Rant about mobile phone companies in the UK

[wintrmute]

OK, so I'm a bit fed up with Orange at the moment, for a variety of reasons. Now I'm fed up with the others too

Comments

[ewtikins]

If they all offered short-term contracts it would lead to huge instant price war, because people would just be able to switch.

[wintrmute]

And that would be a bad thing for us, why? :)

If they're doing it to cause price-fixing, then it is illegal..

[purplegril]

I think you're confused...the companies want the money :D

You're right...but at the same time, as far as I can see, it's like that for everything - telecoms (incl landlines), internet, sky/cable TV. They all tie you in to 12 month contracts.

Which is annoying, but there you are.

[wintrmute]

but i've already been with Orange for like, two and a half years!

[mr_tom]

Vodafone will let you change your price plan during your contract. It's not as good as not being locked-in for a year, but does mean that you don't have to take a whole new 12-month contract...

[wintrmute]

That sounds awfully like saying "this prison has rather nice gold-leaf on all the bars.."

[chiselwright]

I've been PAYG for a while - I'm just too crap at talking to people on the phone to justify paying more for a monthly contract than topping up $whenever.

The thing that worried me most about PAYG is: how do I know I'm being billed for The Right Stuff. Orange could randomly/accidentally be deducting credit from my account, and I've no way of checking this.
I'm kinda surprised that there's no requirement for statements to be available on request for PAYG - can't be that hard to stick on the side of an online account.

[wintrmute]

It's all a massive frigging ripoff :(

[_lexx]

I have one of those Vodaphone sim only packages. I get 1000 Messages and Anytime Any Network min utes for £25 a month. There's no 12 month contract, must be a typo.

I don't think they offer such a good deal anymore though. I'm holding on to mine :D

[pitufina]

This is one of the resons it took me a million years to ge a mobile here. Its such a painful process. Have you tried Virgin?

[wintrmute]

No, but I'm dubious of Virgin.. They're on the T-Mobile network, which I was on a few years ago, and it had bad coverage, and they kept "losing" SMSes, or else taking ages to deliver them.

I think I'm going to swap to Vodafone.. Looks like I *can* get a monthly deal from them with no contract.. 25/month for 1000 messages and a couple of hours talk time. It's hidden deep in their website, and the sales guys don't know it exists!

All the phone companies seem to be useless.. and they have no interest in keeping their customers either, it seems. You always get the best deal by switching.. seems like an odd business model to me.

Sorry I didn't get to chat much last night - it was rather loud, and I found some people I hadn't seen in a very long time and kind of monopolised them for a while.