Mobile phone Contract help!

Watson1988

Hi, this is my first thread on this site so please excuse me if I miss out any information which may have already covered my topic!!

Basically, I am in a situation I feel I cannot do anything about. I lost my mobile phone during a journey which I travelled in a bus and a taxi. I phoned the bus company the day after and asked them to check the bus or see if anything was handed in that matched the description of my phone, but I had no luck. Following this I phoned the taxi service the day after and asked them the same question, but had no luck there either.

I then proceeded to contact the police and obtain a lost phone reference number so that I could claim a new one off my Insurance. I received this and went into my mobile store and processed a claim. I was advised to wait 72 hours for my claim to be processed. Upon me not hearing anything after the 72 hours I contacted the store and asked them to check my claim which I later found had been declined. This is due to the fact that I failed to notify the police within 48 hours.

The situation I am in now is that I have a remaining 6 months left on my contract and despite having paid for phone insurance, I have not had my phone replaced, which means I am paying £55 per month for something I cannot get any use of. I explained this to my service providers and they basicaly said, tuff luck. They started quoting various things from my terms and conditions, saying that the phone itself is just an incentitive for a customer to purchase the contract, and all we pay for is the actual minutes and text messages we are supposed to get *free*. I am so confused and annoyed at this that I don't know how to handle it or what I am supposed to do, I will pay a total of £330 for absoloutely nothing, and there is nothing I can do about it? Am I right in saying that I have been well and truely conned? Im 18 and am a very responsible person, I obviously didn't lose the phone on purpose, and thought I was helping by using my initiative to locate the phone myself, its like Im being punished for it!

Any help would be greatly appreciated, and apologies for such a long thread!

Kind regards,
Adam

fleagle21

Do yourself or your parents have home insurance? Sometimes policies have a clause which covers certain items being taken out of the home. Worth a check just incase.

Quentin

You could buy a cheap unlocked second hand phone to get the use of your network contract.

-1-

Either :-

1. Get a cheap phone or a second hand phone and ask for a replacement sim card so you can use your free minutes texts you are paying for.

2. Lower the line rental to the lowest plan possible, then do above so your using the contract but paying less.

3. Lower the line rental to the lowest possible and pay off the contract, usually however many months left x the monthly charge, obviously high on your current plan but might not be too bad on the lowest plan.

Then you are cancelled, free from the network and you can start again with the same or different network and probably get a decent phone for free as your a new customer.

4. See if you are covered on home insurance.

5. Do nothing.

Watson1988

Will they allow me to lower my line rental if I have only been with them for just under half of the allotted contract time, and will this situation prevent me from having another contract (i.e blacklisting my name etc)??

Quentin

Each network has different conditions regarding when you can change tariff - and if there is any cost involved.

Changing tariffs has no stigma attached to it, so you can contact your network to enquire if you can change now - you usually need to request a change prior to the next billing date, as changes take effect on the new month.