1p mobile now introducing £10 charge every 90 days

I_luv_cats

 No notification from 1pm. (Appeared on dashboard between old boost and new boost) 

If you don’t have a Boost bundle 1p mobile will deduct upto £10 from your balance every 90 days! 

(I.e. if you spend 1p only, (within 90 days) they will take £9.99 from your balance, if they can’t take £9.99 they will suspend your service until you top-up, though will disconnect you in 10 days if don’t top-up. 

PAYMENT, TOP-UP AND SPEND REQUIREMENT

a. For customers who are not taking a Boost/bundle (i. e. pure PAYG customers)

i. Your 1pMobile service is subject to a minimum spend on calls, text, data and Boosts of £10 every 90 days. If your actual spend during any 90-day billing period is below £10, we will deduct the shortfall from the credit balance on your account; your usage period runs on a 90-day cycle from the Commencement Date, or for customers whos Commencement Data is before 1 February 2024 the date notified to you. If we are unable to collect the shortfall because your credit balance is insufficient for us to do so, then your service will immediately be suspended until i) the date you top-up your 1pMobile account, and (ii) 10 days have elapsed (in which case we will close your 1pMobile account and your mobile number will be disconnected), whichever shall come earlier. In addition, if the balance on your 1pMobile account falls to zero and you do not make a top-up within the following 10 days, then we will close your 1pMobile account and your mobile number will be disconnected.

ii. Closure of your account means,

1. we will close your 1pMobile account,
2. your mobile number will be disconnected,
3. and any unused credit will be lost.
4. If you have ported a mobile number to us then the number will be returned to the issuing network provider and may not be retrievable.

b. For customers who are taking a Boost/bundle

i. In order to remain a customer of our Boost Sservice, you must pay us the monthly amounts set out in your contract. If you fail to pay the monthly Boost charge, your Service will revert to our Pay-as-you-go service.

ii. If all Boosts have ended you will revert to the standard PAYG

requirements as set out above, with the 90 day usage period starting

flaneurs_lobster

Sneaky, I too have had no notification of this.

From the (new) T&Cs quoted above (but not relevant to the price rise)

i. In order to remain a customer of our Boost Sservice, you must pay us the monthly amounts set out in your contract. 

Very unprofessional, letting typos into your T&Cs.

Every one of the "Boost" offers on the website states "No contract - No hassle", so don't know where "your contract" mentioned above is defined.

ProDave

There used to be a minimum period before you had to pay £10,  What was it previously I think it was 120 days.

I had been happy on the £36 per year unlimited calls and texts and 250MB data, I see that is now £48 per year, but does now include 500MB data.

In simple terms the minimum spend has gone up from £3 per month to £4 per month.

Stompa

It doesn't come as much of a surprise, after all they have form for doing this sort of thing:

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2021/10/some-1p-mobile-will-see-their-minimum-spend-change-to-p2-50-ever/

savergrant

Stompa said:

It doesn't come as much of a surprise, after all they have form for doing this sort of thing:

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2021/10/some-1p-mobile-will-see-their-minimum-spend-change-to-p2-50-ever/

I was one of those customers, deducted £2.50 minimum every month, even after they had withdrawn the condition for new joiners. So on the very rare occasions I needed to spend more than £2.50 in a month I no longer had it in credit!

savergrant

ProDave said:

There used to be a minimum period before you had to pay £10,  What was it previously I think it was 120 days.

I had been happy on the £36 per year unlimited calls and texts and 250MB data, I see that is now £48 per year, but does now include 500MB data.

In simple terms the minimum spend has gone up from £3 per month to £4 per month.

There is a big difference between having to topup £10 and then being able to use it as needed and having £10 deducted from your credit balance. Although if you have a massive credit balance having £10 deducted is preferable to having your account closed and losing the lot.

Stuart_W

Not many homes left for low users. The whole premise of being called "1p mobile" with 1p/min calls is pretty much lost if it's actually cheaper to be on the £36/year unlimited tariff than pay as you go at 1p a minute, as that will cost a minimum of £40/year. RWG may be a better PAYG option for some low users. 

zagfles

It looks like this is replacing the £10 min top-up requirement every 120 days. Nothing has changed on my dashboard, it's still showing next top-up due date, so maybe they're phasing it in for existing customers. There's nowhere that tells me when my 90 days starts/ends. Have other peoples' dashboard changed? What does it show? 

Interesting that the £3 1GB data boost which I usually buy could mean only £9 spend every 90 days and then I presumably wouldn't be a "pure PAYG" customer so not subject to the £10 min charge??

zagfles

Stuart_W said:

Not many homes left for low users. The whole premise of being called "1p mobile" with 1p/min calls is pretty much lost if it's actually cheaper to be on the £36/year unlimited tariff than pay as you go at 1p a minute, as that will cost a minimum of £40/year. RWG may be a better PAYG option for some low users. 

I suspect most peoples' biggest spend will be data, mine definitely is. 1p/MB is expensive whereas 1p/min and 1p/text is cheap. So I just buy data only boosts and PAYG for calls/texts. It's £2 a month cheaper for the data only boosts so unless you use more than 200 mins/text a month it's cheaper to be on data only boosts. 

Do people still use lots of calls/texts? Nearly all our friends/family are on WhatApp so we use that for calls and messages, actual phone calls or texts are quite rare and are for stuff like calling banks, companies etc which are infrequent and usually short calls. Never get to anywhere near 200 mins a month. 

I_luv_cats

zagfles said:

It looks like this is replacing the £10 min top-up requirement every 120 days. Nothing has changed on my dashboard, it's still showing next top-up due date, so maybe they're phasing it in for existing customers. There's nowhere that tells me when my 90 days starts/ends. Have other peoples' dashboard changed? What does it show? 

Interesting that the £3 1GB data boost which I usually buy could mean only £9 spend every 90 days and then I presumably wouldn't be a "pure PAYG" customer so not subject to the £10 min charge??

Spotted this on another forum:-

reply from Penny about the new rule..

'This new requirement will be applied to all customers old and new at some point in the near future. Not everyone will be updated to this immediately, it will either be updated when processing your next top-up, or when you reach your top-up deadline.'

I_luv_cats

zagfles said:

Stuart_W said:

Not many homes left for low users. The whole premise of being called "1p mobile" with 1p/min calls is pretty much lost if it's actually cheaper to be on the £36/year unlimited tariff than pay as you go at 1p a minute, as that will cost a minimum of £40/year. RWG may be a better PAYG option for some low users. 

I suspect most peoples' biggest spend will be data, mine definitely is. 1p/MB is expensive whereas 1p/min and 1p/text is cheap. So I just buy data only boosts and PAYG for calls/texts. It's £2 a month cheaper for the data only boosts so unless you use more than 200 mins/text a month it's cheaper to be on data only boosts. 

Do people still use lots of calls/texts? Nearly all our friends/family are on WhatApp so we use that for calls and messages, actual phone calls or texts are quite rare and are for stuff like calling banks, companies etc which are infrequent and usually short calls. Never get to anywhere near 200 mins a month. 

I've two sims
(a) 25GB £10 boost (hardly use mins/texts)
(b) PAYG 

Ended-up @ 1pm as both prev operators had lousy signals + one had an iffy disconnection policy.