I know to what you are reffering, but im sorry to say that you are wrong about a couple of things, let me clear up what it is. The insurance comapy we use exclusivley is P.A.S. ( policy admin services ) . Now bear with me if you will, when you take out a contract from phones for you we accually provide you with a letter warning customers about fraudulent insurance companies doing exactly what you have descibed. It tends to happen more ( but not soley ) with vodafone. The way the fraudsters works is as follows. When you purchase a phone , from voda if it's a new connection ie a new number you will be presented with a screen of which you can select a number. Now these numbers are produced numerically ( this is important, i shall explain why in a mo ) . So you choose your number , say for example you chose a number that ended 1234. What happens is these fraudulent companies buy a voda contract and ar allocated a number just like everyone else, the imporant thing is with this number they just inrease th numerical digits knowing that these numbers are all phones that are being recently connected , then what they do is phone the number up , knowing they are phoning a brand new connection and will claim to be either phones 4 u , pas, or the network and say something like " this is phones 4 u , we have checked our records and we can save you money on your insurance, if you could just confirm you bank details etc" They get all the infomation they need, and bam they take money out of your account . This in no way benefits phones 4 u, its costs the company money as customers are sometimes told to cancel the direct debit of their genuine insurance. Pas and the police have been involved in shutting these operations down, but it just tends to be a guy in an office, so they do tend to spring back up. It causes us trouble instore obviously because customers come in about it. When you buy a contract with us and if it has insurance , our contract automatically print out a letter purley about the problem, althouigh personally i think alot of people dont look at it. For my store personally i do point it out and tell customers to read it. However we have no other way to stop it from happening. One last thing, i have spoke to customers who have been called but whom have read the letter or been pre warned and they have told me that when they get a call, they have said to the fraudulent companies they have been pre warned against them , the people on the phone sometimes get very abusive , typical of the criminla scum they are.

To LS84, ive misread your post, you are acually saying the same points as i raised not in disagreement with me , sorry!!!! my bad

Had absolutely shocking service from phones4u
Sent my Sony Ericsson handset off for repairs (minor - the keys had cracked on the keypad) on 16th Novemeber 2007
It is now 28th April 2008 and I STILL have not recieved anything back
After numerous calls (for which they charge you - its not a free-phone number), I was told it would be sent out in the next two weeks. I never received it.
This happened at least 4 times before I wrote to them complaining and listing the cost of all my calls.
They offered me £20 for my troubles (NOT enough for going phone-less for over 5 months) and to refund the cost of my calls, and to send my phone again.
This was STILL not recieved, and I got my dad to phone them up to complain further,
After finally saying they would re-send the phone and cheque, I got a call three days later to say they didn't even have my phone model in stock, and didn't know when they would even get any in. They did offer me alternative models, but none were Sony Ericssons, and I didn't like any of them.
Despite being able to purchase the Sony model I wanted on their website, they insisted they could not send me one.
I asked if I could just cancel everything - cancel my contract and go somewhere else. They said no (I wasn't really expecting to be able to cancel my contract without paying up anyway) and I asked if there was anything they could do as I was sick of waiting, and 5 months is just appalling. They just offered me the handsets again, being very unhelpful and not offering any advice.
Eventually I cut my losses and took one of the handsets they were offering, despite having said many, many times to them that the Sony Ericsson I had before was the main reason for getting the contract. They refused to order one in for me, saying only that they had no idea when they'd next get a delivery of them.
Sick, sick, sick of being messed around by phones4u, never going there again!!

I work for Phones4U and am not "ignorant, unsympathetic, arrogant, annoying, unhelpful", sorry but just because you didn't get things going your way isnt our fault.

Do I agree with the phone repair procedure? No. Can I do anything about it? No.

Does it take along time? Yes. Do we produce phones at the back of the store with little elves and dwarves? No. We are the middle men, the network have a tight control with what we do.

The insurance, everything has an excess....its logic...your phone is likely to be stolen within the 4months of you buying it. I dont know about anyone else that works for phones4u but with PAYG phones, i give my customers free insurance to make up for the excess.

