Buy out 3 contract and get a new one

Snakeeyes21

So my phone has taken its last breath and gone and died on me, bloody thing.

I havent got insurance to replace it because its quite a cheap phone and i'm on a fairly cheap contract @ £10 a month that has 6 months left to run.

Does anybody know what 3 charge to cancel? from various posts I see vodafone give a 25% discount and dont charge the VAT, does 3 work in a similar way? Not that it matters because its not exacally a huge sum but every little helps

My thinking is that buying out the contract for £60 or less would be the best thing to do because I will be upgrading in 6 months anyway and dont want to spend a huge amount on a PAYG phone just to use untill then, so I might aswell get a new phone and better contract instead.

Now on to the secont part, phones and contracts, I havent had a new phone for a couple of years so what would you recommend?

Ive just been looking at the Samsung Galaxy Portal from T-mobile
http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/shop/mobile-phones/phones/pay-monthly/samsung/galaxy-portal-i5700/pay-monthly/pay-monthly-15-24m/allowances/
on the £15 a month plan, that gives 300 mins, unlimited texts and 3gb of web browsing, plus I can get £80 from quidco, so the cost per month would workout to be £11.66 which to me seems to be quite a good deal but I really havent got a clue :rotfl:

Anything better out there? I dont need anything flash, just whats standard on phones these days, touchscreen, camera, music player etc plus a tariff like above would be more than ample for my needs.

gjchester

Snakeeyes21 wrote: »

Does anybody know what 3 charge to cancel? from various posts I see vodafone give a 25% discount and dont charge the VAT, does 3 work in a similar way?

Typically your monthly charge x months left.

Why not phone Three and ask, thats the only way to know and you'd need to do that anyway to get an accurate cost and to pay it off.

spaceman5

2 seconds on the 3 website and i came up with this:-

How early termination fees (cancellation fees) are calculated:
Cancellation fees are calculated in line with guidance published by our regulator, Ofcom. The guidance says providers can recover the costs they incurred acquiring the customer when calculating the early termination fee. This is how we calculate the cancellation fee for customers who have a phone with us: it is a lump sum equivalent to the total of all of the monthly charges still remaining during the minimum term of a Pay Monthly customer's contract with us, less a discount of: Three% for customers who are in their first minimum term contract with us; or 10% for existing customers who have previously upgraded or renewed their existing contract with us.
Ofcom’s guide for consumers on termination fees and other charges can be downloaded from their website at www.ofcom.org.uk.

Guys_Dad

You could consider the following.

Go to CPW and buy a decent phone that you really want, making sure that it is unlocked and can work with 3.

See out your 3 contract.

Go sim only on another network in 6 months' time.

This would mean an up-front cost, but work it out over 2 years and see. The only worry I have on this is whether or not 3 have anything special in their network that demands a network-configured phone. If that's the case, then sorry!

truthman007

Call 3 to tell you phone problem they will repair/replace it. Ask them to upgrade to iPhone, it might work.