Completely FREE 18 month contract!

shitworth

I can't quite believe the conversation I have just had with O2. After being with them on a £25 a month contract for 2 years, I called to cancel it because I get a phone provided with my new job and, although I'm not strictly supposed to use it for personal calls, I know that the ~£20 I spend per month will not be noticed amongst the £100s (sometimes £1000s) that some of my colleagues rack up on business trips to Singapore, Korea, Nigeria, etc.

After I had told the guy at O2 that I would like to cancel and why he asked if would be interested in finding out what sort of deal they could offer me to make me stay. Out of curiosity I said yes, having no intention of taking up their offer. He asked what I would be after and I said at least 200 any-network anytime minutes and 200 texts per month. He told me that they usually do a package of 200 mins and 400 texts for £25 per month but as a valued customer I could get that for £10 per month. Not bad, thought I, but still not as good as my free work phone.

He then asked if I would want a new phone and I told him that I already had one that suited me fine. He said that in that case rather than providing me with my free upgrade he could credit my account with £180, which would conveniently cover the £10 per month charge for the duration of the 18 month contract.

To be sure I had heard correctly, I checked that he was indeed offering me everything I needed in a contract for absolutely no charge whatsoever. He confirmed that this was the case and I graciously accepted.

I can't believe that this is standard O2 practice: if it is I'm expecting them to go bust fairly soon. My guess is that the guy I spoke to has to meet targets for keeping people and has certain weapons in his arsenal to help him to do so. I advise anyone trying to cut their costs to say they have a free work phone and that they do not need a new phone. You could save a fortune.

epz_2

the cost of txt's is near 0 for mobile operators and the cost of calls aint that much either, so to have you on their books it isnt actually costing them much.

they make money when people call you, make money if you go over your free mins/go abroad/use data services and also it looks good to the investors cause they have lower customer churn and a greater number of customers.

mobilejunkie

Sounds like cpw O2 rather than O2?

FannyHill

Well that's the best deal I've ever heard of.

Can't get much cheaper than free.

alnsv1000s

I have got a customer of mine 2 x upgrades on flext 25 with a samsung e900 for free with free line rental for 18 months.

He receives a hell of a lot of calls where they earn most of the money.

mobilejunkie

How do they earn money from incoming calls unless they're from abroad?

alnsv1000s

When you call a different network from landlines or a mobile the network you are calling from has to pay the network you are calling a fee.

I have just recently upgraded another customer on TMobile on a Daytime 3000 tariff which is £15 + Vat per month and got him an N95 for Free and £10 a month line rental discount.

The guy in know in business retentions said even though he stays within his allowance and doesn't pay any more than the line rental cost, he gives TMobile an income of £40 a month due to the amount of incoming calls he receives.

If for instance you are a Flext 35 customer and use all of your allowance to call other networks, and don't receive a lot of calls from other networks, your customer value is a lot less than someone who is on a lower tariff and receives a lot of calls or someone who mainl calls the same network.

i.e TMobile have to pay 2p a minute to the other network, so if you used 900 minutes it would have cost TMobile £18 that month, therefore giving TMobile an income of £17 per month.

That is why Three PAYG brought out WePay, as they gave some of the money they recieve back to you.

mobilejunkie

Interesting! Actually it's quite funny; I pay the network, the network pays the dealers I got the contract from, the dealer pays me back more than they got from the network and the networks use the money I've recirculated to them to pay each other too. I get my free deals, the network gets my subscription less the commission they pay to the dealer and the dealer funds the whole process. Which makes everyone except the dealer happy - until a dealer goes bust, of course!