If you still want to flame on, then all i can say is, suck it up and dont be bitter and tell me if you get better service in the same scenario with another phone, i can gurantee you will have the same issue.

We had the identical problem yesterday in Canterbury at a Phones4Us store. When they sold us an Orange Sim Card and Top Up for a USA mobile phone (activated for Europe) they assured us repeatedly that if it did not work on that phone they would immediately give us a full refund. The sim card did not work. We never left the store. They refused to refund. Do not give these people your money, and avoid them at all costs. Looking through these posts I believe they have a policy of lying and then refusing to honor their promises. I hope they go out of business soon. I' not even sure a written contract would have protected me since I assume Trading Standards will not care . . . .

As ive said in a previous post, i do work for phones 4 u. As a company they are trying massivley to improve the're customer service and shed the image that alot of folks have of them , so far they have made it so both staff and management will lose money if they give bad customer service. Im sure you all know the the mobile retail industry has a commision based pay. If a store has a bad customer reaction , through complaints etc they will lose 25 % of commsion and gain 25% for a positive feedback, and the managers have a similar scheme. So its really not in our best interests to *** people off. As a customer the thing alot of people dont realise is when you get a phone from us , there is more then one compay involved. Phones 4 u , the network, the manufactuer of the phone eg nokia, and if you have to sent the phone away with a fault, the repair compay mprc. So if some thing goes wrong , it maybe nothing to do with us, but as its where you got the phone from, we tend to get the blame. Now im not saying that we wouldnt help, but ive had it where a customer sent a cancellation letter to vodafone, and they didnt cancel it. Thats what i told her to do, which is the correct procedure . But she went mental at me " im not shopping at phones 4 u again" . In that instance, i have no control of what the network do, but i got the flak. The other thing is sometimes the other companys cant be bothered to deal with a problem, they can see it was purchased in p4u, so they just blmae us and tell you to go instore, and when you arrive to tell us you've been cut off or whatever we just have to refer you to the network again ( in this example ) because someone on the phone thought' issue, i cant be bothered'.

Now all that being said, i, well aware that there have been customer service issues caused by our company, all i can say is that the company is making alot of changes to ensure that going forward we look after our customers and they will come back to us. Myself , when i went into my current store, it was rife with problems and unresolved issues, it took me a while but i resolved 90% of them to the customers satisfaction and have virtually no issues that were down to service since. Alot of staff ave been sacked across the company for being underhanded , so beleive me when i say the company is very serious about this. There will still be somethings im sure that cause issues, but speak to the manager of your local store, its in the're best interest to help you

Do you imply that if I complained to Phones4u they might actually resolve the issue for me? I was told that a number of electronic companies here in the UK train their employees to lie, and I assumed phones4u is one of them, since that was my experience.

I did speak to the manager of the local store where the problem occurred. Immediately after the problem occurred. His employee promised me a refund if the sim card & top up they sold us did not work in my friend's US phone. I asked him that twice to make sure. We would not have even begun the transaction on any other terms. When the sim card DID NOT WORK they refused to honor that promise. We left the store minus 20 GBP & very angry. I let them keep the useless Sim card.

find a new job.

I used to work for phones4u however I left the company due to ethical reasons. I was unhappy about being made to practically 'con' people into things they dont really want or need in order to make more money for the store.
There was a constant pressure on all of the staff to hit daily store and personal targets (which most of the time were unachieveable) otherwise we would have to endure an unpleasant working atmosphere from our managers and would also lose 25% of our commision. However I am aware the commision structure has changed.

An example of what I was forced to do by my superiors every day:

A customer would come in wanting us to buy out their contract, say they had 4 months left at £25 a month.. (so a £100 buyout) and they use roughly 300 minutes and 500 texts a month.
I would be told to offer them a contract at £40+ a month with 750 mins and 3000 texts and I would show them our clearance and oldest handsets. I would then have to tell them that in order for us to give them any money towards their buyout they would have to take the insurance for a minimum of 3 months before cancelling it at £9.99 a month. (which is against FSA guidlines about selling insurance compliantly- it needs to be clear, fair and not misleading)
I would then ask how much of the buyout they could afford and perhaps offer for us to go 50/50 with them and settle for giving them £50. Before telling them we could definately give them the cash I would tell them I have to go out the back to ring headoffice to get authorisation... (This is complete b**lls**t as if I needed to ring headoffice I would have done it from the phone on my desk..not the back office.. This is just a tatic used to make the customer think theyre getting a good deal or something special) The customer would walk away with a phone that may have been released 8months previous and paying £50+ a month for their contract and insurance.

