Pay as you Go mobile from carphone warehouse £10 a month?

UKSBD

I go in to carphone warehouse to buy a cheap back up pay as you go mobile.

Choose the one I want, go to pay for it to find I can only buy it if I take out a bundle which is £10 a month.

I say I don't want a bundle so will have a different handset instead to be told they don't do them without a bundle!

How can this be classed as Pay as you go?

NiftyDigits

You can cancel the bundle once you have the phone. What they might mean is that you have to buy an initial top-up. There is no obligation to keep that bundle attached to the SIM. In fact you can throw the SIM away after you've used up your credit. But it's probably easier just to call the network and to remove the bundle. Which network?

UKSBD

Network was EE


It definitely wasn't a top-up, they said they don't sell pay as you go phones without a bundle.


I thought you could just cancel, it's the principal of it that annoyed me, I dare say they bank on the fact people don't cancel.


This is just an emergency back up phone for my daughter, hopefully it won't get used, so £10 a month is just taking the p***

[Deleted User]

You have to top up £10 to get the thing going. From there, EE's SIMs are pre-programmed to turn your £10 credit into a "£10 bundle" (they call the bundles "Everything Packs"), which is a batch of minutes and texts which expire after 30 days.

You'll have to resign yourself to the first £10 topup only lasting 30 days, but all you should need to do is text STOP PACK to 150 before the 30 days are up, and then your next top up will stay as pounds and pence.

grumbler

UKSBD wrote: »

I go in to carphone warehouse to buy a cheap back up pay as you go mobile.

Choose the one I want, go to pay for it to find I can only buy it if I take out a bundle which is £10 a month.

I say I don't want a bundle so will have a different handset instead to be told they don't do them without a bundle!

How can this be classed as Pay as you go?

Beware that the minimum topup can depend on the network, but all their phones are not locked and work on any network. It's worth checking online before going to a shop or just buy online.

Also, if you have an active PAYG sim you may qualify for much cheaper PAYG upgrade that doesn't require a topup.

[Deleted User]

Also, EE isn't the cheapest network out there. Consider Asda Mobile - uses EE's network, but a quarter of the price per minute.

grumbler

Delight Mobile is 3p/min against Asda's 8p. The same EE signal.

macman

White Mobile is another option, 3p/min to mobiles, also runs on EE.

oldharryrocks

macman wrote: »

White Mobile is another option, 3p/min to mobiles, also runs on EE.

But they actually charge 6p a minute to UK Mobiles .

oldharryrocks

You could use a callback service from any UK Network like
https://www.localphone.com/services/callback

and only pay 3.6 a minute to UK Mobiles 1.8 x2

And 1p a minute to UK Landlines. 0.5p x 2

NO charge for calling callback number.

They call both you and your contact so you’ll pay the low rates for both parts of the call.

Prepaid account will work on any UK Network.

You just need to keep some credit on your pay as you go phone to keep it going , and make a call every 180 days or less depending on your networks requirements.

zagubov

oldharryrocks wrote: »

You could use a callback service from any UK Network like
https://www.localphone.com/services/callback

and only pay 3.6 a minute to UK Mobiles 1.8 x2

And 1p a minute to UK Landlines. 0.5p x 2

NO charge for calling callback number.

They call both you and your contact so you’ll pay the low rates for both parts of the call.

Prepaid account will work on any UK Network.

You just need to keep some credit on your pay as you go phone to keep it going , and make a call every 180 days or less depending on your networks requirements.

That's worth knowing. I'm on a low PAYG with three but anything that cuts down on costs is good news for me.