How does half-price line rental work?

[CREATIVE!11]

Looking at contract on mobiles.co.uk

Saying 15 months half price line rental, just wonder how this stuff actually works and what traps to look out for, seems too good to be true.

Any of you guys have experience with this?

 

[Vertigo]

I'd presume it'll be some kind of cashback deal - they often phrase it in this way (i.e. X months free or half price line rental) to show you the effective savings.

You'll not actually get 15 months at half price but will pay the full whack and then claim the cashback at specific times. Providing the retailer is reputable and you adhere to the (often strict) terms of when and how to claim, you can make a killing.

For example, my current 18 month contract (ending next month) cost £30pm for 400mins & 500texts. I then claim cashback in five lots of £96 after months 6,9,12,15 & 18. The effective overall cost to me is £60 or £3.33 a month but they'll phrase this as 16 months free line rental instead.

 

[support_bae]

Go to Money Saving Expert forums. Countless customers complaining about cashback problems from Quidco, their own automatic cashback scheme and half-price/free line rental.

If it's a really good deal, take a punt but don't expect support if anything goes wrong. They don't have a dedicated call centre so expect to wait on hold 2 hours+ if you want to talk to a person.
They want you to contact them via email but they only seem interested in helping if you are going to buy from them and not needing help.

There is a user on the MSE forum who had around £200 taken from their bank account without the customers permission. When the customer realised this in their bank statement he spent around a week explaining this to Mobiles.co.uk. They finally admitted they were wrong and would refund the money via cheque but the cheque could take up to 28-56 days to arrive!
To this day the customer has not received his cheque. They are refusing to refund via Bank Transfer as their system doesn't support it.

Also, quidco users who bought the iPhone 3GS from mobiles.co.uk are having their £60 cashback rejected. Reason being they did not purchase the iPhone on contract! Clearly they did as you cannot buy the 3GS on PAYG on their site.

You may know Ben from Mobiles.co.uk sometimes posts here on the OcUK forums but he posts regularly on MSE. He tried to resolve the above problem but later admitted he couldn't. He has now disappeared (no longer posts) as he was having too much trouble from angry customers on MSE.

 

[CREATIVE!11]

I'd presume it'll be some kind of cashback deal - they often phrase it in this way (i.e. X months free or half price line rental) to show you the effective savings.

You'll not actually get 15 months at half price but will pay the full whack and then claim the cashback at specific times. Providing the retailer is reputable and you adhere to the (often strict) terms of when and how to claim, you can make a killing.

For example, my current 18 month contract (ending next month) cost £30pm for 400mins & 500texts. I then claim cashback in five lots of £96 after months 6,9,12,15 & 18. The effective overall cost to me is £60 or £3.33 a month but they'll phrase this as 16 months free line rental instead.

Yeh i noticed that u need to send bills at specific times. Have u actually been paid back ?

 

[Vertigo]

Yeh i noticed that u need to send bills at specific times. Have u actually been paid back ?

Yep, been on cashback contracts with OSPS/e2Save for about 4 years now and not had any real problems. Did have an issue with one payment on the current contract where they said I'd sent in the wrong paperwork but it turned out they'd changed their claim terms shortly before I took the contract out and I'd received the old ones. Once I explained that I'd adhered to the terms I'd been sent they accepted that and honoured the payment.

Had four £96 payments so far, each about a month after claiming. Final one is going in next week. As I'm paying £30 a month and getting £96 back every three months, the way I like to look at it is I paid £30 for the first six months and then got the next year basically free

 

[Ben_Mobiles]

You may know Ben from Mobiles.co.uk sometimes posts here on the OcUK forums but he posts regularly on MSE. He tried to resolve the above problem but later admitted he couldn't. He has now disappeared (no longer posts) as he was having too much trouble from angry customers on MSE.

Actually I've been off work for nearly 2 weeks with Swine Flu, but no matter how much I tried to help on MSE I was just constantly attacked by 3 or 4 users and their opinions and "facts" were just clouding everything I was trying to do (such as the above - that customer was refunded to her card and compensated for the trouble, but in the meantime there was about 17 pages of uninformed commentary).

I still visit MSE, I just don't get publicly involved - any customer I spot in trouble gets a PM.

For OP, cashback works exactly as stated by reply #1 - pay the full line rental and then claim rebates by submitting certain bills (via post, email or online form).

HTH.