Best way to get off vodafone?

martpendle

Hi Guys

Im new here but ive been aware of you for a while! Awesome site and community!

Right recently ive been wanting to get off my vodafone contract as it a real mess, i am on a blackberry price plan but have a HTC magic (long story)

I would like to change as i can get a much better phone (HTC Desire) for £25 compared to my £35 i am locked into now!

Thankfully i went onto the e-forum yesterday and saw that the FUP policy has been changed for internet usage

I am going to try and use as much internet as i can through last.fm (leaving the radio on all the time)

Is this the best way for me to get off my contract without penalty? any other ideas? and if it is, whats teh best procedure? ive seen people say that VF have messed up a few times and have forgotton they contacted teh person sometimes!

I avae contacted phones4u about a contract buyout but they havent got back to me and i doubt they will beacuse I have quite a long time left in it!

I just feel its stupid and unfair that i am paying alot of money for a medicore phone that isnt even kept up to date like the otehr andriod phones!

There is also some stuff about clause 11.2b in the contract but i just cant seem to find it and am not very good at legal terminology, any help would be wonderful I would really apricate it, and I would be forced to buy you all a virtual pint!

Cheers

Martin

p.s. here is some more info from the vodafone forums, one is by me!

(well i was going to post some links properly but i cant, so please replace the .xx.xx with .co.uk

forum.vodafone.xx.xx/forum-53/announcement-137-updated-24082010-mobile-internet-charging/

forum.vodafone.xx.xx/topic/71647-mobile-internet-over-fup-limit-charges-are-coming/page__st__260

forum.vodafone.xx.xx/topic/73355-will-the-fup-affect-me/

martpendle

im afriad i am going to shamlessly "bump" this topic as i need to get it sorted and also i only have until october to try and "destory" the Fair usage policy for internet usage if that is the road i am going to pick , and it make take a while to use so much data on a really slow 3G conenction in the country!

nickmack

The Vodafone thread for discussion of the FUP change you mention is here:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2446159

You may be able to use this to terminate your contract.

martpendle

there is a small probelm with this, i dont actually use my internet anywhere near as much as that as i tend to use Wi-Fi, i was wondering if i could protest that there is being a change in the contract, so i wanted to terminate beacuse it i not what i initally signed up tin alll fairness its going to be a massive pain for me to try and use up over 500mb in a few days, but if this is the only way i can do it then i suppose i shall have to

do you know anything about phones 4 u buyouts?

EDIT: i mean surely if they change the contract i have the right to cancel the contract without penalty, its not my doing after all, and i should be able to cancel regrdless of my usage

nickmack

martpendle wrote: »

EDIT: i mean surely if they change the contract i have the right to cancel the contract without penalty, its not my doing after all, and i should be able to cancel regrdless of my usage

The terms state you need to show an increase of 10% in your bills as a result of the change.

As you admit you don't use anything like 500Mb at the moment, the change is unlikely to affect you. You could however argue you may use this much or more in the future.

If you want to use this method, you need to get downloading quick. it appears from OFGEM that you shouldn't need to wait for a text from Vodafone, as long as you can show the required increase in bills.

Normally, I wouldn't morally advocate what you're doing to 'get out' of a contract, but IMO Vodafone have approached this issue and another Desire firmware issue in totally the wrong way, so they deserve the customer backlash.

martpendle

ill use teh excuse of going back to university and will be communitng more and thereofe using more 3g usage for media!

yeah i has huge problems with my blackberry storm firmware and im apapled by whats going on, i normally dont like doing this kind of thing! but i feel like they have really cheated me! i cant wait to see the back of them!

EDIT: they ahve also handed the firmware for the HTC magic awfully, ims till stuck on 1.6 and paying a stupid amount

gjchester

martpendle wrote: »

EDIT: they ahve also handed the firmware for the HTC magic awfully, ims till stuck on 1.6 and paying a stupid amount

New phones and price plans are nothing new, for whatever reason you signed up for a blackberry plan (I assume the phone got lost / damaged) and need to see out the contract you took out.

