Mobile Phone contracts

I've looked but its so complicated.

I have a 2 year contract with vodafone. I'm halfway through this contract. It costs me 15quid a month and I have a BB Curve something or other. I know 15quid aint much but I am not using it at all really A few emails and txts but thats about it. I'm pretty sure you cannot bail out during a contract but was wondering can I change contracts and get another phone with Vodafone? Or jump ship to another provider to get a better deal?

Hoping there may be a Phone salesperson knocking about the odds are quite high seeing as my town has nothing else but phone shops

Vodafone have changed a contract for me before, I don't think you can just walk away from it though...

The only way you can walk away is to pay the life time of the contract so if its 2 year deal and you have done a year, you would have to pay £180 to end the contract, you can of course just not pay them and they cut you off, but then that affects your credit rating and the phone companies talk to each other. Most companies will let you change the type of contract you are on but only to upgrade, you should read the small print in the contract you signed and £15 is not a lot in the context of phone contracts, most new contracts start at £20, unless you have been with the provider ages. I pay £10.50 a month on O2 but have had that for ages and each time the contracts up threaten to change so they give you a better deal

Yeah I suppose. Just fancied a new phone on the cheap as this one is dying a bit now. Cheers KK I will give them a tinker later and see if I can sort something out

Much appreciated

I'm just on 'Pay as you Go' with T-Mobile.

I was surprised to be charged 3 times each in respect of 2 text messages I sent last week. That worked out at 36p per message sent, rather than 12p per message sent.

When I queried it with T-Mobile, they replied "whenever you send any message above 160 characters, it is termed as 2 messages. When you go above 321 characters it is termed as 3 text messages. This was the reason you were charged thrice when you sent large text messages."

I didn't know that. I thought it was simply 12p a message. A trap for the unwary.

TheVicar wrote (see)

Yeah I suppose. Just fancied a new phone on the cheap as this one is dying a bit now. Cheers KK I will give them a tinker later and see if I can sort something out

Much appreciated

I managed to get an upgrade (different phone and package) with Vodafone part way through my contract, but I had to be quite stubborn about it.

I needed the different phone as I was due to be working in Texas for a period of time, where the phone networks only work with a quadband phone, so it was necessity rather than a whim, and I used that as a threat that I would be forced to simply go to a different provider and not renew my Vodafone contract when it eventually expired.

Eventually they agreed to the upgrade, as long as I agreed to extend the contract for an additional period (the length of time I still had left on my current contract + the length of the new contract).... this is fine by me, but just means I won't be able to upgrade my phone again very soon.

Somewhere on your contract documentation you may be able to find information regarding when they are prepared to upgrade you, or you could call them or check your account online. 

As a rule of thumb, most suppliers are prepared to upgrade within the contract period and this is often 6 months prior.  So for an 18 month contract they will upgrade after 12 months and for a 24 month contract they will upgrade after 18 months.  You are unlikely to receive an upgrade of handset just 12 months into a 24 month contract.  This can be a nuisance if the handset has a problem with a 12 month warranty during a 24 month contract if the warrenty has expired. 

However, as Juliefrazz says, they often add the remaining period onto the end of the contract.

As TSA says, you can threaten to take your business elsewhere but phone providers take a variety of factors into consideration when dealing with disconnections and retentions and low users don't make them a lot of money.  That said, inside the contract period, you aren't really in a strong position to make such a threat.

TheVicar wrote (see)

Yeah I suppose. Just fancied a new phone on the cheap as this one is dying a bit now. Cheers KK I will give them a tinker later and see if I can sort something out

Much appreciated

Vodafone give me a new phone on a yearly basis, just changed to a HTC Desire C. New toy!

I took out a Blackberry Curve with Vodafone last October on a 24 month contract at £26 a month. I wish that I hadn't bothered now. Blackberrys are rubbish. Also, a few months back they sent me a text saying that they had noticed some abnormal activity on my account. I phoned them and they said that I had gone way over my minutes, so that month's bill came to over £170! I asked them why they didn't let me know sooner and they said that it wasn't their policy to inform customers straight away. As soon as my contract is up I'm getting a pay as you go sim card. I can manage with just texts and phone calls and will only use about £10 a month. Another thing that anoys me is that they can increase your monthly costs, but you can't bail out of the contract when they do it. 

No it isn't obvious. I took it that texts were 12p. I doubt if an extra 160 characters or so makes the slightest difference to the phone company, they just look for different ways to rip unsusoecting customers off. 

Why is it obvious? Amazon can sell and  transfer War and Peace (your chosen example) to my Kindle via a 3G operator for as little as 49p, which I think you'll find includes a delivery charge element of just a few pence. That must be at least half a million words. They don't put the cost up and up for every extra 160 words sent.