Asda Mobile PAYG massive price increase

mikemoate

Went on the Asda site the other day to try to find the price of a call to a mobile in Australia, of course couldn't find it, you have to call their customer services at a cost of 25p to find tariff details for anything other than basic calls - which is a rip off in itself. I digress, let me get to the point.

Whilst on the site I noticed a reference to an increase in call rates from 3rd May which in percentage terms are massive. I went back a few moments later to check again the reference had gone. So I e-mailed them as follows,

"Is it true that Asda Mobile are introducing massive increases on call costs, texts and data, in some cases by more than 100%, from 3rd May?"

I received a response from them today as follows,
"Thanks for your email about our charges.

At the moment, the only information that we have is that the standard call charge will be changing from 8p per minute to 10p per minute, and the standard text charge will be moving from 4p to 6p. There will be plenty of notice given with regards to any change in standard charges on our web site."

So that's a 25% increase on calls, 50% increase on texts, and though they don't mention data I recall reading at the time that this going up from 20p/MB to 50p/MB a massive 150% increase!

Anybody recommend an alternative and reliable alternative PAYG provider? No contracts thanks.

Stuart_W

Thanks for this. Asda increasing to 10p/min and 6p/text. Interesting.

I wonder if Tesco Lite, GiffGaff and Talkmobile Essentials will all follow? ( all 8p/min 4p/text tariffs)

Have a look at those PAYG deals, mikemoate, but if Asda is going up, there is every chance they will too. No one has anything on their website yet from what I can see.

OldGreyFox

www.giffgaff.com allow you to access Freephone Calls for free. Handy if you make intl calls as you can use the likes of http://www.18185.co.uk/mobilerates.php via there 0808 free phone access number for cheaper calls.

virgo17

Giffgaff also give free Giffgaff to Giffgaff calls and texts within three months of your last top up. 60 mins max calls I believe, redial permitted.

paul2468

Vectone...very cheap...also calls abroad cheap.

tony077844

Don't be fooled by giffgaff. Look closely if it meets your needs as there are some things you need to check. firstly 0845 and 0870 calls on giffgaff are a shocking 20p a minute that's nearly three times as expensive as asda at 8p. secondly there internet prices are changing also from april to qualify for internet you must purchase a ten pound bundle to qualify for it. thirdly if your phone is locked you need to cough up to get your mobile unlocked.

A cheaper alternative to asda and gg is icardmobile.co.uk they use the vodafone network and you will not need to unlock your phone if on vodafone or asda. landlines are currently 1p a minute mobiles 5p and texts 4p. 0845 are 10p. but no data. alternatively vectone mobile gives you 1gb of data for five pounds a month on tmobile but call rates are higher. so shop around. remember lots of people on gg are trying to flog sims to get you on board as referrals. so do your homework first.

paul2468

just checked out the icardmobile site, the rates seems to good to be true, more so when you look at how cheap it is to call abroad with them...anyone using them at the moment, i think i may move over to them as i am using two mobiles at the moment...one on lebara to phone canada and one with asda for my uk calls....but this seems to beat both of them.

neil40

tony077844 wrote: »

Don't be fooled by giffgaff. Look closely if it meets your needs as there are some things you need to check. firstly 0845 and 0870 calls on giffgaff are a shocking 20p a minute that's nearly three times as expensive as asda at 8p. secondly there internet prices are changing also from april to qualify for internet you must purchase a ten pound bundle to qualify for it. thirdly if your phone is locked you need to cough up to get your mobile unlocked.

A cheaper alternative to asda and gg is icardmobile.co.uk they use the vodafone network and you will not need to unlock your phone if on vodafone or asda. landlines are currently 1p a minute mobiles 5p and texts 4p. 0845 are 10p. but no data. alternatively vectone mobile gives you 1gb of data for five pounds a month on tmobile but call rates are higher. so shop around. remember lots of people on gg are trying to flog sims to get you on board as referrals. so do your homework first.

On 4th of April you can still get internet on Giffgaff by purchasing a £10 goodybag(utd data/utd texts/250 uk mins) or pay the pay as you go rate of 20p for 20mb then 20p per mb thereafter.

Neil

Stuart_W

neil40 wrote: »

On 4th of April you can still get internet on Giffgaff by purchasing a £10 goodybag(utd data/utd texts/250 uk mins) or pay the pay as you go rate of 20p for 20mb then 20p per mb thereafter.

Neil

To clarify, that's 20p PER DAY for using upto 20MB, not 20p for a 20mb allowance to use up as and when.
As with everything - it all depends on your usage. Virgin charge 25p/day for up to 30MB per day. 30MB in one day on giffgaff would cost £2.20.

It is definitely worth searching for your exact needs - including data, texts, calls, voicemail, 08xx calls, minimum charges etc. They all vary and mobile companies are usually good at promoting their best features, not their worst ones. Orange Monkey, for example, includes 25 free texts each month and a daily dose of 2MB of data in return for a £5 top up - and that's before using any credit. Very useful for some, a waste of time for others.

If you have erratic usage, you have to balance off paying for bundles you don't need verses paying through the nose when you actually do use the phone. An exception is Orange daily bundles, where, for example £1 can get you 25 minutes and a 4p/min run on rate for one day.

iCardMobile seems very cheap, may be worth exploiting for now, but expect either price rises or the company to fold in the next couple of years. I very much doubt their current offer is sustainable long term.

Rusty!

tony077844 wrote: »

Don't be fooled by giffgaff. Look closely if it meets your needs as there are some things you need to check. firstly 0845 and 0870 calls on giffgaff are a shocking 20p a minute that's nearly three times as expensive as asda at 8p.

If you're going to mention that, at least do it accurately. GG's 08* numbers are all 20p per min, ASDA break it down further and a lot of them are actually 35p per min.

JJ_Egan

To clarify, that's 20p PER DAY for using upto 20MB, not 20p for a 20mb allowance to use up as and when.
As with everything - it all depends on your usage. Virgin charge 25p/day for up to 30MB per day. 30MB in one day on giffgaff would cost £2.20.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Dont know where your wrong information comes from .

Virgin PAYG connect internet 30 seconds = 30p
Data charge giffgaff you pay a small amount up to 1mb then its 20p up to 20MB and 20p per MB over that so 30mb costs 40p 80 Mb costs 80p on Virgin 80MB costs 30p + 5x£2 = £10.30 .

Dependant upon what Virgin tariff you are on but as i have both Virgin and GiffGaff as standard PAYG i see the bills for both .

jje