping for the essential data plan).

Taralot

:rolleyes:

himupnorth

Second question, related to the first sort of...

As noted, the deal has a £100 auto cashback sweetener. This is due after 28 days and doesn't require redemption. Just as well because everyone tells me I'm beyond redemption...;)

Having said that, I ordered the phone from Dialaphone via Quidco. The affiliate deal is I get £50 for a new monthly contract completion.

Will I get both the £100 cashback and the Quidco money? Or does this cash come from the same "pot"? :huh:

HugoSP

As a long standing customer of Dialaphone, I can vouch for their honesty and high level of customer service.

The 8G memory card should have obviously been included. They will most likely want to put this right.

As to the price plan. It's worth contacting Vodafone direct and seeing what they can do. Vodafon came within £30 of Dialaphone's net cost (after redemptions, affiliate website and recommend a friend etc).

If you're looking to port your number over, here's the bad news. Dialaphone don't seem to be able to do it. Vodafone can but it needs to be done at the point of sale rather than them issue a temporary number.

Also, if you do the deal over the phone, get the sales rep to e mail you confirmation of the deal, save the e mail, print it off and save the printed copy in your file. There seems to be a HUGE problem with Vodafone doing deals and not recording them properly - meaning customers are overcharged.

Your £100 cashback will be in addition to the £50 quidco bonus. I don't use Quidco for Dialaphone. I go to this site www.dialaphone.co.uk/youatwork where you get £45 plus you can use a recommend a friend scheme to get your friend an extra £20. In my case my friend is me, as we order from them every year. So I end up with an extra £65. Plus I've had trouble with a few merchants tracking with Quidco of late, and I don't think they're at my end.

If the dialaphone package is not what you want you have 7 days to tell them so. They will need you to return the phone etc but you could then see what Vodafone will do.

fatlad9

my order keeps getting delayed from dial-a-phone.

ordered a blackberry w/ 8 gig mem card, nintendo dsi, and a great mins/txt bundle etc. i was very pleased. placed order wednesday night, due for delivery on friday. it never came friday, and they emailed saying sat, it never came then either, and now they are saying tuesday...

why could this be? no blackberrys in stock, or you reckon its the nintendo that is causing the hold up??


EDIT


argh just rechecked their website, if i go on to buy a nintendo dsi black theres a 3 day wait for delivery but the white one is despatched within 24hrs.

im a bit annoyed that ive been without a phone since my orange cancellation last week, which coincided with my handset totally dying on friday (it wont turn on or anything now)

himupnorth

Quick update. Spoke with a Dialaphone CS agent this morning and explained my situation.

(By the way, I circumvented the frustrating automated CS "help"line by calling the 0800 sales number and asking to be redirected )

The initial contact listened dutifully but was not wanting to budge. The Blackberry Internet Service (BIS) isn't sold as standard "because some people just like the handset but don't want email or applications." Erm...right. From a BlackBerry?

I "escalated" the call and spoke to a floor manager who was more sympathetic. She agreed that the BIS (or lack thereof) should be more prominently advertised on their website. We agreed neither side wanted to cash our chips in over this. She offered me £20, the equivalent of four months BIS. I took it.

Not the ideal resolution, but they listened. Hopefully they will update their website so this situation won't befall other unwary BlackBerry buyers.

Oh, and they've put a 8Gb memory card in the post for me.