Batter down your mobile contract cost

mbailey

mbailey wrote:

I phoned Vodafone to request PAC codes on my 2 sim cards and was offered 30 mins calls + 30 text + 30 video minutes for £9 per month (1/2 price line rental) for 8 months, month 9 at £18 and then Month 10 to 12 could be renegotiated. They also threw in a free Motorola V980.

I really want the Sony Ericsson V800, but when I asked Vodafone for this, they just told me the upgrade fee would be at least £150 and I wouldn't get 1/2 price line rental.

Has anyone else managed to get the V800 out of Vodafone free and on a decent deal?

The best I have seen from other sites for the phone on a new contract with Vodafone is e2save with "3G Anytime 300" 12 month contract for £30 per month and £100 cashback.

Just had a call from Vodafone and managed to get them to offer me the following:

Free Sony Ericsson V800
New 12 month contract
Line rental £28 per month
1/2 line rental for 8 months

Total cost for 1 year = £224

I pushed hard, but they wouldn't do any better than this. I think it is good deal. :j

shyen_kotecha

Hi

Zero line rental offer on t-mobiles u fix. currently free phone and free line rental without the need to wait for ages for the cashback !

https://www.scancom.co.uk home page has it with a half decent phone.

Slight different subject here...but pla station portable stuff on lik-sang.com - real cheap

Shyen

hard_up_and_fed_up

My other half had been a customer of Orange for 9-10 years (since the house brick design!!). He pays over £120 in bills most months and called up do let them know he was thinking of changing networks. They told him that he was not eligible for any offers (although contract runs out soon) and was happy to take his instruction to reduce his contract to minimum and give him the total to clear his contract!! He phoned disconnections and they too freely gave him his PAT code once he had coughed up the cash. They never would have beaten 3's offer (£15 p/m for 12 months 500 x network and 100 text compared to orange 400 mins no texts for £40) but it would have been nice to think they cared enough to ask why.
P.S, if anyone does want to pay up their contract early, be sure to get put on the minimum contract first! Will save you loads!

loopy_lass

whoooo hooooo...using martins suggestions, last week i got my £25 per month 100 xnet & 500 text changed to a new all singing all dancing samsung D500 with 200 xnet mins & 500 text per month for £20.... with o2 online .... whooooo hooooooo


loops

testmatchspecial

I got the 500 mins for £25 deal from Orange by threatening to leave last year. Well, this year, I rang them on the day my contract ran out and asked for my PAC code and told them that I could get the same deal from 3 and £125 cashback from an online offer. Not only did they give me the phone I asked for (D500), but they gave me £125 credit on my bill to match the cashback I could get!

I sold the phone on ebay for £200 (nothing wrong with my 7250i), so I got £325 out of the deal as a whole. That pays for my phone bill for almost a year!

Crom_2

Hmmm, either I'm a crap customer or my business just isn't worth it. I've been with them 8 years or so, paying around £30 per month for ever! Tried to get a decent upgrade but the best they'd offer me is 400 anytime/x net minutes for £30 per month. They weren't budging on the texts though. I said to them if you can include 30 free texts with that you have my business...to no avail. I've got my PAC number and I'm off in search of a new deal!

Compared to 3 (and other networks' offers) that deal is laughable. Anyone have any thoughts as to what I'm doing wrong?

Crom

jaymac_2

loopy_lass wrote:

whoooo hooooo...using martins suggestions, last week i got my £25 per month 100 xnet & 500 text changed to a new all singing all dancing samsung D500 with 200 xnet mins & 500 text per month for £20.... with o2 online .... whooooo hooooooo


loops

How did you manage that? I've just tried and seem to've agreed to pay £30 a month for the same deal with a new samsung 720.....obviously I neee assertiveness lessons - or are your bills really high?

frederickb

I tried it on with Vodaphone as I have 4 phones with them and have had for 6/7 years. Bills monthly are around £500-700 per month. There was no negotiation, no nothing. Have asked for PAC codes for all the phones and not once was I offered a better deal. Stated the 3 deal and the Orange deal, but no biting from them at all, They were so elaxed it was unbelieveable. Some months our bills are over £1000.00 and they are always paid by direct debit.

well they have lost a good customer.

Story goes that you can't always win or the girl I got just didn't give a s*&t

Eric Patterson

MSE_Martin wrote:

This has now been turned into a full article. !To read it click here


Make one call for 300 cross network minutes, 30 extra texts and a new camera phone:

Now, I admit I’m showing off (though truth be told I should've done this ages ago - but even for me sometimes time gets the better of you), but the above is the result of the deal I negotiated today with my mobile phone provider just by making a call. !

It was easy, all I did was tell it, if I didn’t get a better package I’d leave. !Try it yourself and then reply to this to let me know how you did (i hope you do even better than me!)

The Story:
It’s important to note, I’m an Orange contract customer, and I want to stay that way as it enables me to use the ‘mobile override' trick !(click here to read). !Therefore negotating a better package rather than actually leaving was important. !It went a bit like this.

Martin: “Hi, I have a package with you, frankly I’m not happy, the mobile network Three offers 500 cross network mins (means you can call mobiles too) for £25 a month, and I’m paying £30/month for just 200 mins.

This simply isn’t good enough, while I want to stick with you, unless you can offer me something better, I’m going to have to leave.”

Orange: “Sorry Mr. Lewis, let me put you through to our specialist disconnections department and see if we can find anyway to improve it.”

Thus I repeated my mantra to disconnections.

Orange disconnections “I think we can help, we can match that Three tariff for the same price.”(note: Orange’s own 400 min package costs £50 a month)

Martin: “that’s not part of your normal price match plan?”

Orange disconnections “Nope, it’s a special offer for valued customers” (sub-text: we’ll pull out all the stops if we’re going to lose you).

After quickly checking this didn’t invalidate my ‘override trick’ potential, I proceeded to ask for more text messages and got them too, 30 a month more. ! Then the man happily told me it was upgrade time, pick a phone any phone, what do you want? !So I opted for a snazzy, new, tiny camera phone, with radio and tri-band – all of course for now extra charge.

It pays to be an ‘unhappy’ customer. !Try it – with any network, see how far you get, report your feedback here.

frederickb

I tried it on with singlepoint, phones4u and now Vodaphone today as I have 4 contract phones spending between £400 & £600 per month and in some months as much as £1000.00. Got no help and no response form the staff. I was polite as anything and threatened to leave with all 4 contracts. (all paid by standing order). The girl was helpful but refused to offer anything close to match. I asked for the PAC codes for all phones (Note we have been with this company for around seven years now) and got no offer of cutting costs or new phones.

Looks like loyalty is not always the best. Have told them to take the phones down to the basic package for now until I find a new network which will work closer with us.

Any suggestions?? Have my daughter on 3 but she never really goes outside of Belfast and I hear they are not great on ceverage in some areas.

Eric

jaymac_2

jaymac wrote:

How did you manage that? I've just tried and seem to've agreed to pay £30 a month for the same deal with a new samsung 720.....obviously I neee assertiveness lessons - or are your bills really high?

quoting myself, that's bad but I found out where I went wrong. I was talking to upgrades not disconnections. I called back and got connected to disconnections and told them I wasn't happy because my friend had a better deal, they offered me three months at half price but I said perhaps it was time to look at other providers so i got offered twelve months half price instead.. Daughter is well chuffed as it's really her phone and she;s looking forward to a brand new phone this week. I wonder if I'll inherit the old one for all my hard work?