£121 bill on £15 contract. T-Mobile

spook

MissKeith wrote: »

They gave him 300 free minutes and stated that any calls made outside of these minutes are 33p a minute compared to 25p a minute on PAYG which people will happily pay for without complaining about "unfair" pricing. Do people complain when making a long phone call on PAYG that it has eaten up all their credit and want a refund? No.

If I was paying 25p/minute on PAYG I would certainly be complaining. I've been with various providers over the last few years and never paid more than 15p.

MissKeith wrote: »

People are ripping the OP to shreds because it's normal consumers who have to fit the bill if the network put any of the above measures into place. Consumers want cheaper and cheaper deals with higher end handsets free of charge and ultimately, we are the ones who fit the bills for all those customers who make honest mistakes and expect the networks to pay.

As I said earlier, I think being more customer-focused in this way would probably benefit T-Mobile in the long run, so prices wouldn't necessarily need to go up. But anyway, I just disagree that we as consumers should be demanding cheap deals at the expense of people like the OP and others who make innocent mistakes. We should be demanding fairness and decent customer care.

Guys_Dad

ispartacus75 wrote: »

They offered £50 not 50%. A previous poster stated that I asked for £70 off as a first and final offer. Why wouldnt I have accepted 50% off. To be honest I would have. But after rejecting the £50 I was eventually put through to a manager (10 phone calls later) who simply took everything off the table, so I didnt have the chance to offer or accept 50% off.

£50 off from a £106 surcharge is pretty near 50% to me. You already owed the £15 and it wasn't in dispute.

Do the maths.

wireframe_2

I despair. Someone runs up calls on a mobile, and comes on here and complains when he was legitimately charged for calls he agrees he made.

smk77

ispartacus75 wrote: »

Thank you so much for understanding my POV Spook.

Yes I was responsible. Yes I was wrong not to check my allowance. Yes I was stupid. Yes I am a customer tied to them for the next 17 months. Its not like I can get a discount on this bill now and then next month jump ship to a rival provider is it. They are going to get plenty more money out of me.

All I have expected is a little loyalty from the provider to the consumer for a change. By the majority of responses on this thread it seems the UK public are happy to be screwed left right and centre, so from now on it will only get worse.

Speak for yourself. I'm not getting screwed left, right and centre by anyone!!

By making such a bold statement you are clearly demonstrating your distinct lack of understanding of what others have said.

Why should you expect any loyalty when you've clearly exceeded the number of minutes stated in your contract? By your definition we're all loyal customers because we sign up to a contract. My definition is a loyal customer is one who spend a lot of money over a long period of time..i.e. they're a good profitable customer!! I have a £15 a month contract with 100 mins and unlimited texts with O2. I'm not hugely profitable for them as I got a free Nokia 5800 on the day is was released..Therefore, I don't expect o2 to give me as much of an upgrade as a customer who has spent £50+ a month!

You seem to fail to understand that this is how mobile companies make money!! They make their deals attractive but get you if you do go over your allowances by charging you a hefty amount.

The MSE approach would be to understand your T&C and not go over your allowance! Mobile companies hate this..and you are doing the screwing!

spook

Guys_Dad wrote: »

The point is that the inclusive calls are subsidised by the out of bundle calls.

I can't speak for the OP, but personally this is what I have a problem with. I think we've got so used to it that we can't step back and see that this is a pretty ridiculous style of tariff which is heavily weighted in favour of the mobile company.

I just want to pay for the calls I make at a reasonable price. I don't want to have to go online or check my credit via 150 every day just to make sure I don't fall foul of the system. (By the way, I did this today and got a different answer from the two methods, so it's definitely somewhat flawed).

Guys_Dad

ispartacus75 wrote: »

Chances are that with the help of sites like this one and pepipoo I would have (and have) proved that the excess parking charge was invalid and that all the council is entitled to is the parking charge per hour multiplied by the time spent in the car park.

Thats the difference. Its possible to prove that the excess parking charges, whether advertised or not, are punitive in nature and therefore unlawful.

