BBC exposes 02 old-phones mini-scam

[Bob Crabtree]

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.

Check out this HEXUS.headline - watch Working Lunch's report yourself - and let us hear your thoughts on 02's little game.

[joshwa]

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

[Silent Shark]

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 ).

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?

[Lee H]

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.

[Bob Crabtree]

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).

[Bob Crabtree]

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.

[shiato storm]

probably a smattering of truth in that bob. wouldn't surprise me. phone companies are out to get as much as they can off you either way.

[ajbrun]

I'm not entirley sure - I'd have to check, but I think my mums phone might be one of the philips phones listed. When you put a new SIM into a phone, the phone number changes doesn't it?

Also, will they simply stop working in June, or just not allowed to top up again? What happens to any credit on the pay as you go phone if it just stops working?

Why have O2 done this then? I can see a reason that they want to stop people from using older phones, and make people buy newer models, but isn't providing a work around with the SIMs a bit counter-active?

[deeloughran]

They would have to train staff in dealing with these phones, and their technicians, while all the new phones probably work near enough the same, which would cost extra money and extra time. Yeh when you put in a new sim card the number changes, but you can phone up and tell them to transfer the old number to the new sim along with any credit it had.
I'm sure that o2 would still provide some sort of service for these phones, as people would have been trained to deal with them, it's not like the techicians over night will forget how to work them. Anyone who has one of these phones is in desperate need of going to Ebay and forking out about a tenner to get a far better phone

[GDVS]

Some of the C12s had something weird going on with the SIM, the SIM wouldn't work in any other phone and no other SIM would work in the C12. That was the phone you got with the ancient (9 years ago???) o2 "free best friend" offer that cost them a fortune over the years

[RavenNight]

I've still got a pair of those old phillips phones somehwere...

[Steve]

I've always had o2 on my list of 'nice' companies, ones that actually seem to care about their customers

When my contract ran out they did nothing to hang on to me. Turns out I'd picked a plan that meant I never paid over the monthly subscription, and that subscription was pretty low too. I guess they made a loss on me, because their offers for new phones were offensive.

So, Vodafone got my money... although they don't seem better of for it.

[Funkstar]

The £20billion 'loss' from Vodaphone is really just a write down of it's assets, this has been on the news quite a bit today. They don't go say what their operating profits or losses have been though. This will be freely available through companies house once their accounts have been filed. Also should be too hard to track down if you look at some of the finance oriented news sites or papers.

As for the O2 phone thing. The Diga was a horrible phone and i'm sure it did weird stuff that no other phone did, the others may be similar. Could this be a case of them having a slightly different SIM card that O2 are dropping support for because it is causing infrastructure difficulties? Although the BBC have some great new services, thier technical details are usually a bit on the scarce side.

[Funkstar]

oops. duplicate post. please delete me