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BBC exposes 02 old-phones mini-scam

by Bob Crabtree on 30 May 2006, 14:34

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Working Lunch - BBC TWO


In a follow-up report about O2 discontinuing support in June for four older models of mobile phone, the BBC TWO TV programme Working Lunch today explained how users can avoid paying out for new models.

The phones - three from Philips (the C12, 13 and Dega) and one from Motorola (the M3588, which isn't the model that O2 shows on its in-store posters!) - will work okay past the June cut-off if fitted with new SIMs, Working Lunch says.

Better still, it reckons that, although replacement SIMs cost £5 from O2, the company has now agreed - after being badgered by the programme - to supply them free, rather than force customers to buy them or invest in new phones. And users who've already paid out for SIMs from O2 can get a refund.

All this, as the Working Lunch sort of suggests, makes a nonsense of O2's explanation of its strategy with these four phones - that they're too old and too expensive to continue supporting.

Perhaps we're just being cynical but it looks to us as though what the company really wanted to do was just flog new phones to unsuspecting owners.

Watch Working Lunch's report yourself and let us hear your thoughts in the HEXUS.community.

HEXUS.links

BBC 2 - Working Lunch
O2  - UK home page
O2 telephone hotline - 0800 0894422

HEXUS Forums :: 13 Comments

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Posted by deleted - Tue 30 May 2006 14:43
They sound like they were some of the first pay as you go phones out - perhaps they're sick of pay as you go people who don't buy new phones every 12 - 18 months :)
Posted by deleted - Tue 30 May 2006 15:33
I've always had o2 on my list of ‘nice’ companies, ones that actually seem to care about their customers (very few companies make it on to my list), due to my experiences.

They are in danger of loosing it, but they've recovered a bit by saying they'll give free SIMs out (not that they care I suppose :p ).

When they said they wouldn't support them, doesn't that just mean that if you have problems, the technicians won't be able to help you? Shouldn't stop you using them should it?
Posted by deleted - Tue 30 May 2006 15:50
Why doesn't this suprise me?

Well… for years call charges have been going down and down
Line rentals are getting slightly cheaper
Handset's are also becoming more and more affordable
Churn from 1 network to another is getting higher and higher
The stupid fee's they paid for the “3G licenses”

and then This is announced.
Posted by deleted - Tue 30 May 2006 15:51
Well, the BBC report reckons that 02 said these phones will stop working by the end of June.

I haven't seen O2's own literature - and can't find anything about this on 02's site - but if the company did indeed simply say that these phones will stop working, then it means that, somehow, it was itself going to prevent their SIMs from working - cos putting in a new SIM does away with the issue (the report says).
Posted by deleted - Tue 30 May 2006 16:01
Lee @ SCAN
and then This is announced.

Point of order, yer honour - this wasn't a case of Vodaphone selling £Xbillion of services and losing £14.85b on that.

Instead, as best as I can make out, it was a purely paper loss, in as much as Vodaphone looked at a whole lot of the companies that it had bought in recent times, decided that their “book” value was rather less than had been stated and revalued them downwards.

What would, therefore, be of interest would be how much profit the company did make on selling £Xbillion of services and whether this book write-down will enable it to pay less tax (or even no tax at all or get refunds).

Anyone fancy trying to find the real facts? They don't seem available on Vodaphone's own site, so this may involve a good bit of digging.

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