The Magic was once a top of the range phone it's just been superceeded, thats just a fact of life in the phone industry. Updated to the OS is a pretty new thing with andriod, prior to that the firmware you got was usually the one you had for the life of the phone, sorry it's not more posative but thats the way of the industy at the moment.

If you want to swap and change phones you need ot buy a unlocked sim free phone and a simplicity plan, unfortunatly as they are more expensive most people tend to buy subsidised phones and hence the need for a long contract to pay that subsidy off.

martpendle

the blackberry was damaged when i got it, and i needed a fully functioning phone asap so i went with a new handset

the reason i chose an andriod phone was beacuse i was aware thet they got updated, i am fully aware that phones neevr used to be updated, and to be honest i kind of miss it now, it made things so much more simple!

drbesty

I'm sure no-one held a gun to your head and forced you to sign this contract, the Magic was replaced by something better, this happens all the time, what happens when they release a new phone thats better than the Desire, are you gonna moan that you want that instead? If you bought a car would kick up a fuss when they released a newer model?

martpendle

no of course they didnt, it was purely my impatience and frustration about having to send a new phone off for repair, I would have been out of the contract by now and its just annoying that i am not, so when i saw the FUP change i saw it as a way out

bubblesmoney

update your htc magic to a different rom... the froyo version by cyanogen version 6, that version of rom is supposed to beat the samsung galaxy s in performance tests as per articles available online.

if you want to exceed 500mb, it is easy to do it in a few hours!!!!! just go to the android market and download many apps and delete many others if space is an issue and load more apps. especially load apps like google earth and then explore the world map on google earth, you can literally eat data more than you can imagine by zooming the world map (in sattelite image setting in that app, and and as many layers as you can like road names, panoramic photos, traffic, etc etc) and watch the data meter fly!!!! use google navigation and change routes and update over 3g and not over wifi and watch the data use fly.

watch you tube videos after getting the froyo cyanogen ver 6 rom and watch youtube in HQ quality and watch the data use go sky high.

download myplayer app and watch TV on your phone and watch the data use rocket.

download apps like asphalt hd (free demo version of a car racing game, great game works for only a lil while then asks you to buy full version) over 3g connection, the initial download is small but more data about 90 mb is downloaded again while trying to open the app the first time.

do the same for 'super KO boxing 2' and download the game over 3g, it will also need further download of about 70-90mb, it is a free game. enjoy the game.

they might block video streaming but they cant block the android market as that would cripple your phone and you can cancel contract for them making your phone crippled if they block the market. so use the market and download huge apps and games over 3g connection. too many to mention. do all this only if you dont have to pay the data billsand can cancel contract. go to websites with loads of flash adverts and games and they will eat data.

do speedtests atleast 10times a day, probably one after the other, just takes a few mins and it eats data.

set facebook, email, twitter, rss feeds and anything and everything on your phone for updating as frequently as possible. if i was on their desire contracts and they had retrospectively changed the terms like they have now done for existing customers, i too would have been doing overtime ramming my data use to get rid of them. they have been devious by changing an FUP to hard cap and need to give an opt out without penalty to customers they deceived. set up RSS feeds for as many websites as you can and update regularly on 3g. earlier i was updating about 800-900 RSS articles a day (via wifi) and now do about 500 on many days, if you do that over 3g then watch the data use sky rocket. set up a twitter account and follow as many websites as you can and watch your data use rocket, your phone will get filled with junk updates , delete them, just mentioning this as a way of increasing data use if that is what you want to do.

if you have spotify etc then stream continuously, you can finish 500mb in 10-12h of continuous audio streaming on 3g from spotify.

on loads of occassions i have crossed 150mb use in just a few hours, but i keep within my 1gb data limit as use the 3g data judiciously.