In actual fact I could have offered that customer a newer phone, the minutes and texts they needed for between £30-35 a month. The option of insurance and the full £100 for their buyout, plus maybe an accessory as well!!

The difference between the two scenarios above is the first could have made the store around £280 and given me £13.50 in commision. And the second scenorio would have made the store around £120 and given me £4 commision.

Most of the time the shop wasn't busy and I was made to clean and polish the entire shop every day and stand outside the store (even in the rain/snow) trying to entice people in with false promises of cashback and 'great deals'.
Also a good 25% of my day was spent cold calling existing customers trying to persuade them to let me buy out their contracts. (which is a breach of data protection and happens nationwide..some staff sometimes even take customer details and telephone numbers home!!) This actually happened to my partner, a family member of his had their details taken home by one of the staff members of Phones4U, this included bank account numbers and address history, also copies of bills and passport!!!!!!

There is SO much more I could tell you about Phones4U I could publish a book, sorry for rambling on for so long!

I would just like to say that my job was to lie and cheat people, all to line the pockets of a faceless corporation and to make sure my manager got his bonus at the end of each month.
I am sincerely sorry to ALL the people I may have ever sold a contract to!
My best advice to avoid Phones4U at all costs.

hi, i agree with drwhodunnit.

I work for Phones4u as a store administrator, and you people have absolutely no idea how much hard work we have to put in to give you good customer service.

For example, you are all complaining about faulty handsets or huge phone bills. So why the heck are you coming to Phones4u? Do we make the mobile phone? No, do we provide you with the minutes and texts? No. Do YOU as a customer signt the are U happy sheet to say that you are indeed happy with what you have been offered??

I'm not saying that SOME sales consultants are lazy and don't explain things thoroughly, but they do get dealt with in the form of reviews and disciplinary, as it is a LEGAL contract and customers need to know EVERYTHING. So they do get told off for it. Us administrators have to deal with customer complaints. We don't serve you to begin with, but we are the ones who get all the abuse from customers who can't be bothered to stop and think about where the products come from. All Phones4u does is provide a service. We can't change your bill. If you aren't happy with a handset within 14 days we can eiher cancel the contract or do a product exchange. If it is faulty up to 28 days we can swap it for the same handset. After that we HAVE to, and i mean HAVE TO send it off for repair. Our instore systems won't allow us to do anything else. The repair company has now changed, and it is a lot better. Now, you can provide us with n email address and it allows you to track your repair yourself, so you will know exactly when it come into the store.

I do sympathise with some of you who have bad customer service, and 90% of the time my customers end up leaving with a smile on their face as i have either solved, or done everything in my power to solve a customer complaint....even sitting on the phone for 3 hours to vodafone. And you are given paperwork to sign and told by the staff to read through the insurance booklets. If you can't be bothered to read through it and read that it does state quite clearly that there is an excess to pay, i'm sorry but you only have yourselves to blame.

So stop blaming Phones4u if you have handset or network issues. We are NOT your donkeys to command around. If you have an issue with a network then call them. If the handset is faulty, by all means come back into the store and we will try our best to sort it for you. But stop with the stupid blaming of phones4u for faulty handsets, when it is the manufacturer you should have the problem with.

