Mobile phone contract loophole

Noraw10

Hello. I have three months remaining on my contract, and I can upgrade for free to a contract at the same value or higher without paying an early upgrade fee (which is usually the value of the remaining months payable). 

Would I be able to upgrade to a new contract and then cancel within the cooling off period to avoid the remaining few months of my contract? Or could a provider then chase me up for those last few months?

user1977

Cancelling the new contract would (probably) only mean that the new contract doesn't kick in, not waive whatever you were still due to pay under the existing contract. But depends on the terms, which we can't see from here...

Carrot007

Upgrading on the same network thery are not required to give you a cooling off period.

But some might revert the contract to the old one if asked in the 14 days.

You are not going to be better off and will probably be worse off. Do try and report back there though.

Alderbank

The 4 major carriers (EE, O2, Three and Vodafone) each have their own different terms, and the dozens of virtual network operators like giffgaff, Tesco mobile, etc. also have different terms.
Added to that, different plans within the same carrier often have different terms as well.
Very roughly speaking, the cheaper the plan the more restrictions there are.

Noraw10

Thanks all. Admittedly haven't read all the terms. I don't think I'll try as it's a risk to be landed with a new, unwanted 24m contract. Just wondered if I was on to something..

nyermen

Where they let you upgrade early, don't they add the remaining term on? Eg. upgrade 3 months early = 27m contract?

That said - yes, i understand the new contract would have a term something like that it resorts back to the old one if cancelled (eg. some sort of variation agreement clause). Not a lawyer, but I sit opposite the commercial ops team in the office who get this sort of thing regularly.