Dial a phone

Answer???????





The Nokia 3310 I bought from Dialaphone! I’ve never really been into mobile phones. I had the outlook that if someone wants to get hold of me, they can call me at home or at work. I really only had one in case of emergencies. However, they seem to be getting cheaper and cheaper to own, and that is what prompted me to get one.

*** Where do you buy your mobile from? ***
...mobile is probably via a specialist shop, such as The Carphone Warehouse or The Link. You can browse the range, talk to a so-called expert about the features and tariffs, and supposedly walk away with the best deal. Another option is a supermarket……. you may not get the technical support but the phones are a lot cheaper – although you are limited to pay-as-you-talk phones. The other option is the one that I am going to be talking ... more

Answer???????

The Nokia 3310 I bought from Dialaphone! I’ve never really been into mobile phones. I had the outlook that if someone wants to get hold of me, they can call me at home or at work. I really only had one in case of emergencies. However, they seem to be getting cheaper and cheaper to own, and that is what prompted me to get one.

*** Where do you buy your mobile from? ***

The most common way of buying a mobile is probably via a specialist shop, such as The Carphone Warehouse or The Link. You can browse the range, talk to a so-called expert about the features and tariffs, and supposedly walk away with the best deal. Another option is a supermarket……. you may not get the technical support but the phones are a lot cheaper – although you are limited to pay-as-you-talk phones. The other option is the one that I am going to be talking about, which is through a mail/internet order company.

*** Who are Dialaphone? ***

Dialaphone are one of many mail order mobile phone distributors. If you read a daily newspaper, chances are that you have seen one of their advertisements in the corner of a page somewhere. They usually draw attention to themselves by offering unbelievable deals on mobile phones. If you are in any way pessimistic by nature, then you will be thinking, “What is the catch?” Apparently they have been around for a number of years and can offer better deals on mobile phone packages by cutting out the middleman. There are no shops to see – you either order online or by phone. Even after hearing this, I was still a little dubious as my last experience of a similar company involved a missing phone and many fruitless calls to their useless customer service department. However, a friend of mine had used them and had no problems, so despite the mixed reviews I had read, I decided they were worth a shot.

***The deals***

The first thing to hit you when looking at their website (or advert in a newspaper) is how good the deals seem to be, and in the case of the website, how many deals there are. A point worth noting from the outset, is that there is no point in waiting for next month’s deal, because they are always getting better and better. No matter when you buy, they will always advertise a more appealing package the following month! So, what did they offer me if I chose to buy from them?

++ A brand new Nokia 3310 for free
++ 600 minutes of FREE off peak calls every month
++ Free connection to Vodaphone – worth £35
++ Free accessories – worth £70
++ 4 free changeable covers (front and back)
++ 3 months free insurance
++ Free next day delivery
++ £11.99 per month line rental, plus compulsory £2 itemised billing charge = £13.99
++ 14-day money back guarantee
++ 5 free ring tones or logos
++ 9 months free line rental
++ 50 FREE SMS text messages (to any network at any time) per month
++ 30 extra free SMS for the first 3 months
++ AND a free Kodak Advantix Camera, worth about £25

Sounds pretty impressive doesn’t it? So, what did I have to give them up front, to get this wonderful package sent to me? Answer……absolutely nothing – just my name and address and a credit card number so that they could do a credit check on me.

***The ordering***

I chose to order online (their best deals are supposedly online), so I can’t review the telephone ordering process. After selecting how many (!) of these phones you wanted, you were taken to a secure order form (using SSL for protection). It was a very simple process whereby they required you name, address and bank and credit card details. This was along with a few credit-scoring questions such as how long you’ve lived at your address etc. All that was left to do was to confirm the package you wanted, and select a delivery date. As promised in their offer, next day delivery was free, but they could delivery any time between 8am and 5pm. If you required 8am-12pm or Saturday delivery, then they would debit your credit card with £5. After clicking the OK button, you will instantly receive an email confirming your order.

***The delivery***

You might be thinking that there is no point in paying £5 to have the phone delivered early, or on a Saturday – as long as someone is there to sign for it, you’ll be ok, right?? – wrong! The catch is that as part of the virtual contract you create with Dialaphone, you MUST sign for the phone personally. If you work 9-5 Monday to Friday, this creates a problem. Therefore they seem to sting a lot of people with that £5 delivery charge to have it delivered on Saturday. It’s worth noting that you can specify a different address to have your phone delivered to (such as work). However, this really depends on whether your employer would approve – I knew it wouldn’t get past the gatehouse at my place of work, thus I didn’t bother!

Going back to the delivery, they told me that it would be delivered between 8am and midday on Saturday. True to their word, at 11am there was a knock on the door, and I duly signed for the package.

