Exiting mobile phone contracts when they raise the costs?

rocketrider

Having just renewed my home broadband contract (with Sky), I was informed that I can exit the contract "mid term" if I am unhappy with the monthly cost increase which occurs around March/April each yet.  I was told by Sky, that I had a period of 30days from the point of being officially notified of the new price increase to request to cancel the contract.

Assuming this is true (they put it in writing to me via email), I was wondering if this exit strategy is possible with mobile phone contracts?  I am currently four months through a 24-month sim-only deal with Vodafone and am extremely unsatisfied with the network's performance wherever I go.  I was with EE and had no issues, but I tried to save some money and ended up with Vodafone which is extremely poor - plus, when factoring in Vodafone European roaming passes (which themselves have increased in prices) I am losing money compared to my previous EE contract.

Anyway, I was wondering if I could exit the contract similarly to the broadband contract at the annual price increase?  Any thoughts?

eDicky

Unlikely, unless the increase doesn't comply with the terms that you initially accepted.

Mark_d

This strategy generally doesn't work with mobile contracts as you have agreed to the price hikes when you signed the contract.  The price hikes might be CPI + 3.9%.

Has it seriously taken four months for you to discover poor network performance from Vodafone in your areas?  If you discovered this in the first few days then you would have been able to exit the contract.

My advice for mobile SIM would be to go for a provider with no contract - such as Lebara or Smarty - or indeed any PAYG

jbrassy

It's very unlikely Vodafone will let you exit the contract early as you're paying for the phone as well as the minutes, texts and data. 

When it comes to signal, have you got WiFi calling enabled? Further, you could contact Vodafone to see what they can do if you have poor signal on your phone. When it comes to roaming, there are often much cheaper alternatives than buying these roaming passes that networks provide. For example, you could buy a temporary PAYG SIM which includes EU roaming (eg Smarty), buy a local SIM in the destination, or get an esim.

flaneurs_lobster

jbrassy said:

It's very unlikely Vodafone will let you exit the contract early as you're paying for the phone as well as the minutes, texts and data. 

OP states that their contract is SIM-only, unfortunately probably won't make exiting the contract any easier.

400ixl

jbrassy said:

It's very unlikely Vodafone will let you exit the contract early as you're paying for the phone as well as the minutes, texts and data. 

OP stated they are on a sim only deal which means there is no device element involved.

However as people have stated, the contract has terms built in for annual increases which have been agreed to up front so does not give a reason to exit.

Only if they decide to change those terms could there be a reason. This is why it can occur for Sky TV, they don't necessarily set an amount or calculation.

Interesting that the OP says they told them they could exit for broadband as that is not usually the case for Sky as again, they will have stated the increase mechanism as part of the contract. Can you post up what they put in writing to you? 

rocketrider

Mark_d said:

This strategy generally doesn't work with mobile contracts as you have agreed to the price hikes when you signed the contract.  The price hikes might be CPI + 3.9%.

Has it seriously taken four months for you to discover poor network performance from Vodafone in your areas?  If you discovered this in the first few days then you would have been able to exit the contract.

My advice for mobile SIM would be to go for a provider with no contract - such as Lebara or Smarty - or indeed any PAYG

I spend time in various locations around the UK and abroad.  It took my longer than the cooling off period to find the coverage was extremely poor in the various locales I spend time at.

I will be moving to SMARTY once I'm free of Vodafone.

rocketrider

jbrassy said:

It's very unlikely Vodafone will let you exit the contract early as you're paying for the phone as well as the minutes, texts and data. 

When it comes to signal, have you got WiFi calling enabled? Further, you could contact Vodafone to see what they can do if you have poor signal on your phone. When it comes to roaming, there are often much cheaper alternatives than buying these roaming passes that networks provide. For example, you could buy a temporary PAYG SIM which includes EU roaming (eg Smarty), buy a local SIM in the destination, or get an esim.

as others have pointed out, the contract is a sim-free - so no phone handset is being paid for.

I have purchased a SMARTY sim for my next 3-week trip to Europe as the £17 cost for a 15-day pass from Vodafone is expensive, especially when this is my 8th trip to Europe this year.  The issue I have (or fear I have) is that if i put this smarty sim in my phone, will this affect my online banking, and of course, most of the contacts have my Vodafone number rather than the SMARTY one.  Sure, I can forward the calls from Vodafone to the SMARTY number, but it doesn't work for SMS text messages.

DullGreyGuy

rocketrider said:

Having just renewed my home broadband contract (with Sky), I was informed that I can exit the contract "mid term" if I am unhappy with the monthly cost increase which occurs around March/April each yet.  I was told by Sky, that I had a period of 30days from the point of being officially notified of the new price increase to request to cancel the contract.

Assuming this is true (they put it in writing to me via email), I was wondering if this exit strategy is possible with mobile phone contracts?  I am currently four months through a 24-month sim-only deal with Vodafone and am extremely unsatisfied with the network's performance wherever I go.  I was with EE and had no issues, but I tried to save some money and ended up with Vodafone which is extremely poor - plus, when factoring in Vodafone European roaming passes (which themselves have increased in prices) I am losing money compared to my previous EE contract.

Anyway, I was wondering if I could exit the contract similarly to the broadband contract at the annual price increase?  Any thoughts?

Ultimately you need to read the contract, most mobile operators will say they can increase it up to CPI + X% without you having exit rights but if they want to increase it more than this then you can early exit. 

Kim_13

If I recall correctly, Sky allow exiting the contract within 30 days of notification of an increase for broadband and mobile, but not TV. It all depends what is in the contract. 30 days to exit is unusual now, most either commit to no price rises or have it written in the contract to provide for an increase of CPI + 3.9% or similar each April. Vodafone is one of the providers who have such a clause written in.

If your signal at home is poor, they may offer WiFi boosters etc but unless the service is below where it was when you took it out and not fixed in a reasonable timeframe, they are unlikely to let you exit the contract without penalty. All networks say that their coverage checkers are only an indication so they should be tried on a PAYG basis (a MVNO running off of the network concerned will do if the network itself doesn’t offer a decent PAYG bundle/tariff) before taking out a contract. A cooling off period is a strict limit, they won’t extend it and will just argue that you should have made the effort to visit important locations within 14 days.

You could try arguing that the increased cost of roaming passes is to your material detriment and see if you can be allowed out of the contract that way. Provide travel evidence if you don’t have a roaming history on your account. Only the increased cost since the contract started will be considered, since Vodafone will argue you accepted their charges at that time and could have gone to SMARTY instead if they were better suited to your needs.

Can you receive texts without paying for roaming? If so, a dual sim setup may be best for overseas use.

Do Vodafone discount the amount if you pay for early termination? If it was monthly charge less VAT and without annual increases then it may be worth doing if the service is sufficiently bad.