Try reading the two sites you refer to. That's why I made council-run in bold. The point I was making was that , given you accept that their t&c put them "in the legal, if not moral, right" then the analogy of the excess charges bearing no direct the "inclusive" charges was a fair one. And an attempt to help you come to terms with where you are now with this.

But, I am sorry to say, your posts would indicate that you share a common feature with your nom-de-plume - you both lost.

I suggest you follow Spook's advice and try again and take wht they offer, if anything.

ispartacus75

smk77 wrote: »

Speak for yourself. I'm not getting screwed left, right and centre by anyone!!

By making such a bold statement you are clearly demonstrating your distinct lack of understanding of what others have said.

Why should you expect any loyalty when you've clearly exceeded the number of minutes stated in your contract? By your definition we're all loyal customers because we sign up to a contract. My definition is a loyal customer is one who spend a lot of money over a long period of time..i.e. they're a good profitable customer!! I have a £15 a month contract with 100 mins and unlimited texts with O2. I'm not hugely profitable for them as I got a free Nokia 5800 on the day is was released..Therefore, I don't expect o2 to give me as much of an upgrade as a customer who has spent £50+ a month!

You seem to fail to understand that this is how mobile companies make money!! They make their deals attractive but get you if you do go over your allowances by charging you a hefty amount.

The MSE approach would be to understand your T&C and not go over your allowance! Mobile companies hate this..and you are doing the screwing!

I understand what you are saying completely. But you can look at it another way.

Lets take that customer that generates them £50 income every month. Because of the people I have introduced to T-Mobile they get £80 per month in income and give out 900 across the contracts for that £80. To one customer 900 minutes is £40. So because of me and the people I have introduced they are getting 200% the advertised price for 900 minutes. Over the course of 24 months, nearly £3000. I call that loyalty.

flyingscotno1

spook wrote: »

This thread is going off the rails...

Phone companies are raking it in. 33p per minute? It's probably costing the company about 0.3p/minute to connect the calls. It's all profit. Why is everybody so keen to defend them?

It certainly has. I don't know what the OP actually wanted out of this thread mind you. We are no further forward in helping or gaining anything bar him and others engaging in a slagging match.

And the reason I'll defend it is because phone companies are out to make a profit and have huge costs and overheads too. It is the nature of business and if they can do it, well done to them. The idea of this site is to get the best value you can, but T-Mobile charge 30p for these calls is not unreasonable or punitive when it charges 25p for PAYG customers. If it was 60p a minute, yes that is excessive, but 30p is meh- you know what you are getting and know how to avoid them. I'm sure it didn't cost Arriva bus £1.60 to take me 1 and a half miles last week but I didn't barter with the driver that the actual cost should be 45p. Similarly it isn't fair that Easyjet charged someone £25 to fly on the same plane I paid £60 but that is life.

Indeed if you look at the mobile market- T-Mobile UK is one of the weakest areas and revenue was down 21pc. Hardly raking it in- the UK mobile market is mature and fiercely competitive.

Guys_Dad

I call it getting the best deal at the time!

smk77

spook wrote: »

With phones, the charges are much harder to keep track of. I keep hearing stories of people getting stupendous bills, often young people who aren't savvy enough to get their heads around complex pricing schemes, roaming charges, data fees etc. This is how companies like it.

oh come on! They must be 18 to have a contract phone. If they're not savvy enough at 18 then probably shouldn't be allowed a contract phone. Or, they should at least get someone they trust to explain it. How about "if you use more than Xmins a month then it's going to be expensive...so DON'T DO IT!!!"

spook wrote: »

All the people saying "nah nah, you should have read the Ts & Cs" (over, and over, and over) are correct in principle but missing the real point, which is that the OP was caught out by a rather unfair pricing system, and the company could, if forced to by us, take some simple steps to stop it happening again to others.

Why is it unfair?

spook wrote: »

Phone companies are raking it in. 33p per minute? It's probably costing the company about 0.3p/minute to connect the calls. It's all profit. Why is everybody so keen to defend them?

Why is it so bad to make a profit? They're not forcing anyone to go over their allowance!