My wife's mobile phone is connected to the Vodafone network and she is currently on the Vodafone 60 tariff (£17.50 monthly includes 60 mins free calls per month). I have become increasingly annoyed at the size of the bills. They are never less than £25 and often £30-50. Ok my wife likes to talk a bit, but she assures me that she doesn't use the phone much. This all came to a head when I bought a BTcellnet Pay as you go phone and I have used about £5 in 2 months.

You might think I'm crazy - surely I should tell Vodafone to p**s off and get my wife onto the same package as myself. Well I'm keen for her to keep her current phone (Nokia 5110) because it works very well and we've already got the hand-free kit and car charger, etc. But I would like smaller bills, so my question is can I or should I change to Pay as you talk?

D.

Not sure but you may find you can buy a sim card (roughly £10) for any of the networks offering pay as you talk and just pop it in, you will need to speak to vodafone about canceling your current contract and if it's been running for less than a year you will have some extra cost to incure, if you go with vodafone as the pay as you talk network you may find theese cost less.

Si
Ps I know how you feel my old pay as you talk i use to spend 50 pound every 2 months roughly my last vodafone contract bill was 64 pound "whoops" http://bbs.scoobynet.co.uk/smile.gif

As a "contract customer", surely your wife gets itemised bills and can thus tell where the money goes?

Normally it is cheaper to call someone on the same network, so changing may make sense - but you may want to review your entire connection and service provider first.

mb

The contract has been running for about 3 years so no problem with cancelling. Itemised billing costs an extra £2.50 a month. Ok not much I know but I don't think this will help the problem.

D.

You should be able to phone them up and get them to change your contract over to pay as you go. If not tell them to cancel and buy a sim card on the net. I know virgin charge £14.99 , other than that you should be able to get one somewhere.

Heck GBP2-50 per month for itemised billing sounds like as total rip-off!!! http://bbs.scoobynet.co.uk/mad.gif After all, it only costs them the price of the paper to print on (they _must_ know the details anyway).

Go to somewhere like Car Phone Warehouse and get a brochure comparing all the tariffs, and choose the most appropriate for your circumstances.

You may (or may not) decide to transfer your number to another network - but maybe call Vody first and see if they can improve your (wife's) current service.

mb

No experience of Voda but I use a similar sort of package on Cellnet. Only difference is that I pay the line rental annually in advance. I have never had to renew at the full price. Because it's effectively an annual contract they contact you every year and ask if you want to renew. You leave it until very close to when the renewal is due and either they offer you a cheaper deal or you call them and say you want to cancel because someone else is going to do it cheaper. If you do that they transfer you to their retention unit who will suddenly find that they can do you a better deal. Best deal I managed on renewal was 15 months line rental (including £5 calls a month) plus a phone upgrade for £100 - they'd started off trying to get me to pay £17.50 a month! http://bbs.scoobynet.co.uk/smile.gif

G

DJB,

I'm on Vodafone contract with a Nokia 5110, renewed about 4 months ago for £99 for the year all-in. Had the option of either 30min/month peak call free or 500mins/month off peak and I can change if need be. All I get each month is a bill if I go over the free calls allowance - biggest bill to date was about £2. My better half got the same deal a couple of months later.

Kevin.