Tesco price hike

greatuncle

So there we are. Tesco Mobile don`t think they are making enough money out of us Pay As You Go types so they`ve decided to try and push us into a contract based tariff. The latest example of corporate greed despite the millions they are making from the hordes of teenagers (and older folks) who can`t take their eyes away from their mobiles for so much as a second.

Of course, we can stay on a PAYG basis but they`re going put up the cost of calls by over 200%. and if we don`t use the phone at least once every 6 months they`ll remove you from the system.

They`ve offered me an Essentials contract at £2.50 a month. That`s £2.50 more a month than I would usually be using. But I still need the phone for emergencies (like car breakdowns or when the landline has gone off) and to get a code to use for an online purchase using paypal of credit card. Or to check on my Credit Card account.

Tesco Mobile will be aware of these many uses so they are banking on these things to get us on board.

We used to have real Pay As You Go. They were called telphone boxes. You made your call. You paid for it. No monthly schemes.

Peter999_2

They aren't a charity but a business that needs to make money.

Is £2.50 half the normal price of essentials and you get 500 minutes, 500 texts and 500MB data?    Pretty good deal is you ask me.

singhini

Think it was covered here by MSE back in Sept Tesco Mobile PAYG customer? It may push you to buy a bundle

p00hsticks

greatuncle said:

They`ve offered me an Essentials contract at £2.50 a month. That`s £2.50 more a month than I would usually be using. But I still need the phone for emergencies (like car breakdowns or when the landline has gone off) and to get a code to use for an online purchase using paypal of credit card. Or to check on my Credit Card account.

If you expect all the infrastructure to be in place to enable you to make those few calls exactly when you want/need them, wherever you are then I suspect that it's most likely that its the

greatuncle said:

hordes of teenagers (and older folks) who can`t take their eyes away from their mobiles for so much as a second.

.

that are facilitating and subsidising your use of the service - At £2.50 a month Tesco almost certainly won't be making any money from you.

ButterCheese

To be fair there's very little to complain about for £2.50/month.  I bet you spend more than that on toilet paper.  It's the same old argument for everything; I pay over £500/month in tax and NI but I only use Drs, Hospital once every few years, and have never called the emergency services (for myself), yet we all need to pay to keep them there for when we need them.  Which I don't mind doing.

To give you some comparison - I pay £15/month for unlimited calls and 20GB data which I think is still very good value, even though I probably only use 150mins/month and 3gb of data, it's there for if I need more

Grumpy_chap

greatuncle said:

So there we are. Tesco Mobile don`t think they are making enough money out of us Pay As You Go types so they`ve decided to try and push us into a contract based tariff. The latest example of corporate greed despite the millions they are making from the hordes of teenagers (and older folks) who can`t take their eyes away from their mobiles for so much as a second.

Of course, we can stay on a PAYG basis but they`re going put up the cost of calls by over 200%. and if we don`t use the phone at least once every 6 months they`ll remove you from the system.

They`ve offered me an Essentials contract at £2.50 a month. That`s £2.50 more a month than I would usually be using. But I still need the phone for emergencies (like car breakdowns or when the landline has gone off) and to get a code to use for an online purchase using paypal of credit card. Or to check on my Credit Card account.

Tesco Mobile will be aware of these many uses so they are banking on these things to get us on board.

We used to have real Pay As You Go. They were called telphone boxes. You made your call. You paid for it. No monthly schemes.

There still are public payphones available, albeit no longer necessarily in the red boxes you may have a fondness for.
This is your choice, therefore:

1. Stay with PAYG and accept the increased cost.  Make one very brief call every 6 months to keep the line active.
2. Buy a bundle on your PAYG
3. Sign up for the contract
4. Switch to another mobile phone provider that offers a more attractive (to you) PAYG service.
5. Ditch the mobile altogether and use a public payphone.

AndyPK

At 2.50 you are better off using that than the land line ? For outgoing calls