Tesco Mobile will cut your bill if you agree to watch ads

[peterb]

Yes - I realise that Tesco are an MVNO, but the VNO part stands for "Virtual Network Operator" and so an operator, of sorts. As for your Vodafone contract is that a network wide feature that they offer or just a deal for you or select subset of customers? I only ask because Tesco Mobile tout it is a USP of sorts as no RPI related price increase applies across their entire tariff range.

I have no idea, I haven't looked at vodafones general price list for a while.

EDIT: just checked - Vodafone do add an RPI adjustment last year it was .9%, however my SIM plan was fixed for a year. It may change when the year is up, going up by 6.3a/month.

When I replace a phone - usually about every 5 Or 6 years, I buy it outright and stay with a SIM only plan.

Wearing my admin hat, Saracen - as is any other member - is quite entitled to comment on a thread on HEXUS.

He was recounting his personal experience with a company, and as he said, that isn't statistically significant. But it is one of the reasons why he wouldn't be interested in the offer - he listed others as apwell, including the fact that his phone wouldn't be capable anyway.

Similarly, your comment about horses, would be valid - but irrelevant - and so would be ignored.

You may consider Saracen's post irrelevant, so my advice to you would be to ignore it, rather than question his motives and risking a flame war, which will only end badly. Saracen's views are well known and largely respected here, as you will discover when you have been around a bit longer.

[Saracen]

So, to get this straight - the primary reason you're not interested in Tesco Mobile, aside from the fact that you're not looking for a phone contract and don't have a smartphone, is owing to a complaint you had with one store and one instance of selling a decade ago? Wow... and I suppose you felt strongly enough to report the incident to trading standards / Ofcom or whichever practice governing body was applicable? Probably not eh?

Your response is an odd one because as a recent customer of Tesco Mobile I was informing you of my recent experience with them which was exceedingly positive. I then also cited Which? as another source which rates Tesco Mobile highly. Only for you to basically say that your opinion of them is set and your stance is immovable because you don't care about what they think of you, what I think of them or what an industry consumer representing body thinks of them. I would surmise from that that you're the sort of person that once you've formed an opinion on something you're going to stick to it no matter the counterargument, which is to say that you're probably very stubborn. If so, that is of course your prerogative but the only person missing out there is you.

I also find it interesting that you chose to involve yourself by commenting on this article since, on the surface at least, you appear to lack even the most tenuous of connected interest to the article's content. You don't even own a smartphone so you're completely ineligible for the product. All you've managed to do is inject your own negative and out of date opinion on the company. This is kind of like me commenting on an article about horses and saying "I don't like horses, they scare me". Like, okay, so what?

I'm not interested in Tesco Anything because it's Tesco. Presumably, when a company treats you like dirt, you continue to use them, despite there being loads of competitors that don't? You are entitled to your opinion on Tesco, and unlike you, I haven't criticised your right to express it. Are you seriously suggesting, though, that having been treated I dirt by them, I should ignore that because Which, or some random bloke on the net, wasn't there? Really?

But Tesco were not the point of my first post, even though you seem to have latched onto that.

My second point was that I don't have a smartphone. The reasons why are numerous, and a balance of positive and negative and, for me, at the moment, the negative outweigh the positive. Why that is so really is beyond the scope of this thread.


So, why comment?

It might have escaped your notice but this is a discussion forum. The idea is to discuss.

So, in the interests of clarity, I pointed out that that deal did not appeal to me because, first, Tesco, and second, no smartphone.

However, I have and still am keeping the issue of a smartphone under review, so the second reason why, right now it's not for me could disappear at any time, and will if positive exceeds negative.

That just leaves the issue of discounts to receive ad's. And THAT, since you obviously missed it, was the point of my post.

So let me clear it up for you.

Assume it's next week or next year, and I've bought a smartphone. Assume the deal wasn't from Tesco, but from my existing (non-smart) carrier. Would I accept ad's for a discount? No. Not at £3/month. Not at 50% of what I was paying per month, before switching to PAYG. Not if they halved my call rates.

I doubt there is any figure they could offer that is anything like consistent with my phone costs that would induce me to acceot ad's. If they kep my rates the same and offered a free iPhone 38, or Samsung 62, or whatever the latest bells and whistles phone is if I accepted ad's on it, the answer would still be no.

I don't want ad's on my phone, and certainly, emphatically, don't want geo-tracked ads on anything, phone or otherwise. I also, for the record, don't want junkmail through my door, telesales calls at home or on my mobile, and if I could dump TV ads I would. And I take every sensibke step I can to prevent all the above.

So no, my personal view is I wouldn't take it whoever offered it, but that precise deal is a non-starter anyway because Tesco are on my blacklist. And I'm not losing out because of it. Tesco offer me nothing I can't get elsewhere, and I don't miss them one tiny, little bit. My not dealing with them hurts them more than it hurts me, and given that they no doubt wouldn't notice that tiny little pinprick, a few grand a year, it should tell you how much I miss them.

As I said initially, no doubt some people will like that deal, or type of deal, whether Tesco or not, but that type of deal is not for me, whoever offered it, is not for me.

I use my Kindle a lot. There was (in the US at least), an ad-sponsored version that was cheaper to buy. Would I? No.

There are software products that are free if you take ads and ad-free if you buy. I buy.

And so on.

That is why I commented. Because, on a discussion forum, I felt it relevant to, like everybody else, comment on my view on the principle of the deal.

Or do I need to check with you before posting to make sure you understand the point?

[Edd]

The advertising industry has succeeded in training me to mentally screen out all advertising.

I honestly can't remember the last advert I watched / looked at.

In-fact thinking about it I could not tell you the content of any currently running advert.

Not having a TV license and using add blocker on all my browsers may be a factor however.

[pp05]

I wouldn't personally do it.

I use Tesco mobile, it's only a tenner.

[DanceswithUnix]

OTOH, it looks like Three are now doing an offer of half price on their sim only deals for the first 6 months. On a 12 month contract, that's quite significant.

They are also running a trial today on filtering ads off their network, kind of the opposite of this.

[Millennium]

The advertising industry has succeeded in training me to mentally screen out all advertising.

I honestly can't remember the last advert I watched / looked at.

In-fact thinking about it I could not tell you the content of any currently running advert.

Not having a TV license and using add blocker on all my browsers may be a factor however.

Off Topic: The Youtube advert running by the leave campaign featuring the Turkish parliament having a brawl has stuck with me. Nothing else in the last few weeks that I can easily recall though.

On Topic: I don't use my mobile much. I would use an advertiser supported discount service to save ~1/3 on my bill if the service was otherwise good and it was otherwise well executed enough.

[Calum]

No thanks ! I just want to get on with my life rather than watch ads. What a world we live in !

[peterb]

No thanks ! I just want to get on with my life rather than watch ads. What a world we live in !

So your saying you would pay to not watch ads, which is effectively the Tesco proposition?