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End User mobile connectivity

Crazy confused world of the mobile deal

I was chatting to someone earlier who took out a new contract with O2 for a Samsung Galaxy S2. £149.99 for the phone plus £13.50 a month for a 24 month contract with 50 minutes and 250 texts. He also got £150 cashback off quidco.com, the initial referring site.

He promptly sold the Galaxy on eBay for £465 – don’t ask me why people buy these on eBay over the odds when a PAYG SIM free version new is £400. Take a look – there are similar bids ongoing.

This person then bought a brand new iPhone 4G off a pal coming back from the USA on holiday for £300.

The upshot is a new iPhone costing him £8.67 a month compared with the £304.99 plus £18.50 a month he would have to pay for a new iPhone contract (ok he gets fewer minutes and texts in his bundle but he is ok with that).

Not everyone has a friend that can bring them back a phone from the USA but I have to say the mobile world is getting crazier by the day.

Trefor Davies

By Trefor Davies

Liver of life, father of four, CTO of trefor.net, writer, poet, philosopherontap.com

3 replies on “Crazy confused world of the mobile deal”

The reason people pay over the odds on eBay is often because they assume that the site, being about auctions, will automatically be cheaper and thus fail to do even the most basic of Google research to find the best deals. That or the price ordering drop-down menu on eBay is being sorely neglected 🙂 .

Those of us who spend hours surfing around for the best deals might find this unusual but for a lot of people it’s quite normal. Me, I’ll hold on to the thousands saved over the years by being sensible and take another holiday next year.

Many of the over the odds bids on phones etc are frauds – look at the prevalence of newbie bidders with no history and masses of bids on the same sort of thing on the first day. I hope Tref’s contact gets to keep the money he got and doesn’t see it clawed back via Paypal.

The guy lost out in the end, ‘cos he now has an iPhone instead of the Galaxy S2.

Mark – I’m off camping in Wales for a weekend again – thats what happens when you have 4 kids – savings or no savings 🙂

PhilT – yep – can’t understand this zombie-like Apple craze meself. It’s an expensive drug.

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