Anyone gone to their phone company mid contract and asked to upgrade their phone mid contract ? what's the usual deal.
Do they still penalise you with early exit fees ? or do they just extended the contract by 12months ?

After an hour on the phone with Indians I am not sure I actually learnt anything. I gave up on the phone and figure an in-store visit might be more useful.

But you guys know about phones and stuff

Carrier?

Depends on a lot of variables.

How much do you spend? Do you have a cap plan? If so, do you go over your cap? Do you use non-basic functions on your phone such as content packs, web browsing, etc? How far through your contract are you?

If you're 12 months through a 24 month contract, they may hit you up with early exit/upgrade fees, but if you're a good customer with a history of good payments and value-add service subscriptions, they'll generally look at upgrading you free of charge at about the 15 to 18 month mark, providing they can lock you into another 2 year contract.

But, this all depends on the carrier your with and how clued up the CS droid is.

No personal experience - my nephew was with 3 about a year into his 2yr contract and wanted a new phone. He went in store, got a new phone with no extension to the contract, price increase or upfront payment.

With Telstra you have to pay out your contract because usually the contract also includes payment for the phone itself. They may let you upgrade your phone with new contract but they will add the remainder of your current contract costs to the new contract.

usually if you upgrade your plan to a new one for 24 months they'll just give you the new phone with it.

Optus $45 cap occasionally go over. Don't do much extra with it.
Been with them for about 10 years. 6 months left in the contract.

With Optus if you go over your cap it does lessen the length of the contract by a little bit.

However my experience with Optus is that they are fairly inflexable and want a fairly hefty pay-out to cancel the contract. More than if you just put the phone in the drawer and paid the minimum monthly amount until the contract ran its course.

But going into a store will give you the right answer.

last edited by mission at 11:06:55 27/Nov/08

No personal experience - my nephew was with 3 about a year into his 2yr contract and wanted a new phone. He went in store, got a new phone with no extension to the contract, price increase or upfront payment.

Sorry, I call shenanigans on this. I worked for 3 for almost 3 years. This was never their policy and according to my mates who still work there, never WILL be their policy. I think you may not have heard the full story or the real story.

optus are f***ing c***s.

i rang them up earlier this year to see how much i had left on my contract, they said my contract was finished so i changed carriers, i get a bill from optus for $600 of concellation fees. scummy c***s, i didn't pay it obviously

3 apparently have the rollback thing too where if you spend over the set amount it shortens the contract

Sorry, I call shenanigans on this. I worked for 3 for almost 3 years. This was never their policy and according to my mates who still work there, never WILL be their policy. I think you may not have heard the full story or the real story.

Nope that's what happened, sounds like somebody in the 3 camp broke policy!

Unless he went through customer relations who deal with TIO complaints its not actually physically possible for the store to do it. That said, if it was someone like all phones, they may have just handed a phone out of stock but that would be extremly unusual as it would cost them money as a reseller.

If he went to a three store, then he is telling tales out of school, because the system (that I used to support at hutchison) is designed to stop staff doing things like that :)

Just my 2c

it's a commercial decision for the carrier really. the operators will have some discretion if you are 2 or less months from end, but otherwise you will have to do some serious grinding with someone higher up.

pretty sure they make u pay the rest of the value of the phone u have (if ur paying extra per month) then u can upgrade ur phone.

I'm with Virgin Mobile and i was looking into upgrading also. I'm on the $30 cap with extra phone repayments of $8 a month, 15 months into my 24 month contract.

I shot off an email to their customer support, and they said if i wanted to upgrade i would have to pay out the full phone repayments (which is actually $19 / month) times months left.

So yeah, might try going into a store when my contract is a bit closer to its end.

early upgrade with optus depends on how long you've been a customer, billing history and how long you have left on the contract

i upgraded phones 11mths into a 24mth contract and it cost me $200 in break fees but I moved to a lower cap so it'll even over the next year.

I gave up on the phone and figure an in-store visit might be more useful.

I had this same experience with Vodaphone.. though I've yet to find the time to get to their Carindale store.

using Vodaphone's (offshore) tech support left me just a little stupider.

I am currently wanting to get a new phone, my problem is that I may be pissing off overseas within 24 months. I know there are good deals out there, but havn't had time to go to mobile shops etc. Is it possible to get a phone (leaning toward n96) on a contract, and then just pay it out later? It will probably work out cheaper than buying the whole phone outright. I know when I got my N70, it was cheaper for me to sign up and cancel the plan than it was to buy the phone outright.

With Optus, Im pretty sure you need to pay the pro-rata cancellation fee, and then the gap, i.e if the RRP of youre new phone is $200.00 more than your current one, you pay that so your normal monthly contract payments stay the same. I think this depends how far into your contract your are.

I am with Optus and I had around 6 months to go and they waved the exit fee as long as I signed up for another contract.
Had another phone where I wanted to upgrade about the 12 month mark of 24 month contract and I had to pay the exit fee of around $200.

I would say though if you call them again and ask them what is the best deal they can do to resign you then they will probably wave the cancellation fee.

So ... after deciding talking to people in Bombay was doing my head in I go into the store "Yeah sorry we can't really do anything, you have to ring for anything like that" Back to chatting with Bob in Bombay...

*edit assuming bob isn't running round shooting people

the tajmahal is burning... terrorists or obes outsourcing rage!?

I upgraded 'free' with telstra a few years back. Got a new phone but had to reset my 24 months.

