Mobile Phones Case Study – Chris Yates
So many things to say and so little time to say them. It’s a
common scenario that affects millions. Just how many of us wish we could spend
longer talking to the ones we love?
For IT support engineer Chris Yates, 24, the need to stay in
touch with those closest to him was quickly becoming a problem.
“I was using the T-Mobile Relax tariff plan,’ reflected Mr
Yates. ‘It gave me 200 inclusive minutes a month but it just wasn’t enough. I
make up to 20 mobile phone calls a day, especially to my fiancée and my
brother. What was a £30 monthly contract was costing me £100/month because I
was going so far past my allotted time.”
Mr Yates began to search around the internet for a better
mobile phone deal that could offer him more talk time for a lower price. The
process took him three weeks and he admitted he wished the mobile phone price
comparison table at moneysupermarket.com had been online earlier.
“What took me three weeks could have taken me three minutes,”
he laughed. “It’s certainly a fantastic advantage for anyone who is looking for
a new tariff now.
“The only problem I had with switching networks was the time it
took me to find the best deal. Moneysupermarket.com would have solved that
problem.”
Surprisingly, the best deal for Mr Yates actually came from his
current mobile phone network – T-Mobile. They had another Relax plan that gave
him 400 inclusive minutes, and an 18-month contract, for just £22/month.
However, transferring to this new tariff was not
straightforward. At the end of the contract a network user is only given the
opportunity to renew his or her current deal if they want to keep their mobile
phone number. Consequently, Mr Yates had to think intelligently to find a way
to move to the deal he wanted and keep his number.
“I had to find a way around it,” he said. “So I bought a
sim-card with O2 for just £3 and transferred to their pay-as-you-go deal,
keeping the number active. I was on this deal for just 36 hours and then I
moved back on to T-Mobile on the plan I wanted.”
It could seem like a difficult way of solving the problem, but
the concept was so simple that Mr Yates’ fiancé followed exactly the same
method to move over to the T-Mobile Relax plan she wanted shortly after.
“It could seem like a roundabout way of doing things,” he said.
“But it was really a very simple method. The whole process took less than three
weeks.
“The advantages are there to capitalise on,” he continued. “I
would recommend that everybody uses the price comparison tool at
moneysupermarket.com to at least take a look at what better deals are out
there.
“I was spending about £30 on my contract and then about £70 for
additional calls. Now I’m paying just £22 and I have double the minutes. I
haven’t even gone over my inclusive minutes since switching!”
For Mr Yates, putting his money where his mouth is was no
longer worthwhile. By searching for a better mobile phone deal he proved that
talk really could be cheap.
