Closed Account with remaining Charge for Phone

gavinbrad71

Hello all,

After some advice please.

After 3 months of wrangling with Tesco Mobile, they have agreed that they can't give reliable service/coverage to me at my home address and will close my account writing off the remaining airtime charges. (It declined since I first took the account out with them)

But, I must pay £240, as this is the outstanding amount on the phone. I have offered to return the phone as it is is in excellent condition and is boxed. (It is a 11 months old)

But they have insisted no I must pay the remaining amount on the phone to close the account.

So what are my rights here? Do I have no option but to pay for the phone in order to close the account?

Thanks in advance for advice. :-)

Browntoa

whats the phone ?


is it worth more than £240 and could be resold ?


the "free" phone is separate to the sim contract so I suspect they are correct

gavinbrad71

It is an iPhone 5s, 16Gb in Silver. I think worth about £180. (according to eBay)

DUTR

gavinbrad71 wrote: »

It is an iPhone 5s, 16Gb in Silver. I think worth about £180. (according to eBay)

So pay the £240 to tesco, sell the phone for £180 and you only had to find £60 and your credit record remains intact.

SnowTiger

I guess they're calculating the charges at their Anytime Upgrade tariff rate: http://shop.tescomobile.com/pay-monthly/mobile-phones/apple/iphone+5s+16gb/tariff?deal=21798.

IPhone S5 costs £18.50 a month plus the tariff charge. As there's 13 months of the contract's minimum term remaining, that's £240.50.

Presumably you like that phone. Why not use it on another network? Obviously those that piggyback on O2 won't be any use to you.

J_B

Before you 'burn your bridges' with Tesco, as it's an iPhone, just remember that ...
YOU
must ask them to unlock it
then you can either use it on another network, or sell it at a higher value.

pepdavies

Ask them to unlock it if necessary before closing your account, otherwise I believe it will be difficult to unlock in future. It might be worth more than you think, I just paid £200 for mine and it has a few scratches