is it the end of 12 month free contacts

blinko

to be honest cashback deals should be looked at in my books as a normal contract mobile phone and you have the ability to claim additional costs back eg via cashback if you didnt and these cashback deals didnt exist you would prob be happy to spend £30 a month anyway

mobilejunkie

Speak for yourself; I wouldn't be "happy" with that and have no need of being so. Then again, as I said, I ain't "normal"! Lol!

Old_Gold

Mutton_Geoff wrote: »

Also, mobiles are a big selling Christmas gift, not surprised the offers have been sparse. My gf & I both have e2save cashbacks that they have paid promptly without any hassle. When her contract came to an end in November, she called to cancel it and they offered her the next year completely free. She was on a £25 a month contract, they just asked her to confirm she'd renew and they credited her bill with £300 the next month. They are clearly hoping she'll go over the free talk/text allowance and pay more but she's very canny and well on her way to having a free phone with two years use for just one months payment of £25 (the original cashback was 11 months free on 12 month contract).

Sorry you have me a bit confused here. If you took your deal with E2save and it ran out then the renewal is not with them but the network provider. Who are they? So are you saying the network provider offered you this deal or E2save offered you a new deal?

Old_Gold

blinko wrote: »

to be honest cashback deals should be looked at in my books as a normal contract mobile phone and you have the ability to claim additional costs back eg via cashback if you didnt and these cashback deals didnt exist you would prob be happy to spend £30 a month anyway

No I think the networks have a licence to print money and the charges unrealistic. The Government should allow free competition instead of this cartel and then you would really see prices fall.
Also most cashback deals quote a higher monthly charge than you can often get if you negotiate with the network directly. That is probably the main reason the networks could offer the retailer the commisions that led to the cashbacks.

alnsv1000s

Old_Gold wrote: »

No I think the networks have a licence to print money and the charges unrealistic. The Government should allow free competition instead of this cartel and then you would really see prices fall.
Also most cashback deals quote a higher monthly charge than you can often get if you negotiate with the network directly. That is probably the main reason the networks could offer the retailer the commisions that led to the cashbacks.

This is one of the things we will be talking about with Ofcom on Friday. The networks are making a Cartel, and it is unfair trading. They are getting more closely tied together, and following each others lead with additional costs, such as making certain numbers chargeable, charging for the first minute in full, Voicemail retrieval charges etc.

The pricing direct may be good but te service people are getting from the Networks themselves seems to be from comments on her, extremely poor.

The sooner Ofcom release the rest of the radio spectrum to open it up for other companies will be great.

I had a Vodafone customer inmy shop on Sturday who was on an old Voda 275 tariff @ £35 per month for 18 months + the had a £6 sms bundle costing £3 per month + Itemised Billing. She was spending over £40 a month and al Voda would give me as an authorised reseller was £80 towards her upgrade, whereby they would i've her practically any phone she likes.

Talk about restrictive practices.

chachi

Anyone who does not think that UK mobile charges are ridiculous should take a look at mobile pricing in Cyprus.

With a total population of less than 1 million people on the entire island (and therefore perhaps 650,000 at most being the total market) one can get a free new handset when taking out a £4 a month tariff. It only costs a few cents a minute for international calls whether day or night, and SMS messages are only a few cents each whether local or international.

gtz101

be96erj wrote: »

Hi forum

I am having difficulty in finding a new 12 month free contract with a legitimate company eg. e2save. Can anyone recommend one?

thanks

Every time I see these threads, I want to laugh real hard.

Just kidding.

To answer your question, urmmmm actually its been answered already

mobilejunkie

Yes, you DO have to laugh at some of these posts!

Anon

As someone who has benefited from almost 100% cashback deals for the past four years, I cannot complain. Each year at this time I start looking again as my contracts run out at the end of January - over Christmas there is a surge in offers, I lick my lips in anticipation of another great deal, then most if not all disappear and I have the usual panic that I have missed out. They have then traditionally re-appeared towards the end of the month/beginning of February. About the same time, threads like this start about the end of deals, only for us all to be happily surprised when they come back. I know the market has changed, with PhoneBoxDirect etc crashing which will have brought caution into the market, and others such as Mobileshop restructuring their business model, but cashback deals are still there to be seen on all the main retailer sites

If you were being cynical, you might think that they have removed them from their sites in the lead up to the Select Committee meeting (to avoid any specific current examples - no doubt researchers will leave it to the last minute like everyone else :rolleyes:).

Many retailers have also restructured their deals so, for example, we are increasingly seeing more offers where they give away a free Wii, XBox etc as the incentive (and from a tax perspective, this apparently helps them as they can claim back VAT as well, which they cannot on cashback).

I am prepared (but would be disappointed) to be proved wrong but I wojuld not be surprised to see the offers back in a few weeks.

Anon

mobilejunkie

I hope your right. I only recall one minor 12 month free deal between January and March excluding the riskier dealers. There are many more than Mobile Affiliates who have gone. Just about ALL the riskier culprits have "re-organised" - i.e. they have become affiliate sites only. I have seen deals disappear before too - but this is different. Too many people are shouting to have them banned and make the networks responsible. I have been stating my opposing view strongly ever since that clamour started. If you really want meaningful cashback deals to continue it would be good to take a stand against the stampeding herd and make it clear that there are MANY of us who do NOT want these things interefered with by Numpty Nanny and the stampeding herd!