To stay on PAYG or too a yearly contract with o2?

simax

Everyone on this thread is scaremongering to an extent. Almost like "Don't drive your car - you might have an accident".....

If you don't need to call premium rate or international numbers, ask the network to block these calls. Set a lock on your sim and phone.

Result. I could never use PAYG as it's too restrictive. I've been on contracts since 1994 and never had any issues because I followed my rules above.

simax

macman wrote: »

If you average 800-900 minutes per month (that's 15 hours per month), then why would you consider a contract capped at 600 mins? You'll be paying a premium rate for all those extra 200-300 mins.

Re-read the OP. It also has 500 O2 minutes as well, and the OP makes calls to O2 customers too.

Techhead_2

Herongull wrote: »

Buzby is right.

Even if you notice and report your phone lost or stolen within a few hours, the thief will have racked up 100s if not 1,000 of £ worth of calls before the phone is blocked. There have been several posts where this has happened to people.

Thieves sometimes have their own premium number that generates them income. When they steal phones, they just phone that number and rake in money that YOU will have to pay for in your phone bill.

Are you happy to fork out a few thousand £ for premium calls made the thief?

Why risk it? Use PAYG or capped and just enjoy your phone.

If you pin protect the SIM and have a password on the phone, then the chances of the above happening are very very low.

anotheruser

Firstly - don't listen to those above who are wildly scaring you about contracts.
Many people like PAYG but it has many many drawbacks compared with a monthly contract. The posts do have some merit but remember, I would suggest well over 50% of mobile phones are on some sort of contract deal.

Secondly - look at Tesco rather than O2. They provide a great service and offer capped contracts so you can't over spend (or a thief can't call Nigeria), like someone above has stated.
I was lucky to get a £10 / 500mins / 5000texts / 1Gb data deal on a monthly rolling contract (which passed months ago).

Thirdly - do you like your phone?
I bought my phone from Amazon outright. Yes, expensive at ~£400 but then I was free to get a 12 month sim only contract (from O2 at the time), which I could re-negotiate terms after the 12 months was up instead of being locked in for 24 months on the same old terms with (what would have been) an outdated phone after 12 months.
Plus so long as I kept my phone nice, I could re-sell it and make at least half back to help towards funds for a new phone.

If you're fine with your current phone, get a Tesco 30 day contract. It'll ask you during the set up if you want to cap it and you can add your Tesco clubcard to the account.
After a couple of months, you can see if you like it. If not then give your 30 days notice

I was fairly lucky as I went from PAYG to T-Mobile's Flext, which allowed me to use £20 of credit however I wanted. From that I moved on but the way I thought of Flext was that it was the same as PAYG but I didn't have the hassle of topping up.
However all that was before the days of internet like we know it now.