AOL Free Laptop vs Bad Reputation

norangeduck

Well if you fancy going with aol - you can get up to £100 back thru quidco! (my £100 tracked today):p it includes wireless, wireless plus laptop/ps3 - so not bad with the £100 on top!

Jake'sGran

I am still thinking of going with AOL. They were very good on the freephone number today. It's £24.99 for the full package which includes telephone calls anytime, broadband - faster and all that, free laptop and router. I would then need to go to BT for line rental at £11. Altogether this is approx £10 more each month than I paying now and, I reckon, that after 30 months (you can get a laptop for £300) you continue paying for the laptop with AOL. Talk talk have a good offer for broadband+evening and weekend calls plus line rental at about £16.50. Still don't know which way to go with this. I had forgotten about Quidco. I was talking to them the other day about car insurance and they say that to buy through them I have to clear all cookies before I start. I suppose it is easy but I have had so many problems lately with cookies that I'm not sure I want to do that.

beckyblyth

norangeduck wrote: »

Well if you fancy going with aol - you can get up to £100 back thru quidco! (my £100 tracked today):p it includes wireless, wireless plus laptop/ps3 - so not bad with the £100 on top!

Hi

Im seriously tempted in AOLs free laptop/wireless broadband offer, just looked on Quidco (which is new to me) and they say you get £35 for taking up AOLs deal, how come you got £100? Im confused!!:question:

shadowdragon

What gets me is what has your Geographic area got to do with eligibility?? A customer is a customer (well as far as I am concerned). Not that I would take up any offer that ties you in to a contract for so long.

Theres a post further down, and I did the same, where you can negotiate your BB price with BT when your 12mth contract is up.

Also what if they hike the price up in 12mths time??

remember you dont get anything free, it may cost £380, but I bet they didnt pay anywhere near that much for them, then theres things like the warrantly ect, what are they like when the machine malfunctions or breaks down?

norangeduck

beckyblyth wrote: »

Hi

Im seriously tempted in AOLs free laptop/wireless broadband offer, just looked on Quidco (which is new to me) and they say you get £35 for taking up AOLs deal, how come you got £100? Im confused!!:question:

They must of just changed the offer I reckon, which is a shame, I def got £100 though

ianua1

Rainbow_Butterfly wrote: »

I currently get b-band through orange for £12.99pm. I need a new laptop.. so off I pootle to Carphone Warehouse/AOL as they have a £19.99pm price incl free laptop.

Nomatter how I play about with the website, it keeps giving me a price of £29.99.

So I rang them.... ah.. the customer service lady said.. you dont live in the right area for this offer.. but you can have it for only £10pm more.

The free laptop in question she rather proudly tells me is worth £380.

So if I got it for £7pm (the difference between my current b-band and £19.99AOL) for a 24month contract = £168 for the laptop - a pretty good deal I thought.

If its £17pm extra (£29.99AOL), then I pay £408 for the laptop. :mad:

Apparently 70% of the country is included, and I am just unfortunate in my choice of address.
To test this theory, I have tried 6 other family members phone numbers in the checker, as wide ranging as Cumbria, Norfolk, Scotland, Lincolnshire, Wales. http://shop.carphonewarehouse.com/aol_eligibility.php

Now I dont know if my family are really bad at chosing where to live or if this is just a big con.:eek:

Would be very interested to hear other peoples experiences of this.. and if you can get the £19.99 deal, whereabouts in the country you are!? :rotfl:

£12.99 without the laptop, so no, it's not free.

rummy

My friend has AOL and got the free laptop. He lives in London. He said he does get good speeds with AOL but the laptop isn't all that. He just recently invested in buying a new laptop (even though he has the AOL one).

With this plan, you get locked into a 24 month contract and to be honest with you, the laptop is extremely slow and not even worth having. Has one years warranty. If you get a better spec, you have to pay more for it. Plus they are Dell laptops and I would never recommend them. (I have one myself!)

The way I see it is you'd get a pretty cra-ppy laptop and you have to remember you're paying £20 or £30 a month in a 2 year contract. All in all that is actually not worth it. Also, if you have problems with your broadband, their CS have a miserable service (not as bad as Pipex or Tiscali though! Nothing beats them!). You also have to remember you'll be with them for 24 months and that is a very long time.

If I were in your position, I'd look around for cheaper broadband like o2 or something who seem to be pretty good or Be Unlimited and use ADSL2+ technology. If you're looking also for a laptop, I'd just seach around on the internet. You can get good ones around.

Try http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/ - they sometimes have really good offers on.

ukhomeboy

I stay well AWAY from aol/talk & cpw & 4-get the free deals with aol 100% doing a deal/contract with aol aol/talk would be like borrowing money from a very dodgy Loan Shark.. Trust people who has been there got complaints T-Shirts .. Tell ya parents or grand/parents to buy a suitable pc or laptop from a gud computer shop then sign up with a suitable ISP, £20 a month in a 3 year contract means U will 4-sure be buying the laptop @ silly prices thats worth about £100 in the 1st place. o2 seem to be getting high ratings at the mo. but up to you.. just stay clear of aol

chrissy5930

Hi,
I currently have bt broadband which I dont have any problems with really,but I was tempted a few days ago by a phone call offering a free laptop if I sign up to AOL, it does tie you in to a 2yr contract but as I was thinking of buying a laptop any way I wonder if I should go for it ?
I googled AOL broadband reviews and an awful lot of people seem very unhappy with the service from AOL since it linked with CPW/TALKTALK.
Has anyone here had any experince with them ?
Thanks.

DatabaseError

over 2 hours and no response?!
Chrissy, I do not use AOL, and have no friends on the service (they are all quite 'net savvy') and can only go by what I read here, and elsewhere, but, briefly, if you want congested and shaped poor quality broadband, then there are much cheaper alternatives, look at talktalk, same company, same poor product, giveaway pricing.
If you want a laptop look at...er...computer shops..tesco...asda...staples...all over, really, there are some very good deals, not all of which involve selling your soul to CPW.