And yes, bad customer service has been known to come from us. But then again,look at every other company in the world. They also get complaints. Just think about what you are saying bfore going straight off to complain

ref : foosa-monkey , it sounds like you are talking about the sort of behaviours that other people on this post are talking about, if you had such a problem with it, their is a confidentail number to phone , but it sounds like you went along with it. It also sounds like you werent in the compnay very long, because your incorrect about some of the infomation you state. I wouldnt tolerate any type of behaviour like that in my store. This is what alot of people dont understand, for every contract, broadband and sim only we sell, the customer will get a text about a month after , asking to rate the service (not the phone or tariff , just the service ) it rates from 0 ( very bad ) to 5 ( outstanding ). In my store, if i get just 2 to 3 people rate our service 0 , my staff would get 50% less commision that if we got a good mark . ( my store has got full points every month since the sceme started ). My point being from a sales persons point of veiw it would make them more money if they didnt sell you anything, than sell you something and give you very bad service or lie about stuff. There is not point, not just from an ethical standpoint, but financial aswell. Im not saying that im perfect and dont have any customer issues, but as long as their dealt with efficently and quickly , customers are genrally happy. Yes I still get angry people, just this week a lady tried to return a phone that had a cracked screen. Now we know it wasnt sold like that , because we had to use the phone to connected it. So she obviously broke it, and accidental damage isnt covered by the warranty. She tried to argue that it was 'obviously' a design fault and not her fault. She didnt take insurance , and in that instance she went away *** off. however that would hve been the same no matter what phone shop it was purchased from . I felt bad for her as it was only purchased within 2 weeks , but as my fellow p4u employee above states, some stuff is out of our hands. In my stores case i would try to resolve anything i could if i cam, hell we get countless people comming into the shop with problems with phones that are not even from us, providing we are not too busy we'll always try to help. So i resent the fact that we get tarred with tha same brush. To foosa-monkey, if you were doing non compliant stuff, it sound like you went along with it for a while at least anyway and without reporting it, so you are just as bad as the store you make out to be so dis honest

To drwhodunnit, I am very aware of the confidental telephone hotline and did actually use it on numerous occasions, and they did F all, apart from just move me stores wen i was suffering from sexual harrasment from my boss.. Whilst working for the company I worked in 5 different stores as everywhere was always short staffed and they always made me cover.. and every store I worked in did the same kind of things. I did report uncompliant selling and unfairness, however I got the response from my boss that 'its the way sales and the company works' and if i didnt do it then i wouldnt achieve my targets and then would get managed out of the company and sacked.
I worked for the company for 7 months and am very aware of the new scheme in place, which has only been running for 2 months..so full marks for 2 months isnt rele that much of an achievement tbh. My partner unfortunately still works for the company so I know everything that still goes on in the company.
I understand and totally agree with you that u do get people who complain and argue about things you have no control over and that are their own fault..and in this instance ther is nothing you can do. These people's complaints are just unjustified.
I am glad you sound as if your doing your job in the best possible way and you sound very helpful.. it would be better if more people like you worked for the company, but unfortunately from my experience of the company the majority of people and stores are pushy and unfair.
I am not a dis honest person and am doing everything I can atm to get the FSA involved and some the issues ironed out at the company.

I have a limited experience working with phones 4 u on all levels and unfortunately I have to agree that they are not the easiest of companies to deal with. Their customer retention is poor, generally down shocking sales tactics and simply selling the products that benefit them and not the customer. I do believe there are some genuinely fantastic people who work there and who do care about the customer but I think these people are few and far between. The repair centre processes are ridiculous for the current market place and the centre of most complaints. I am aware they are trying to repair their image but some may say too little, too late.

can i just say r all of u really sad or av u just got nothin better do? you are all thinkin to much into this!

Policy Admin Services are an insurance company who work alongside Phones 4u and other companies. If i ask u all a question i want u to answer me honestly!!

For such things as house and motor insurance do you or do you not have to pay an excess??? how else would insuance companies make money?

as u have all guessed yes i work for Phones 4u and you all just dont really no anythin!!

SCARY MARY:

can i just say r all of u really sad or av u just got nothin better do? you are all thinkin to much into this!

Policy Admin Services are an insurance company who work alongside Phones 4u and other companies. If i ask u all a question i want u to answer me honestly!!

For such things as house and motor insurance do you or do you not have to pay an excess??? how else would insuance companies make money?

as u have all guessed yes i work for Phones 4u and you all just dont really no anythin!!

Scary Mary your command of the English language is almost as appalling as your arrogance.