anyone get a phone contract to sell the phone?

[CREATIVE!11]

and make some dosh?

I use the minutes / texts etc, currently paying 15 a month and i'm thinking I could just get a new contract at 20 quid a month and then sell a 300-400 quid phone and get some extra cash cause i'll be paying for a phone contract in the next 2 yrs anyway.

my previous contract was 2yrs ended like a year ago just left my contract going ever since. I downgraded it obv to 15 quid but it was 25 before.

Edit: My phone is a Samsung jet, vintage baby...

 

[[TW]Fox]

Which £400 phone (With a sale value of £400) can you get on a contract which in SIM only form costs £15 a month, for just £20 a month?

 

[illuz]

Bad idea...

 

[WeedRamen]

As above - bad idea. I tend do the maths quite a lot when researching contracts and it's often miles cheaper to just go sim only and buy the phone separately. Sometimes it's the same price but you get much more minutes/texts/internet by being sim only. Very rarely is the phone contract worthwhile in the long run, usually because it's some very rare stunning deal that happens once a year or from some dodgy 3rd party supplier which seems to have terrible reviews everywhere and runs on cashback schemes.

 

[dottty27]

I have not taken a contract out just to get a phone to sell, but when I get the free upgrade after 18months I tend to sell the phone that Three offer me as my 3 year old sony play works well enuff for me

 

[CREATIVE!11]

I have not taken a contract out just to get a phone to sell, but when I get the free upgrade after 18months I tend to sell the phone that Three offer me as my 3 year old sony play works well enuff for me

hmm yeah I should have just asked for new phone when my contract ended then sold it but I didn't think about it.

 

[elmarko]

You only get the contract if you sign up-to another 12/18/24 months usually.

I only have contract because I get 20% off from my work partnership (along with £150 cashback from the partnership).

Essentially I get a £37 a month contract for £29.60 a month - over 24 months I pay £710.00 (-£150 = £560) - got a brand new S2 at the time worth about £450/500 on release - meaning I paid £5/£2.50 a month (can't recall the exact value of the S2 at the time) for 1000 free mins, unlimited texts & 1gb a month (Which to me is fine) along with just buying a phone for it's RRP.

You don't really save money on contracts in most cases.

 

[Jony27]

Yeah, I believe that PAYG works out the cheapest in the long run and I keep telling my mom that, but she can't afford a one big payment so ends up taking a contract every 2 years

 

[Strife212]

It definitely doesn't work out cheaper depending on what you do with the phone.

The fact that the phone is free puts you 400-600 up instantly if you get a decent phone.

 

[LeeUK]

Don't forget Quidco/Topcashback aswell. I got £70 back on my last contract.

 

[Destination]

It definitely doesn't work out cheaper depending on what you do with the phone.

The fact that the phone is free puts you 400-600 up instantly if you get a decent phone.

Explain with actual figures so I understand what you mean please.

 

[HangTime]

Some time ago contract deals used to be a lot better in that 12 months was the norm with 18 months more of a rarity. The goalposts shifted over the years and now 18 months is standard, with 24months often required to get the better handsets for no up front cost.

Essentially back then if you paid £30/month for 12 months you would get getting a decent mins/text package, plus a good phone. OK so the phones weren't worth quite as much as the flagships of today but even so, you'd usually be a lot better off than sim-only assuming you wanted an up to date handset.

Even some 18 month deals were OK e.g. my Nokia 5800 was £18/month including unlimited internet so a total cost of £324 of which the contract was probably worth at least £125 to me so under £200 effective cost for the handset.

Nowadays they've really clamped down on the deals so to get a decent free phone the tariffs often start very high i.e. £30+ over 24 months meaning that unless you genuinely value the handset at RRP and/or have a genuine need for lots of mins/texts it is much less appealing. I've got about 10 months left on my Galaxy S3 contract and current feeling is I'll probably switch to a sim-only tariff when it expires as I doubt there will be a new phone out there I would consider a worthwhile upgrade.

 

[WeedRamen]

It definitely doesn't work out cheaper depending on what you do with the phone.

The fact that the phone is free puts you 400-600 up instantly if you get a decent phone.

except to it requires you signing on to a minimum (usually) £30 a month contract assuming it's a £400-600 phone with the same amount of minutes and texts that could be gotten off a sim only contract. 'Free' is absolute bull usually if they're going to charge you more for the contract anyhow.

The same goes to the guy above who's perfectly happy with his sony play phone. I bet you still pay much more for you current minutes and texts than a sim only contract would. I believe it used to be a bit different back in the day when you had a loyalty discount but they don't really hand these out anymore.

 

[HangTime]

Apart from very heavy users for most people a £10/month sim will give an adequate contract, the phone certainly isn't free (aside from perhaps some budget handsets) and that should be obvious to anyone who spends more than a couple of seconds appraising a deal.

What I find even more hilarious is those broker sites that give you additional 'free gifts' like a PS3 or whatever, yet all of a sudden the handset cost jumps up compared to the same deal without the free gift.

 

[Illusion]

As hinted at by Fox in the first reply;

The phones aren't "free" despite how they advertise the deals.

You can get a SIM only deal for say £10-£15 a month with x y z minutes and data etc. A contract deal with the same minutes / data and a handset included could be £25-£40 per month. The extra is paying for the "free" handset?

The reason they get you to take a "free" upgrade is so you continue to pay your normal monthly price once the original contract is up, as at that point if you intend to keep the same phone you could get SIM only for cheaper instead.

In short: you don't get "free" phones and therefore won't make any relevant gains by taking out contracts and selling the handset.

 

[MrMoonX]

The best way is to buy the handset outright and get a sim only deal, I hate 24 month contracts its ridiculous, its nice to be able to change phone when a new one comes out without being locked into rape by direct debit for two years!

We have American operators to blame for 24 month contracts as they were always the norm over there, long before they were here

 

[Energize]

I can't fathom buying sim only these days, if you get a 24 month contract on redemption it's usually only a bit more expensive than buying the phone itself, yet you get two years of texts/calls/data. My galaxy note is only £15.xx a month after redemption, it was retailing at around the £400 mark when I got the contract.

 

[NZB]

You lot are nuts, i just buy phones once they aren't popular anymore. Current phone is an S2 bought 6 months or so ago for 100 quid, i just chuck the same PAYG sim in each one and spend 5 to 10 quid a month.

 

[Redmint]

Yes sometimes there are redemption deals which bring the total cost of the contract below the RRP of the phone but it's not like that kind of deal is always available on every phone. Having a look now at S4 deals and I can't see any offers which bring the 24 month contract cost down to the phone cost. I'm sure if the latest flagship Samsung or iphone was always available on such a contract for £15 p/m they would be very popular deals.

 

[BananaDunka]

The best way is to buy the handset outright and get a sim only deal, I hate 24 month contracts its ridiculous, its nice to be able to change phone when a new one comes out without being locked into rape by direct debit for two years!

We have American operators to blame for 24 month contracts as they were always the norm over there, long before they were here

This is the way I do it.

The only downside is that the initial buy for your first sim free phone is at full cost. So for me, the Galaxy S3 cost me £501 but because I went with a sim only deal with 3 at £13 a month over 12 months (300mins/2000txt, unlimited data) things were just fine.

I sold the S3 for half of what I paid for it and put that cash toward getting the Note II for £460 and renewed the 12 month sim contract to 600mins, 5000txt and unlimited data for an additional £2.

I could do this each year and just sell the outgoing phone at around 50% the purchase price so a brand new top end phone each year would cost me £250~ which is very reasonable.