Are You Still Paying For Your Mobile Phone When You Shouldn’t?

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Ricardodaforce

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I was just reading on Apple News about a report published by the Citizens Advice Bureau stating that many customers of Three, EE and Vodafone have been fleeced because the cost of their contract doesn’t reduce once the phone has actually been paid for. According to the report, millions have overpaid because of this.
Are you one of them?

Mobile phone customers overcharged by almost half a billion pounds http://news.sky.com/story/mobile-ph...rged-by-almost-half-a-billion-pounds-11501957
 
Tbh I am stunned this is news to anyone, surely it has always been common knowledge/obvious an element of the tarriff is going toward a handset that should they not either upgrade or go sim only at the contract end then clearly they will be paying over the odds until they do so or switch, been this way since contract phones have been around afaik.
It's crap that they don't automatically adjust the tariff price but not news to most I suspect. Then again getting more amazed each day at the "surprise" expressed at the obvious these days, must be an age thing lol.
 
Ricardodaforce said:
I was just reading on Apple News about a report published by the Citizens Advice Bureau stating that many customers of Three, EE and Vodafone have been fleeced because the cost of their contract doesn’t reduce once the phone has actually been paid for. According to the report, millions have overpaid because of this.
Are you one of them?

Mobile phone customers overcharged by almost half a billion pounds http://news.sky.com/story/mobile-ph...rged-by-almost-half-a-billion-pounds-11501957
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Technically incorrect reporting as the contract doesn’t pay for the phone, what they should be saying is you should remember to convert your contract into a sim only deal at the end of the minimum term of the contract you signed to get your handset to lower your monthly cost. There is no overcharging as you signed up and agreed to pay £xx for a minimum of 24 months and until you give notice to terminate, renegotiate (upgrade) a new contract or move onto sim only you remain on the agreed terms.

I haven’t looked at T&C’s recently but the Orange EE terms used to specifically exclude the handset from the contract provisions.
 
Dave1 said:
Technically incorrect reporting as the contract doesn’t pay for the phone, what they should be saying is you should remember to convert your contract into a sim only deal at the end of the minimum term of the contract you signed to get your handset to lower your monthly cost. There is no overcharging as you signed up and agreed to pay £xx for a minimum of 24 months and until you give notice to terminate, renegotiate (upgrade) a new contract or move onto sim only you remain on the agreed terms.

I haven’t looked at T&C’s recently but the Orange EE terms used to specifically exclude the handset from the contract provisions.
Click to expand...

TBH this was also my perception. IIRC when I DID still have an O2 contract (probably until 2013) they contacted me at the end of the 24 months to encourage a replacement phone and continuation of the contract or reduce the payment using a SIM only deal.
 
Dave1 said:
Technically incorrect reporting as the contract doesn’t pay for the phone... There is no overcharging as you signed up and agreed to pay £xx for a minimum of 24 months and until you give notice to terminate, renegotiate (upgrade) a new contract or move onto sim only you remain on the agreed terms.
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Agreed. It's a non story.
 
ancient_mariner said:
TBH this was also my perception. IIRC when I DID still have an O2 contract (probably until 2013) they contacted me at the end of the 24 months to encourage a replacement phone and continuation of the contract or reduce the payment using a SIM only deal.
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Nowadays if you get a Refresh contract from O2 they do separate the cost of the phone from the tariff. You pay for both separately, 2 different debits at the same time. That’s why they weren’t mentioned in the CAB report referenced above.
 
Ricardodaforce said:
Nowadays if you get a Refresh contract from O2 they do separate the cost of the phone from the tariff. You pay for both separately, 2 different debits at the same time. That’s why they weren’t mentioned in the CAB report referenced above.
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That’s because it isn’t actually a phone contract, it’s effectively a personal loan, Virgin/Sky Mobile do similar as well.

The rest of the story is almost fake news, as I said, you sign an open ended contract with a network and it happens you get a free or subsidised handset for signing the contract, the service contract is £x a month until you cancel it, it’s that simple.

There is no fleecing, no overpaying after the handset is paid for. It’s fairly obvious that the person at Which doesn’t really understand how conventional mobile contracts work...
 
I just buy a phone outright and get a sim only 1 month rolling deal, avoids all this (fake news) hassle and I can switch when I want.

That said, I was considering an iPhone XS and thought I saw a deal on Three (who I am with now) which actually worked out cheaper over the life of the contract, might look at that again.
 
Nawty said:
I just buy a phone outright and get a sim only 1 month rolling deal, avoids all this (fake news) hassle and I can switch when I want.

That said, I was considering an iPhone XS and thought I saw a deal on Three (who I am with now) which actually worked out cheaper over the life of the contract, might look at that again.
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Same here, I’ve currently got 2 contracts and between them they cost me £20 a month.

It means I have unlimited minutes, unlimited texts and unlimited data for £20.
 
most folk I work with know there upgrade date off by heart and can't wait to get a new phone.
it seems like the culture nowadays, girl near me is paying £68 a month for an iPhone contract.
 
This has been going on since at least 2001. Most people would get a phone on contract and at the end of the contract, they'd normally change for a new contract and a new phone. If you didn't, you were on a rolling monthly contract but paying the same rate. The "plus" was that you could cancel with one month's notice and pay no other penalty.
 
Dave1 said:
That’s because it isn’t actually a phone contract, it’s effectively a personal loan, Virgin/Sky Mobile do similar as well.
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As far as I'm concerned, it's no different from paying car insurance monthly. You either pay the whole amount up front, or "pay monthly" which is payment in installments through finance. The second option can often confuse people as they want to cancel for whatever reason and then find they can't. They thought it was a "pay monthly as you go" insurance.
 
I have been SIM only for about 8 years now the amount of great phones used for a fraction of there new price is great.
My NOTE 4 cost £150 two years ago and is still mint, I can see it going strong for a few more hopefully.
if folk want a new iPhone every year I'm ok with that its there pennies/.
 
omens said:
If you didn't, you were on a rolling monthly contract but paying the same rate. The "plus" was that you could cancel with one month's notice and pay no other penalty
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You're a bit daft if you carry on paying the same rate. The last time I didn't upgrade at the end of a contract, I just switched to a sim only rolling monthly contract. Got the same minutes, texts & data but, instead of continuing to pay £35 a month, I was only paying £15! Why would you throw away £20 a month?
 
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