Beware Tesco Mobile with the iPhone 4

anyusernameleft

I took out a £335 deposit contract + £35 a month call charges with Tesco Mobile. (Largely because Martin said they were a good deal).

First Tesco took out TWO accounts in my name with TWO iPhone 4s, one of which was paid for by Tesco's saleslady with a total stranger's credit card. (I'd like to meet him because I had a hell of a time persuading Tesco that that's what they'd done and he owes me) Both phones they sent me because once they start an order they can't stop it. I had a lot of trouble getting it sorted out (Well I thought it was sorted out)
As instructed by Tesco Mobile I refused delivery of the phone not associated with my credit card and it was returned to them. I received a call saying they had received the phone and the second account in my name would be closed but two weeks later it is still open and I stand to be charged the monthly fee on it.

The phone I took delivery of was unusable. The call quality was too poor to be able to hold a conversation and much of the time there was no signal at all. I am in central London and Tesco Mobile told me the signal was fine but they suggested a replacement phone as they could hardly hear me and the call kept dropping. Tesco looked like taking weeks to replace it so in the interim I took it to the Apple Store.

Apple were great and their genius bar replaced the phone with one that was much better but people's voices were still distorted somewhat and there wasn't much improvement in the ability to actually make a call. Calls dropped or I just had no signal. Apple store said it was the network. It was unacceptable as a working phone, particularly one that expensive and I am taking advantage of Tesco's 14 day returns policy to get rid of it as it is no use as a regular phone. Tesco say in that case I have to pay the call and data charges at the full rate, not the tarrif I signed up for, which is fine, I hardly made any calls because I couldn't, and except for one day the iPhone was in my house 8 feet from my WIFI network transmitter and shouldn't have accumulated much in the way of data charges. According to Tesco however, in spite of the fact that Data Roaming was off and there was a full strength wireless network available at all times, in just two weeks my data charges that Tesco are going to charge me for this faulty phone are over £200 pounds. My laptop is on the same WIFI and so are my neighbours, why is the phone racking up £206 of GPRS charges when it is supposed to default to the available WIFI network?

On top of this I have HUGE charges on my old mobile phone network because of all the calls to Tesco's premium rate call centres trying to sort the whole mess out.

Tesco's customer services are highly variable and largely inefficient and this data charge is extortionate. I have run a search and found other people with the same problem. Tesco use the data charge as a threat to stop unhappy customers exercising the 14 day option if the phone doesn't work and many are staying with the contract even though the phone doesn't work properly because they can't afford the huge data charges if they try to leave.

Be very, very careful when buying an iPhone from Tesco Mobile.

And if anyone has any helpful advice it would be greatly appreciated.

JJ_Egan

Are you mistaking Data Roaming with Mobile Data .
Mobile Data is connecting to the internet via your network all Smartphones are always on 24 hours for mobile data unless you specifically switch mobile data off .
So that could be the usual high data charge .
So i would check that it is supposed to default to wifi and that the settings are such .

jje

anyusernameleft

The bill says GPRS. The iPhone is supposed to use any WIFI network available and only use it's own connection when one isn't available. So I would have expected charges on the day or so I took it out but not when it was 8 feet from a WIFI transmitter.

Update: I've just discovered that Tesco charges GPRS at £4 per MB : http://www.tesco.com/mobilenetwork/content.aspx?page=36

Is that a lot? I seems like a lot to me.

Mazzini

anyusernameleft wrote: »

The bill says GPRS. The iPhone is supposed to use any WIFI network available and only use it's own connection when one isn't available. So I would have expected charges on the day or so I took it out but not when it was 8 feet from a WIFI transmitter.

Update: I've just discovered that Tesco charges GPRS at £4 per MB : http://www.tesco.com/mobilenetwork/content.aspx?page=36

Is that a lot? I seems like a lot to me.

Compared to other providers, yes it is.

watcherman

I was almost caught out by this when I returned an iP4, despite them taking line rental in advance when you buy the phone, ie handset price + £20 for the first month's line rental, if you return they refund you the £20, and then treat it as though you've had no inclusive allowance, so if you downloaded 100mb over the 14 days you've had it, you now owe them £400 to return the phone!

If this is a recommended buy, Martin should make this VERY clear on the article!

anyusernameleft

I've talked to a friend who's a lawyer. He says the 14 day cooling off thing is a diversion by Tesco and the actual point is that I haven't changed my mind about buying the phone, Tesco have failed to provide one that worked acceptably well and therefor is not fit for purpose and that's why I'm rejecting it.
Under my statuary rights I am entitled to a complete refund and the contract cannot supercead this.
Now I've just got to argue that with Tesco. What fun.
He says I can take them to the Small Claims court to get the money back if I have to.

Watcherman, you say almost caught out, how did you deal with it?

anyusernameleft

And maybe I should write to the Daily Mail: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1342426/Mobile-phone-tariffs-Millions-paying-phones-UK-finds-watchdog.html

watcherman

anyusernameleft wrote: »

Watcherman, you say almost caught out, how did you deal with it?

Persuaded the girl in the shop to do the refund, and she refunded me handset price and the £20 up-front line rental.

Tesco then prepared an online bill saying I was in credit by phone amount + line rental - usage, and then never refunded anything.

So I got my original layout back.

anyusernameleft

Gosh good for you!
I bought and paid over the phone though, the shops round here never had any iPhones. I've posted it back in the bag they sent me.

Wintermute

anyusernameleft wrote: »

And maybe I should write to the Daily Mail: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1342426/Mobile-phone-tariffs-Millions-paying-phones-UK-finds-watchdog.html

The main problem is the vast majority of people out there base their decision on which contract to go for on the price of their chosen handset, inclusive allowance is generally an after thought. People use the term "contract phone" everyday, but never consider what the "contract" bit actually means and generally their inclusive allowances are an after thought.
Most of the time they'll setup a direct debit and ignore it until their bill is significantly higher than what they're used to, a lot of the time this means they're using only a small percentage of their inclusive allowance or some of the time it'll mean that they're constantly going over their allowance.

anyusernameleft

Inclusive allowance was my first thought. I could have got the handset free and paid a lot more for rather less for a lot longer for the monthly charges. Where it all fell down was that Tesco couldn't supply an adequately functioning phone and have no proper system in place to remedy this, only one to try and stop you leaving even though you've paid half the price of the phone up front and the first months call charges already and are stuck with a very expensive piece of kit that doesn't work properly.