6 ways to avoid being MISLED when choosing a new mobile phone contract
How hard is it to choose a mobile contract these days? At last glance, billmonitor saw a total of 12,707,607 possible mobile deal combinations – that’s an inordinately huge number for any individual to compare. Add to that the difficulty of knowing how you use your phone, which handset you’d like, whether you trust the salesperson grinning at you from the shopfloor or even how your own life is going to change in the next 18 months and you’ve got a pretty difficult decision to make for an average cost of over £700 over the lifetime of a mobile contract!
There are any number of different ways we can be misled when choosing and here are some of the most common pitfalls:
1. Choosing a manual repayment cashback deal - It may seem a good money-saving idea at the time but if you choose a cashback deal on a new mobile where the only way to redeem your money is to send off your bills at a precise time (or stick to other onerous clauses in the smallprint) - then you’re bound to forget at least one bill to send in. Of course, by that point it’s too late and you’re stuck on a bloated contract for 18 months with very little recourse.
Billmonitor advises: if it sounds too good to be true – it often is, don’t choose short-term gain in favour of long-term savings.
2. Being bombarded with misinformation - typically, all the people involved when you buy a new mobile are better informed than you are about the availability of deals, the quality of the handset, the strength of reception on the network you choose, the likelihood you’ll ever need insurance (hint: you probably don’t!), how many minutes, texts and data you need in your allowance etc.. Unfortunately, those who are better informed often use it to their advantage to rip you off.
Billmonitor advises: inform yourself before you enter the mobile fray. Don’t be caught out and make sure you know enough about what you want and need not to have the wool pulled over your eyes.
3. Death by a thousand cuts - That tiny but irritating surcharge for your paper bill (it’s your bill isn’t it?? How can they charge your for it?), forgetting to turn off your data while abroad (one of the nastiest surprises – even if the EU have now capped the maximum charge operators can make on this usage) or realising that Freephone numbers aren’t free at all for mobile users (grrrrrr!). These small charges add up in the aggregate and mean you get inflated monthly bills.
Billmonitor advises: it’s very hard to avoid all the little nasty surprises but we’ll be attempting to warn you of some of the worst ones throughout this blog. Subscribe to stay informed!
4. Not checking if your new network’s reception covers your home or work – There’s nothing worse than that moment just after you’ve scoured the deals from all around, chosen your ideal handset, for the right price and cherry-picked exactly the right bundles for international calling and roaming – then you get home and try to use your phone for the first time only to realise you’re in one of the blackout zones for your network and the top-right of the screen can’t even muster a single bar of reception.
Billmonitor advises: Most networks have their own reception coverage maps on their websites. Do a spot check for key postcodes you’ll be at often such as work, home, parents etc. and make sure you don’t accidentally step into the 90s each time you come home or arrive at work.
5. Choosing a longer contract than you want – It’s always tempting to reduce your monthly payments by extending the length of your contract – especially if you’re buying a new smartphone. However, as the EU legislation to be brought in as of May 2011 recognises, there’s a trade-off between lower payments and flexibility. It’s hard enough knowing what’s going to happen tomorrow, let alone how your life will change in 18 months time.
Billmonitor advises: Be open-minded about your contract length and clear about the benefits of shorter or longer contracts. You should also try to choose a contract from a network that allows you to change your allowances and bundles up or down to meet your changing needs. We’ll keep you informed who the most pliable networks are.
6. Getting caught by the hard sell – You know you’re near the end of your contract or you’ve just lost your phone and all you want is to get something fast. You get called by a retailer or walk in yourself. There’s only one requirement - you need a phone with GPS because you’re sick of getting lost all the time. You ask specifically for this feature when the nice man calls up asking if you’re interested in the latest deal – he assures you it has “maps” as an app on the phone. Not wanting to spend too much time investigating further, and ignoring that the salesman has not mentioned any other possible phones, you buy it right there on the spot. Naturally, when it arrives it turns out the maps service is user-directed and you actually need to know where you are at any given time to find yourself on the map – completely useless. But of course the smallprint means you can’t return it and you don’t have the time to go through the hassle of arguing anyway…
Billmonitor advises: Only buy from those you trust, sleep on any decision you think may need time and sense-check your decision with friends if necessary.
Filed under: billmonitor tips saving money
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