MSE News: Millions wasting money on mobiles

Jo_F wrote: »

I would rather stick with the contract I have, and miss reaching the quota every month, that have a lower tariff and have a point where I exceed it, it feels more comfortable having that cushion of what's included in the tarrif.

That's why the tariffs are arranged the way they are.

The less astute look at them and divide the monthly charge by the included minutes and think of that as the rate per minute.

The more mathematically 'with it' realise that what they should be doing is dividing the charge for a plan that ensures they will never go over their included minutes and divide that by their average use per month. That will get them the true cost of their call.

Of course, the real idiots then refuse to use a landline on the basis that they are getting 'free' calls in their mobile contract. :rotfl:

I think the headline is probably very misleading. You won't know how many minutes you will want to use in any given month, so all you can do is guess. You also have to consider the possibility of exceeding your inclusive limits... What would you do? Could you stop using the phone or would you have "no choice" but to pay extortionate call charges? If the latter, you may be better off "insuring" yourself against such risks by getting a contract with more inclusive minutes than you are likely to need. If you end up not needing them, they haven't been wasted -- you've had the peace of mind that you could use your phone excessively if you wanted. It's like insurance -- no one complains that they have "wasted" money on house insurance if their house doesn't burn down.

And I wonder what figures they are using. I get 300 minutes, unlimited texts and 500MB Internet access per month. My bill shows that the tariff costs £15.50 a month. But I pay the network operator £10.50 a month and am due £80 cashback from a third-party... so effectively that works out at £3.83 a month. But I bet the report sees me as "overspending" because I don't use the 300 minutes and would probably be fine with 100.

I think it's one of those headlines that catches your attention... until you realise that the figures used and the justifications given make the research completely meaningless.

NFH wrote: »

This is all caused by bundling, whereby customers are encouraged to buy a number of minutes, texts and megabytes per month. This forces you to buy more than you need. Imagine if this system was the norm with electricity, gas and water supplies. It makes no more sense with mobile phones than it would with other utilities. A more transparent system would be to charge customers only for what they use, with lower rates per minute, text or megabyte above certain monthly levels, giving a discount to high users.

Yes, I've got a company mobile which works that way. No line rental or inclusive minutes or any of that rubbish, just pay per call and the rates are about 1p/min on-net/landline and about 5p/min off-net, and 2p for texts IIRC. We have to pay for our personal calls, but my bill is only about £2 usually for 100-200 mins or so.

There don't seem to be contracts like that for personal use unfortunately.