What do you think of your mobile provider?

I’m not a typical customer, but with Vodafone pay-as-you-go, “they” can’t actually do me much damage. They do their best to hook me into a contract and I have to wipe their texts from the phone quite often. I am getting a better signal now than I was six months ago, when, frustratingly, it came and went at random. I don’t make enough phone calls to worry about the cost of them and, at around fifteen pence per text, I send these when I need to. Internet is wildly expensive when not using WiFi and router. Last check it was £2 for 50 mbs. No doubt a contract would be cheaper if I needed to use the internet away from a WiFi source. Vodafone supplied me with a new top up card when my old one was disintegrating and the shop assistant was helpful. My other dealings have been with Car-Phone Warehouse, so I have never had to contact Vodafone to complain about anything. Coverage is important for me and when I first used Vodafone they were the best. Things have changed, but I can’t be bothered to get a new phone, or number. I wouldn’t hesitate to move companies if I thought It was an advantage to do so.

I’m on PAYG with Tesco, thus am clearly not a heavy user. I have had no contact so far other than changing tariffs from standard to Lite a few years ago and making the occasional automatic £10 top up over the phone. So I can’t comment from experience on the “performance” of mobile operators as those on contracts can. However, what concerns me a little about these sorts of “debates” is the use a very few individual’s statements to seemingly make a case – ‘fed up to the back teeth’, “a painful process to claim back money “, “their customer service has plummeted in the last few years”.

I am not doubting the veracity of their experiences, not condoning overcharging or billing issues, but with a huge number of customers I would like to see more than just these cases, and to see just how performance varies across all the operators. In other words, some proper performance statistics to help us judge one provider against another.

My SIM-only contract with Vodafone was coming to an end and someone phoned me several weeks beforehand to offer me a contract with a new phone and a variety of tariffs and add-ons. I explained that my phone was not quite three years old and working fine, and I was also happy with my present tariff. He said I could just continue on the tariff but I said I would look to see what was available and call back, which I did two days before the contract expired. When I called to say that I wanted to stay on the same tariff I was told that this would not be possible, but after a couple of periods on hold I was offered what was effectively the same service for a monthly additional cost of 10p. Had I acted sooner I might have avoided the price rise.

I realise that I did not ask for no marketing or market research. From past experience with Vodafone and other companies it is essential to do this when renewing a contract. 🙁

Last year I was very grateful to Vodafone for giving me a couple of months unlimited data at the start of the contract. That was extremely useful because I did not have to worry about data use for tethering when I was waiting for fibre broadband to be installed.

I visit rural places where Vodafone does not work but I’m usually with someone with a phone on another network, and they can use my phone when they have no signal.

Please will Which? push for the mobile network operators to share networks, so that we can all benefit from better network coverage. This has been done for years for emergency calls.

My main phone is on O2, via a SIM only contract. I’m happy with my package. It gives good service for a medium price and allows me to tether a PC if a need to do that.

For the rest of my family, I use giffgaff PAYG – this seems to be very good value for money and prevents any expected bills. Also, when out and about, it now seems to give quite good mobile internet access for things like Google maps, navigation and traffic data.

I use a Three on PAYG .

Their Website and Coverage are average at best, but their 321 SIM really is an extremely good deal.
Three pence a minute for calls to all mobiles or fixed lines, twopence for a text, and a penny per megabyte for data. On a top-up that credit does not expire, and overseas calls to many listed Countries at the same rate.

However, things that seem too good to be true usually are, and the problem here is that they charge much higher rates for many ordinary numbers that you would not expect, to be premium, often at rates well over 60p per minute.
For this reason, you cannot safely top-up by more than £10 at a time, so that if you are using such a number unknowingly, the most that you can loose is this sum. Costly, inconvenient and annoying.

This is clearly a way to covertly increase revenue, as Three does not provide a convenient complete Listing of all tariffs for these extra cost numbers On-line, or from their Shops, which one could keep on the phone for reference before dialling.

It is a depressing sign of the times, that a multitude of such sharp practices are employed by many providers of services of all kinds.

I use a Three on PAYG .

Their Website and Coverage are average at best, but their 321 SIM really is an extremely good deal.
Three pence a minute for calls to all mobiles or fixed lines, twopence for a text, and a penny per megabyte for data. On a top-up that credit does not expire, and overseas calls to many listed Countries at the same rate.

However, things that seem too good to be true usually are, and the problem here is that they charge much higher rates for many ordinary numbers that you would not expect, to be premium, often at rates well over 60p per minute.
For this reason, you cannot safely top-up by more than £10 at a time, so that if you are using such a number unknowingly, the most that you can loose is this sum. Costly, inconvenient and annoying.

This is clearly a way to covertly increase revenue, as Three does not provide a convenient complete Listing of all tariffs for these extra cost numbers On-line, or from their Shops, which one could keep on the phone for reference before dialling.

It is a depressing sign of the times, that a multitude of such sharp practices are employed by many providers of services of all kinds.

Smike