Vodafone: avoid them if looking for a new contract

salvyria

grumbler wrote: »

A 'free upgrading' with an expensive contract attached is a common delusion.
Why did you not have the option of buying sim-free?

£41 is a very expensive contract that only high-earners can really afford. If you were one of them I am surprised that while paying £41 p.m. for a mobile you don't have enough saved for not discussing seriously defaulting if Vodafone don't reduce the price a little for just 6 months remaining.

I didnt upgrade for free, I paid £99 for the phone. I didnt have money to buy SIM free handset at the time, and I dont think it crossed my mind that was an option.

At the time I earn(t) enough as I'd got a great new job, as did my partner. He was redundant for a short while in 2012 so our savings went on that.

Since my upgrade we've had his job loss, and two kids (saved for), money is a lot tighter than it was so not as much is put into savings as it was back then. 18mo is a long time!

NFH

salvyria wrote: »

I didnt upgrade for free, I paid £99 for the phone. I didnt have money to buy SIM free handset at the time, and I dont think it crossed my mind that was an option.

Do you buy all goods on a "buy now pay later" basis or just mobile phones? Why not save up until you do have the money to buy something instead of taking out a disguised loan when the income to repay that loan is not 100% certain? Paying for something in arrears is almost always more expensive than saving up in advance and it introduces risks which have materialised in your case.

salvyria

NFH wrote: »

Do you buy all goods on a "buy now pay later" basis or just mobile phones? Why not save up until you do have the money to buy something instead of taking out a disguised loan when the income to repay that loan is not 100% certain? Paying for something in arrears is almost always more expensive than saving up in advance and it introduces risks which have materialised in your case.

I save up when I can, yes and buy things outright. I suppose I upgraded in this way because I've always done so.

We, in our house, do our best and learn our lessons. We are slow at it, but like a lot of people, we've learnt the hard way what good financial sense/money mangement is, and those lessons take time to implement. I didnt have anyone to teach me these things, I've taught myself using the likes of MSE.

I shant use this forum again if this is how you treat people. I came onto here because I expected it to be a place for help, advice and a little understanding.

I really did expect more helpful advice from users of this forum, not just a telling off from a load smug, perfect, saving saintly keyboard warriors!

NFH

salvyria wrote: »

I save up when I can, yes and buy things outright. I suppose I upgraded in this way because I've always done so.

Why had you always used "buy now pay later" for mobile phones but not for other goods?

salvyria wrote: »

I shant use this forum again if this is how you treat people. I came onto here because I expected it to be a place for help, advice and a little understanding.

You didn't ask for help or advice. In your first post, you suggested without good reason to avoid Vodafone as a result of what had happened. On the contrary, many people might think it's a good reason to choose Vodafone because they will not expect their paying customers to subsidise their non-paying customers. If on the other hand you had asked for advice on how to negotiate something with Vodafone, you might have had much more helpful and useful replies.

Earthworm

Last time this came up I believe the only network to offer a downgrade during the contract is Orange but this could have also changed. T-Mobile, O2, Vodafone, Three and EE do not allow any form of downgrade and rightfully so. Allowing a downgrade could cost each operator £60 quid per contract downgrade and if taken advantage of would push up the overall cost of contracts by potentially £2.50 per month for others.

The best way to choose the contract in the first place is to focus on cost and signal alone. Usage can be adjusted to suit most packages with a bit of will power and monitoring. It might be difficult and isn't exactly helpful at this stage but you could end up back in this situation again and again.

Choosing your contract based on the data you want regardless of the cost didn't cause redundancy but has come back to bite you and can be avoided. Redundancy is never nice but isn't the fault of your network. Good luck.

salvyria

Earthworm wrote: »

Choosing your contract based on the data you want regardless of the cost didn't cause redundancy but has come back to bite you and can be avoided. Redundancy is never nice but isn't the fault of your network. Good luck.

Thanks Earthworm. I have been passed on to some specialist team at Vodafone, so will get a decent answer/resolution soon I hope.

andychelt

NFH wrote: »

Do you buy all goods on a "buy now pay later" basis or just mobile phones? Why not save up until you do have the money to buy something instead of taking out a disguised loan when the income to repay that loan is not 100% certain?

What a sanctimonious little attitude you have! Whether I agree either way with the op, your smug, self righteous attitude hasn't helped in anyway so why bother posting in the first place?!

salvyria

andychelt wrote: »

What a sanctimonious little attitude you have! Whether I agree either way with the op, your smug, self righteous attitude hasn't helped in anyway so why bother posting in the first place?!

Thanks Andychelt.

NFH

andychelt wrote: »

What a sanctimonious little attitude you have! Whether I agree either way with the op, your smug, self righteous attitude hasn't helped in anyway so why bother posting in the first place?!

The OP started the thread by unreasonably urging everyone to avoid taking out a new contract with Vodafone because Vodafone wouldn't partially write off its disguised loan to the OP. The OP didn't ask for help, but instead had a go at Vodafone for behaving perfectly reasonably.

I have little sympathy with those who have a "I want it now" attitude by acquiring goods on credit rather than saving up until they can afford it. It is a financially irresponsible way to live and Vodafone shouldn't have to bail out the OP as a result.

Silk

salvyria wrote: »

Last time I faced redundancy ... 2007, I was with 02 and they were most helpful

So if O2 helped you out when you were made redundant last time why did you repay their loyalty by changing to another providor ???