Changed to 3 recently and I am pretty happy.

3 Upgrades employee here:

We do definitely offer early 'loyalty' upgrades for customers before the end of their contract.

I do know that there are a number of pre-determined factors that our system will go into deciding when / what you're eligible for at any given time (and no, it definitely isn't based upon how much money you spend. From what I've seen, the main factors are how much you make calls on the 3 network, rather than when you're roaming on the Telstra network, and how much you use the Planet 3 content).

We have some customers that we can upgrade 10 months early to a free Samsung Omnia. We don't know the exact parameters that go into deciding who is eligible for these kinds of offers (as I suppose if those details are published, the system would be fairly exploitable for staff), however yeah I've seen plenty of these customers not even exceeding their $29 cap month-to-month, so spend really is a minor factor in the whole thing.

Please note that even though you can upgrade early, all of these upgrades will ALWAYS incur a new contract (generally 24 months). Anyone who is saying that they got a free phone on no contract either has no idea what they've gotten themselves in for, is a super special case and got some huge approval based on extenuating circumstances, or is a lying son of a bitch.

I am with Optus and I had around 6 months to go and they waved the exit fee as long as I signed up for another contract.
Had another phone where I wanted to upgrade about the 12 month mark of 24 month contract and I had to pay the exit fee of around $200.

I would say though if you call them again and ask them what is the best deal they can do to resign you then they will probably wave the cancellation fee.

this is much the same as what i experienced with another carrier. as long as you are going to stay with them and sign another 12 - 24 month contract you are sweet.

I am currently wanting to get a new phone, my problem is that I may be pissing off overseas within 24 months. I know there are good deals out there, but havn't had time to go to mobile shops etc. Is it possible to get a phone (leaning toward n96) on a contract, and then just pay it out later? It will probably work out cheaper than buying the whole phone outright. I know when I got my N70, it was cheaper for me to sign up and cancel the plan than it was to buy the phone outright.

I had about 7 months left on my contract when I moved over to the UK. I was able to get onto a pay as you go plan, and just get billed $15 a month for the remainder of the time to pay off the rest of the phone. I also got to keep my number, and although my Aussie mobile is inactive, when I returned home recently I was able to turn it on and use it as normal. Now I just receive a $0 bill from 3 (but not every month curiously, only selective ones).

Yeah optus's out sourcing of everything is pretty much why i'm switching carrier.

s*** phone service
s*** in store service
s***test website ever made
Average plans

s***test website ever made

QFT, even telstras is better

s***test website ever made

nah msy have that title sewn up

I've been an Optus customer ever since I've had a mobile and never had any problems with their billing or service or anything. The one time I've called them to get a new phone I got some dude who was awesome and like the next day a spanking new phone arrived (had to go on a new plan obvy).

I almost never call service, I called sales a couple days ago to find out about strap-on data plans for Internet just out of interest and got some champ who hooked me up with the infoz in about 2 minutes.

as far as handsets go, does anyone buy from eBay traders?

I'm taking a look at http://stores.ebay.com.au/MobileCiti-eStore atm.

is it worth it buying from these soures just to save a few bucks? or are you better going thru your provider?

I bought a mobile from ebay once, and it never showed up. 'lost in the mail'.

Yeah trog I was the same until this week. Got a helpful person today ... all sort and am now an iphone fanboi (tho it doesn't seem to want to import my contacts off my sim card.

I almost never use a call girl service, I called sales a couple days ago to find out about a strap-on.i got thedata plans for Internet man pron just out of interest and got some champ who hooked me up with some serious black fella pron. the infoz i downloaded had me satisfied in about 2 minutes.

fixed



last edited by sleepy at 21:28:23 28/Nov/08

I hope nothing goes wrong with your phone then trog

I've had to call them several times, once to turn on globabl roaming, which they didn't actually do so i had to do it again while over seas.

Trying to get setup details for a phone not on their auto config list, just trying to get like their wap servers and s***, was painstaking.

And their in store sales staff were always useless with information always just telling me to call (about sales information, plan details, when they'll next have a certain phone in) and seemed annoyed to even have customers in the store.

I called sales a couple days ago to find out about a strap-on

kinky!! pls continue.

I've had to call Optus a fair few times over the last 6 years or so for various reasons. Every single one of those times I've been on hold for really long amounts of time (sometimes 40 minutes +) and then received really bad service each time. I've been hung up on before by some guy because he couldn't solve my problem. And no, I've never been one of those complaining customers, just general info about setups/issues etc. So while I love Optus for their plans etc, I really dread ever having to make any phone calls to them.

.

last edited by skeeny at 05:50:51 29/Nov/08

girississ they're used to normal customers that go "hey pretty phone, BUY" instead of wasting time searching for obscure pdfs about hspda wifi bluetooth on the new nokia n123512352315.

of course they'd tell you to get out, it's commission based sales brahhhhhhhh

girississ they're used to normal customers that go "hey pretty phone, BUY" instead of wasting time searching for obscure pdfs about hspda wifi bluetooth on the new nokia n123512352315.

of course they'd tell you to get out, it's commission based sales brahhhhhhhh

So then why do the people in the telstra stores, presumably on the same commision system, find the time to answer very simple questions. You know, the complex ones like "oh, do you don't have that in stock, when will you be getting it back in?".

Commision based salaries aren't an excuse for not giving customers service, they also wear the optus shirt, which means they're representing optus them selves. Though, i guess their sales forces indifference is reflected through out the entire company.