***What you get***

After ripping the package open, I discovered pretty much everything that they promised me. Although I would STRONGLY recommend that you read their T&C before you get your phone out. If you look carefully, there is a seal on the box that contains the phone. This seal is your signature!! What I mean by that is that by breaking the seal, you are effectively agreeing to their T&C and signing a one-year contract. Connection is automatic and will take place up to 24 hours after they receive your signature back from the courier. In my case, the package arrived Saturday morning and I was connected Tuesday afternoon, but only after a call to prompt them.

*** Were there any catches then? ***

Nothing major, but they have played on their words in the descriptions. I’ll briefly comment on each description in the package:

++ Free Nokia 3310 – No complaints here

++ 600 minutes of off peak calls per month – this is true, and you can even carry unused minutes over for 2 months before losing them! The thing to be careful of is the charges when you call at peak times, or to a non-Vodaphone customer.

++ Free connection – indeed it was

++ 4 free covers – these didn’t turn up (more of that later!)

++ 3 months free insurance – this is currently active, underwritten by Cornhill. The thing to watch out for is that after 3 months they start debiting you for it, and at about £4.50 a month, it’s a rip-off to say the least. You can find equivalent cover on various insurance websites for about £2.50 pcm – this is worth considering as if you lose the phone, you will still have to pay line rental for the remainder of your contract – phone or no phone!

++ £11.99 pcm line rental + £2.00 itemised billing – why, oh why, do mobile phone companies charge £2.00 for itemised billing and make it compulsory? They have to do it anyway, and my guess is that it is just to make the line rental look cheaper on paper. Nonetheless, the £13.99 line rental is still amongst the cheapest I’ve seen.

++ 5 free ring tones or logos – details of how to claim these are sent to you 30 days after your trial expires. You are given a national rate phone number and a PIN number. You can either look at the limited selection on the leaflet they enclose or you can browse their full selection on the website. When I claimed mine, they took over 36 hours to arrive.

++ 9 months free line rental – Very clever is this one. They omit to tell you WHICH 9 months are free! In my case, I have to pay the first 3 months (April, May and June), and I then get 6 free. To get my final 3 free months, I have to wait until April 2002.

++ 50 free SMS per month + 30 bonus for first 3 months – I thought there would be a catch to this one. However there is none that I have seen – you can SMS any network at any time. Shame you can’t carry them over!

++ Free Kodak Advantix Camera – What a bizarre gift! They made a mistake and sent me two of these (I wasn’t complaining!). They have offered a variety of gifts in the past, such as scooters and free pay-as-you-talk mobiles (quite why you’d need one if you’d just bought a contract is beyond me)

***Customer Service***

I had a few dealings with their customer service centre, and I must say that on the whole, I was pleasantly surprised. I had heard horror stories about being on hold for hours, and then when the phone was answered you get the impression that the customer service team is a one-man band! Apparently, they have moved to bigger offices now and employ more people.

I had to call them when by Tuesday afternoon my phone wasn’t connected. I got through immediately, and the lady said that she’d remind the connection department…….. it was connected half an hour later. The last dealing with them was regarding my missing covers. I decided that it was too trivial a matter to bother them with in the form of a phone call, so I emailed them……3 emails later and still no response, so I called. The man I spoke to, after patronising ME for speaking too quick (he was foreign), arranged for more covers to be sent out. By the tone in his voice, I could tell that he thought I was a sad bas***d for phoning, but I was doing it out of principle. However, the covers did turn up the next day – not that I’d be seen dead with them on my phone!

***In summary***

On the whole, the Dialaphone experience was very good – a far cry from the horror stories I had been told. At the end of the day, they delivered the package on time, and it was more or less as described in their advert. I’ve been using it for 2 months now, and still haven’t encountered any real issues.

If you are looking for a new mobile phone, and fancy cutting out the middleman, you could do a lot worse than to give Dialaphone a try. They supply a range of modern, and dare I say fashionable handsets, on a range of tariffs and networks. Make sure you know what you are looking for before ordering. As a rule, the more desirable the handset, the less free minutes and freebies you get……and the line rental goes up. They offer all networks, although I wouldn’t be surprised if they have some sort of affiliation with Vodaphone, which is where the best deals are found. Just make sure that it is right for you………600 free off-peak minutes are great for me, but would be useless if most of my calls were made during the daytime! – It would end up costing me an arm and a leg on the extortionate rates that they charge!

One last point worth mentioning is that they have a recommend a friend scheme. If you give them the mobile number of an existing customer who recommended you, they receive £20 (by the way my mobile number is 07900 5….) Better still, I notice that there are a number of Dialaphone banners around Ciao these days……why not get a great deal on a phone, whilst earning Ciao some money!

Website: http://www.dialaphone.co.uk  

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