Virgin Lobster mobile phone with built in DAB and TV

haveagoade

Quentin wrote: »

This is from the virgin conditions for the tv service:

......yes yes yes.....I know......but at the end of the day....they can also say

"We Reserve the right to hold the World ransom to 1 million dollars and make everyone wear red VIRGIN underpants "

But is it reasonable?

Sid_Harper

I think it is for them to discontinue the TV service. If the primary purpose of the product was to watch TV, it'd be a TV. But it's a phone, and Virgin Mobile are in the business of mobile phones. So I think you'd lose any fight against them to suggest they should provide you with a TV service.

They tried a business. It didn't take off. It doesn't make sense to continue. Same argument would apply to Sony refusing to make Betamax tapes anymore.

If it's any help www.cex.co.uk will give you £20 for your phones if you want to flog them!

alanclose

I could never get the TV in NI but to be fair to the people upset, the name of the phone is Virgin Lobster 700 TV.

haveagoade

Sid_Harper wrote: »

I think it is for them to discontinue the TV service. If the primary purpose of the product was to watch TV, it'd be a TV. But it's a phone, and Virgin Mobile are in the business of mobile phones. So I think you'd lose any fight against them to suggest they should provide you with a TV service.

They tried a business. It didn't take off. It doesn't make sense to continue. Same argument would apply to Sony refusing to make Betamax tapes anymore.

If it's any help www.cex.co.uk will give you £20 for your phones if you want to flog them!

Not true the primary purpose of the VIRGIN Lobster TV phone was to make money from selling TV Data subscriptions.....otherwise I'd have bought a conventional mobile.

Sid_Harper

I agree with some of what you say and see your point.

However, what I'm saying is that this masterplan to make money from selling TV didn't work for them (partly, I think also that technology has moved on - streaming TV over 3.5G is way cheaper to do than running a unique DAB-based TV streaming service).

Additionally you got the phone for a massive discount (well below their cost, and that of a comparable WM5 smartphone). So I don't think you'd be looked at as someone who's been too hard done by.

Now, if I'd paid £199 for my phone, it could be a slightly different argument you might make. However...

Let's say you were the only person who uses TV, and it costs them £10m a year to keep the service going. I think the best outcome you'd get from a judge (whether you'd paid £20, £200, or £20,000 for your phone) would be to get your money back for the phone. (S)he's not going to tell VirginMobile to continue the service if they're losing money on it because it's not in the interest of the wider customer base (they'll be stuffed if they go bust!).

It's hard to swallow, I agree. If you were in a contract, you could terminate it as I did when T-Mobile withdrew their 2nd line service.

I'm no lawyer, but I'm looking at this from a "what makes economic sense" perspective, which is the angle I would expect a judge to take because this boils down to commercial decision making.

Quentin

Haveagoade, you were the one who asked:

Any comments please.

But any comments posted that you don't like seem to result in you arguing the point.

mm66

my lobster stopped working and after a little argument i was offered a samsung 900 as a replacement since there were no more lobster phones.

haveagoade

Quentin wrote: »

Haveagoade, you were the one who asked:



But any comments posted that you don't like seem to result in you arguing the point.

Not arguing just commenting on comments made.

And the comments made so far seem very passive in that I should roll over and die and accept the situation.

I think I will be perfectly justified in asking for a full refund.

Sid, thanks for your views I think The small claims court.... and if I took my case to it ....is not to decide what makes economic sense for the phone company....its to protect the reasonable rights of myself as a consumer.....it would decide on a full refund, I'm sure.