Bamboozled mum

maggiesoup

Need a little help from younger peeps please. 15yr old has been on PAYG for years but his social life has taken off & he wants to upgrade to a contract with a half decent looking phone. I'm happy to put contribute towards it but he's presenting me with contracts at around £25 a month and, more worrying, nothing seems to be less than 24 month tie in. Would he be better buying a phone & getting separate contact? Or buying a phone and sticking with PAYG? Or is EVERYONE just on a contract now!Can you give me any tips/advice. Thanks.

sjc_2

You could get a 12 Month SIM Only Contract from Vodafone for £15/Mth for 600Mins & Unlimited Texts and get £100 Cashback via QuidCo so only costing £80 for the year and then buy a Vodafone PAYG Handset or keep existing, if unlocked or could take Vodafone SIM.

macman

Remember that as a minor the contract will be in your name not his, so if he runs up a big bill phoning Ulan Bator or something, then it's your credit rating that could suffer.
I would help him with the phone cost but stick to PAYG.

greyster

you can get sim only contracts with no tie in.

£15 a month on t-mobile would get you unlimited texts and 350 minutes. He can quit when he likes or move up or down a plan.

Handset wise shop around for a nice new prepay phone, you dont need to spend hundreds. prepaymania do good prices on handsets.

Never sign up for 2 years... thats just crap.

quidco cashback to be had on any kind of contract, including no tie in ones.

maggiesoup

Thanks everyone, what's a SIM only contract? I've had a look online at lots of deals but they do seem to want you (or me) to commit, 18 months minimum though. Does that mean the majority of people buy a PAYG?

Bufger

i would keep him with PAYG just for the fact that his spending can be limited. Yes with contracts you can get free minutes etc but it also means he can go over that allowance or use the internet on his phone etc and the first time you'll find out is when you have a £400 phone bill to pay. Trust me you can run up a massive bill in one month.

Having a shiny new phone at that age isnt worth it. The chances are he'll lose it or have more chance of getting it stolen and you dont want to buy insurance for it as its a complete ripoff. If he doesnt have enough credit you can set up a topup direct from your account, as long as you dont give him the details he wont be able to top it up in this way but you can if you want him to have a bit more credit for whatever reason.

Does he have a paper round or other small job? hes nearly at that working age and the first thing you should probably do is have him take responsibility for the cost of his phone and calls. Its a small responsibility for us but as a teenager it will teach him to budget his income to allow for credit giving him some responsibility. He'll grow up fast from this point on!

epz_2

the new T-mobile £10 a month and unlimited texts PAYG offer seems like a decent option since that's a fair amount call time and no risk.

As for getting a decent phone, you can pick up some great phones from of amazon/ebay from folkes who have been upgraded but dont really want the new phone. I saw nokia n97's seem to go for around £230 odds which while its not a great phone for a teenager just goes to show what you can get a top of the line phone goes for

anonymousie

I have a 16yr old who is amazingly trustworthy and unteenaged in her behaviour and out look but I would not take a contract phone out for her, the downsides are just huge and not immediately obvious.

Contract phones are uncapped spending, even SIM only contract don't appear to have a cap.

Just browse the forum for the amount of folk running into contract problems that they didn't forsee for themselves as adults and the problems teens/girlfriends/boyfriends etc have caused for people daft enough to take out contract phones for them to use.

REcent problems include:

Huge bills on holiday (because someone was sick, but still the bill has to be paid)

Huge bills for "unknowing" net use (ie "I thought it was included" or " my kids was just looking at a few pages"- nope they were downloading huge amounts!)

Bills for internet roaming that "we didn't know about"

Stolen/lost phones and teens who either didn't realise the phone had been taken, or didn't want to own up to the fact, with biigs bills when the phone is used to rig porno lines or what ever. You may have insurance, but nothing will cover calls made before the phone is reported stolen.

Stolen phones not covered by insurence because, say they were left in an unattended bag etc.

By all means buy an expensive phone if you can afford it, insure it and use a P+G SIM in it.

THat way the only loss is the phone and the pre paid credit-it has a limit.

There are loys of ways od getting enough txts/minutes/internet for a reasonable monthly amount on a P+G basis.

I really fail to understand why people take out contracts FOR others- on another forum someone had a 10yr old on a contract phone- madness how ever trust worthy and careful they are, if adults can get "duped" and run up huge bills, as evidenced here then even the most careful child can easily do the same.

Scarlett.1974

I'm going to go against the majority here and say that getting my daughter on a contract was definitely the best thing for her (and me). No worrying about running out of credit, no having to remember to 'top up' on a weekly/monthly basis.....

I started her off with 3 but have now moved her to O2 because it was a MUCH better deal (don't recommend 3 at all).

If you're worried about him running up huge bills then you need to sit him down and explain what the consequences of that will be - I did this with daughter when she first had the phone and she has never let me down - she never goes more than pennies over her allowance, she makes the texts and minutes last from each month to the next. If she ever ran up a huge bill then the phone/her pocket money would be confiscated until said bill had been paid off, simple

HTH a little, it's always good to get other opinons too.

anonymousie

Scarlett.1974 wrote: »

I'm going to go against the majority here and say that getting my daughter on a contract was definitely the best thing for her (and me). No worrying about running out of credit, no having to remember to 'top up' on a weekly/monthly basis.....

I started her off with 3 but have now moved her to O2 because it was a MUCH better deal (don't recommend 3 at all).

If you're worried about him running up huge bills then you need to sit him down and explain what the consequences of that will be - I did this with daughter when she first had the phone and she has never let me down - she never goes more than pennies over her allowance, she makes the texts and minutes last from each month to the next. If she ever ran up a huge bill then the phone/her pocket money would be confiscated until said bill had been paid off, simple

HTH a little, it's always good to get other opinons too.

AS you'll see if you notice the posts from "responsible adults" that have managed to run up bills of many hundreds of pounds that they can't pay you'll see how easily a teen could get things out of hand, well beyond the capacity of "pocket money" to settle the debt but it is up to you.

Scarlett.1974

anonymousie wrote: »

AS you'll see if you notice the posts from "responsible adults" that have managed to run up bills of many hundreds of pounds that they can't pay you'll see how easily a teen could get things out of hand, well beyond the capacity of "pocket money" to settle the debt but it is up to you.

Well yes, of course. I suppose it depends on the teen in question. Maybe I'm being naive, but as long as said teen knows exactly what is included in their plan (ie texts and calls = yes...... downloading things = no) and knows to ask if they're unsure of anything then I don't see how things can get to that stage.