O2 took money monthly for devices already paid for

Yahoo_Mail

kimwp said:

The premise of those contracts is that you sign up to pay £x a month for a minimum of y months and they give you the phone as part of signing up to that. It's not a contract to pay the phone off and it's an ongoing contract, which means that the only thing that happened was that you passed the date where you were tied in. No other company tells you that you have reached that date eg utilities, broadband etc. It's one of various ways companies try to nudge you into paying longer than the minimum contract (free or discounted monthly payments for an introductory period being another method). It's only a surprise that they didn't offer an upgrade to make more out of you.

Well, some do. Three told me today that my 12-month SIM-only deal was due to end at the end of this month, although I don't think there was going to be a price hike at the end of it.  Credit card companies are required to inform customers that their deals are due to expire, I believe 30 days before they do... Insurance companies need to send out renewal reminders when insurance is close to expiring.. etc etc.

It's not unreasonable to expect some sort of nudge, but equally, it's so trivially easy to keep notes and set reminders nowadays that there's no excuse for relying on other people to give you a heads up.

kimwp

Yahoo_Mail said:

kimwp said:

The premise of those contracts is that you sign up to pay £x a month for a minimum of y months and they give you the phone as part of signing up to that. It's not a contract to pay the phone off and it's an ongoing contract, which means that the only thing that happened was that you passed the date where you were tied in. No other company tells you that you have reached that date eg utilities, broadband etc. It's one of various ways companies try to nudge you into paying longer than the minimum contract (free or discounted monthly payments for an introductory period being another method). It's only a surprise that they didn't offer an upgrade to make more out of you.

Well, some do. Three told me today that my 12-month SIM-only deal was due to end at the end of this month, although I don't think there was going to be a price hike at the end of it.  Credit card companies are required to inform customers that their deals are due to expire, I believe 30 days before they do... Insurance companies need to send out renewal reminders when insurance is close to expiring.. etc etc.

Your 3 example certainly refutes my "no other companies do that", but I think these other examples are not the same situation (ie sign up to an ongoing contract to pay the same amount each month): credit cards are not the same thing - you're not paying for a service, you are borrowing money so there are legal obligations on the lender. Insurance companies are informing you of a renewal of contract rather than the end of the minimum term. 
It probably should be simpler....

stragglebod

kimwp said:

Yahoo_Mail said:

kimwp said:

The premise of those contracts is that you sign up to pay £x a month for a minimum of y months and they give you the phone as part of signing up to that. It's not a contract to pay the phone off and it's an ongoing contract, which means that the only thing that happened was that you passed the date where you were tied in. No other company tells you that you have reached that date eg utilities, broadband etc. It's one of various ways companies try to nudge you into paying longer than the minimum contract (free or discounted monthly payments for an introductory period being another method). It's only a surprise that they didn't offer an upgrade to make more out of you.

Well, some do. Three told me today that my 12-month SIM-only deal was due to end at the end of this month, although I don't think there was going to be a price hike at the end of it.  Credit card companies are required to inform customers that their deals are due to expire, I believe 30 days before they do... Insurance companies need to send out renewal reminders when insurance is close to expiring.. etc etc.

Your 3 example certainly refutes my "no other companies do that", but I think these other examples are not the same situation (ie sign up to an ongoing contract to pay the same amount each month): credit cards are not the same thing - you're not paying for a service, you are borrowing money so there are legal obligations on the lender. Insurance companies are informing you of a renewal of contract rather than the end of the minimum term. 
It probably should be simpler....

It's simpler if you change the way you look at it. Don't think of a mobile phone contract as an '18 month contract'. Think of it as a contract that doesn't end, but is expensive to change if you don't wait 18 months.