O2 Increasingly large bills!

rharper83

I'm not sure if this is the right place to put it, but I do hope someone can offer some advice!

I've been with O2 for 2 years now, and am in the 3rd year of contracts with them. I've had fairly good service throughout the years, and haven't really had cause for concern. I've managed to get the O2 Online 100 package (100mins x-net, 500 texts) for £15/month thanks to help on this forum, but at the moment my bills are averaging £50 a month (with the difference being made up of text messages alone). I've emailed O2, and they've been very unhelpful with this, saying there's not much I can really do, other than cut down.

Now, you'll all probably be saying "stop texting!!" but that's not really the answer I'm looking for! I'm happy paying £25/30 a month, but £50 is getting a bit excessive for me. Does anyone know if there's anything else I can do, without getting another SIM card and having a second phone and second number? Is it possible to combine contracts to one number?

Hope someone can offer some advice, as it's not that often I ask for help on here, and hopefully there's a kind soul out there!

Rich.

someone

change you trarif

smcicr

well done 'someone' - sound advice.

rharper83 - if you want to stay with o2 then i'd suggest you look at their SIM only offers on the website - it may be possible to switch to one of those (£30pm = 400 xnet minutes and 1000 texts) but i guess that would depend on whether or not you are out of contract at the moment.

if you have to effectively leave and then rejoin and you want to keep your number then the suggested method is to PAC out to a PAYG sim on another network and then PAC back to o2 - Virgin are the quickest in turning this round i believe.

the other thing about the SIM only deals is that they are a 1 month rolling contract. Have a look at the o2 website.

rharper83

Thanks smcicr. I'm currently only 2 months into a new contract, so can't really drop out of the contract, and have enquired about upgrading to the next tariff (which has double the number of mins, but no extra texts), but with an upgrade in texts instead of mins (so 750/1000 texts and 100 mins) for the £30/month tariff.... However, they just quoted their scripts and re-iterated the tariffs to me!

Prosaic

Do they still do the text bundles? They used to be pretty good value

I take it the extra 20-30 quid you're paying is due to calls rather than texts? 30 quid a month on texts is a lot otherwise

I've been with 02 for 4 years now, and always found them really good. My OH is with Orange and they suck for customer service

smcicr

yup - looks like bolt ons are your only option then to be honest - i can't get to the online tariffs at the mo - they're 'updating' the site... depending on how many extra texts you are using a bolt on could well help cut the bills.

stan_ta_man

why don't u just chnage ure tarif man?

fiish

Because none of O2's tariffs provide the number of texts he needs. 35 quid worth of texts is more than 3000 texts, which none of the O2 tariffs provide. Unless the OP is sending lots of international texts, which would explain the high costs. In that case taking up ITS would knock off a good chunk of your costs even though it's 3 quid a month.

Just a humourous thought, no offence meant, I wonder how much thumb strength one can build up sending upwards of 100 texts a day.

seanparkin

my vote is for 'stop texting so much then!'

a two minute phone call can say the same (if not more) than 20 text messages. I honestly can't understand how people can spend so much time just staring at their phones in text conversations.

mjquinn

Regardless of the efficacy of texting vs actually speaking to someone, £35 is actually less than 350 texts (they're 12p each aren't they?). O2 do a standard bolt-on of 400 messages for £16. This would cap your monthly cost to £31 at least until your contract ends.

Then you can threaten to leave for Orange Racoon and its unlimited texting for £35 - I'm sure O2 will magically find an answer to keep you

rharper83

mjquinn - that's right... I only send around 800-900 texts a month. I had looked at the bolt-ons but wasn't sure that they would apply to an Online tariff... Guess it's time to talk to O2 again and see if they can be more helpful!

Orange Racoon sounds interesting. I might just take up that contract and stop using my O2!

Thanks for your posts everyone!