More phone trivia

[taimatsu]

I am looking into changing my phone tariff as I am on an extortionate legacy PAYG plan which is costing me enormous amounts of money. But looking at the tariffs offered by O2, Orange, Vodafone etc., they *all* seem to be completely extortionate. Orange charges 35p/minute to non-Orange mobiles. O2 charges 20p to any UK mobile. And that's on top of paying them £20/month or more for some piddly free minutes. It's crazy, and it's making me want to give up on having a phone at all because I don't know how I can afford this. I have no idea how to compare these deals properly, and it's all hideously over-priced and stressful. How do people manage this stuff? How do I know what is good?

Comments

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

You phone each phone company and ask what they can offer you; they'll ask you questions about your usage which will help some.

You then phone the one you like the sound of best and tell them that [other company] is offering you [better deal] and ask if they can match/beat it. Do feel free to bend the truth about [better deal] some.

[raggedhalo.livejournal.com]

Get a contract - or is that not an option?

I got my first contract by claiming to still live with my mum, and then changing the address once I got it.

[taimatsu]

What do you mean, get a contract? You mean, pay monthly? The prices I quote above *are* pay monthly contracts, and they are still too expensive afaict.

[raggedhalo.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I'm on O2, pay £35pm, and get a vast quantity of free minutes (600) and texts (1000) per month.

What's your budget for this kind of thing?

[damianobf.livejournal.com]

I am with text and talk with T mobile and I think on less than £20/month

[riksowden.livejournal.com]

Yeah, i think its £15 i pay on FlexT with T-Mobile - i don't spend all my allowance (which is mobiles and landlines in the UK and text messages - and i think t'internet). I like T-mobile, though i know other folks have suffered with them.

[taimatsu]

I don't know - it is hard for me to work out how much I already spend. It is at least £25 a month, which I find quite steep; if I got a contract I would be paying that *plus* extra, unpredictable bills, which would be really hard for me to deal with. It's the idea of having a bill come in for some unexpected amount when I might have no money to meet it...

[ar-gemlad.livejournal.com]

Look at uSwitch.com? I haven't used it, but it might give you a decent comparison. (Or moneysupermarket, or confused.com, or whatever other comparison websites exist these days!)

[chaosdeathfish.livejournal.com]

I got a good T-mobile online deal about 18 months ago when I signed up. It's 150 minutes and 100 texts free per month, an 18 month deal at £25 a month, but with 12 months of that at half price (£12.50). And apparently I'll be staying at £12.50 a month until I upgrade my phone. Which I'm unlikely to do for a while. Maybe something similar would be good for you, if you can find one?

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

Orange seem to give PAYG people free everything, somehow, but I'm not exactly clear how you get it. Now and again I see it and consider abandoning my contract, if it weren't for the internet...

I pay £40 a month, which I got by ringing up and haggling. I get something like 400 any network minutes, 2 magic numbers, 300 texts, 10Mb of internet, insurance for the phone, and a free upgrade to a smartphone.

[chrisvenus]

Mainly the thing to do is work out how many minutes you use each month (possibly broken down by land line/network/whatever but don't need to bother that much these days) and how many texts each month. Don't worry about costs initially, just work out your usage.

Then when you have your usage you can browse the sites and see which offer you deals which include all of that. Also since you have worked out your usage you should never need to worry about evil bills. I get bills in which are rarely more than a pound or so more than my contract rate because I get freebies. I've had a bit of a look around recently so if you want to let me know your usage I can see if I can remember anything that was good for you...

[mirabehn.livejournal.com]

I'm on Tesco PAYG, and very happy with them so far. But then I don't use my phone for calling much, mostly for texts. Still, with two of their three tariffs, calls to any phone (mobile or landline, any network) are 10p per min. They're also nice and clear and talk in plain English. They don't have tonnes and tonnes of complicated offers that you have to chase: like I say, just three tariffs. I'm spending about £25 less per month than I was with an Orange contract.

Customer service is friendly and clear too. They don't try to push you into stuff, and they don't do contracts, so they give proper attention to their PAYG customers.

I'd avoid Orange like the plague. I've had an awful time with them.

Here's Tesco mobile's website (http://www.tesco.com/mobilenetwork/).

[kmazzy.livejournal.com]

i hope you find something - i'm sorry i can't give you any good tips as i have orange payg - purely because i never ring anyone on my phone and have somehow got 5 free texts a day forever - it was some offer but it seems to have never run out - and i only have to top up about £5 every 3 or 4 months to pay for listening to voicemails and getting orange wednesday texts. also i have a nokia 3310. i am retro phone girl!

the 'look for something that's on contract but half price for 12/18 months' idea seems pretty good to me though.

[lovingboth]

For me, Virgin is great, but I don't do much calling of people not on it (that's what landlines with cheap calling companies are for).

[james-r.livejournal.com]

Switch to another PAYG. Theres much more competition in this market sector as they're all trying to attract people to switch to them, which people are in a position to do given the lack of minimum contract length.