Phone bill is ridiculously high - help needed in getting it down a bit (lot)

[Brownflowers]

I’ll try to explain everything in my post in the hope someone might be able to help.

For a not inconsiderable length of time, I had a number of phone connections,all with the same provider (O2.) I obviously had to pay for the line rental, which totalled around £100 a month at the peak time. In addition to this, I had phone bills of usually over £100 a month. As you can imagine, it was costing a lot.

I have now paid off all of the connections apart from my current phone, an iPad (this expires in July) and an Apple Watch. So my line rentals are now down to a much more manageable £45 a month which will go down again to £30 a month in July.

I thought, probably naively, that my phone bills would come down too but they haven’t. I rang O2 last week to try to get to the bottom of it and I’m none the wiser. It was honestly the most unhelpful phone call I’ve ever had and was also nearly two hours of my life I’ll never get back!

I could really use some help. I do use my phone but I wouldn’t say enormously excessively - I’m not making calls abroad or anything - and I don’t think it’s data use, as I don’t use my phone enormously out of the house. I don’t watch videos or films using data either.

Any advice?

I'd echo what others have said. Cancel whatever is still running for A&B, then once your other device plans are paid off cancel everything and get a SIM only deal from somewhere else. Your set up is unnecessarily complicated. If you can, resist buying new devices. The tech companies are constantly bringing out new models and rarely do they actually bring anything new to the table. People fall for it because they want something new & shiny. If you look after your devices they'll last for years.

I have a Samsung phone which I bought outright when the battery started to fail on my previous (5 year old) phone. Didn't go for the flagship model, I think they're a bit of a con, mine does everything I need it to do for about a third of the price. I have a SIM only deal with Vodafone, £6 a month. Use WiFi for my tablet and WiFi/Bluetooth for smart watch. Use mobile data if I'm out and about, plenty included in my SIM deal.

@Abyss23 i agree, it was a mistake and not one I’m going to repeat. I’ll finish paying for one device plan this summer and then the other two September 24 and December 24.

Honestly, I can't stress this enough - do as much as you can in writing and minimise spoken advice from O2. It's in their interest to act confused and not understand that you want to cancel contracts! Put it in writing and they have nowhere to hide.

Thanks @weirdoboelady . I don’t even know if it was that - just kept grunting at me! In the end they put me through to another woman and I think she may have been WFH as there was a lot of background noise! Still, she might have terminated the devices and it just is not showing yet.

Whenever you do want or need a new device in future, please don't buy it from your phone company! They don't all need their own data connection, they can just use WiFi or hotspot off your phone.

It sounds as if you have other things coming through on your O2 bill as well, iTunes? I had no idea you could do that but charge to mobile does seem to be a thing https://community.o2.co.uk/t5/Pay-Monthly/Itunes/td-p/1370280 (and one you can prevent).

Thanks, yeah, I don’t mind anything from iTunes or so on coming through as I know about it and am in control of it. It was mystifying me why my bill was so high but I do seem to have the answer now, even if whether it’s been implemented or not is still unclear!

Are these all for you? How on earth have you got into such a position with five contracts?

I second the suggestion upthread to get details of all your accounts and go into an O2 shop, preferably at a quiet time of day so someone will have time to go through it all properly with you.

You say you couldn't afford to buy devices outright, but if you manage to get past paying over £200 pm (WTF?) then you'll be saving so much, you'll have enough spare money to buy new devices all the time.

There's no reason these days why your phone service needs to cost more than a tenner a month. Then buy a new handset every 2/3/4 years whenever you need one. You won't need to save for more than a few months to have the money to buy whatever you want to.

Have a look at:

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cheap-mobile-finder/sim-only/

Yes you are out of contract but it sounds like you still paying airtime for them. You need to cancel it, it won't happen automatically.

Can you clarify what you mean by lines?

I only know that in the context of landlines, if two devices are watch and iPad what does a line mean in that context?

Might the person on the phone be confused by your terminology? My children wouldn't know what a line was

I used device plan in subsequent posts.

Water under the bridge now @BarbaraofSeville

I realise that @cocksstrideintheevening but O2 haven’t been especially helpful!

You still pay for the phones 'contract' aka phone plan even when you've finished paying off the phone.

You need to call and say you need to cancel the plans for phone A and phone B as they're not in use.

I dont think you looked for a good deal..for £87 a month we get full fibre broadband, 3 phones unlimited everything,TV packages x 2, landlines and all calls free anytime, netflix and amazon.

Which provider is that with?

When you take out a contract it doesn't automatically cancel at the end of the minimum term and often the price goes up a bit like a fixed rate mortgage coming to an end and defaulting to standard variable rate.

About 10 years ago some providers separated the cost of the device from the cost of the plan so if people had say a two year contract with an iPhone included, they could upgrade the phone part of the contract and keep the existing plan for calls/sms/data.

If you have had 2 other devices which you have paid off but not cancelled the contract you will still be paying the plan for those so give notice asap to make those charges stop. Do you have mobile data for an iPad and Apple Watch? For 99% of people that would be a total waste of money - if you do are you sure that's what you signed up to? What were the 2 devices that have been paid off?- I don't understand why you would have 5 numbers on a bill.

Oh, it’s a long story @TheTeenageYears . I think the point is it’s a lesson learned but in any case I was in a different place and really am quite a different person to when I took out the contracts! The point is that I don’t want to keep paying for them forevermore!

This.

Go into store and have a monthly spending allowance set to £0. You literally can't go over your bill. Stop upgrading your phone too use a sim only deal when you contract ends.

Yes, it’s not my spending allowance that’s the issue. I think I know what the issue is, now, it’s getting O2 to action it. I’ll try to get into the store this week.

You keep talking about terminating devices. You don't terminate devices. You own them once they're paid for (regardless of where they may or may not be now).

You need to separate the loan for the device from the calling plans. For whatever reason it seems that you purchased multiple devices WITH their own contract calling plans rather than sim free devices.

You have paid off the loans for the actual devices (A and B), but you still have an active calling plans. This is what you need to cancel and should be easy enough to do. If you don't cancel the plans they will just roll over and keep charging you for a number you don't need.

Do they have a live chat?

I don't know what a landing charge is. Ask them to clarify.

Yes, I understand that now, thanks. Like I say, it’s actually getting someone from O2 to action this! It may be being done as we speak but I’m not confident - I think PP are right and I’m best going into the store.

To be fair op I had a really frustrating confusing conversation with O2 - I paid off the balance of my device plan but wanted to keep the contract. I've ended up paying for a new sim only deal, god knows if I still have the Disney plan I had and the airtime for my watch - I think it's going to be a lot more expensive but I just could not get him to stop waffling and asking.

I couldn’t get mine to listen at all - I kept having to say ‘hi, are you still there?’ as it just went silent!

Without having the detail I can’t say for sure, however,
o2 have an option where you pay for a sim only contract and a device finance for the handset, they often have different contract lengths. Just because you either no longer have the device (have sold it, it’s broken, etc) or have completed the contract term (had it for 24m for example) doesn’t mean you won’t continue to pay each month. The customer is the one that needs to inform the provider that they wish to terminate the contract and give 30 days notice.
A phone call will do this (every call you make has notes made to document what has been actioned so it can be verified instantly and easily)
your late landing fee sounds like a late payment charge, did your direct debit fail one month?
if you did request cancellation on Monday that would still mean that your lines would still show on your account until the date that they disconnect ( normally 30 days after the request)
UNLESS you have requested a PAC code, this is a unique code that enables you to keep your number and move it to another network. Even if you don’t wish to keep the number, if you’ve somehow ended up with a PAC code being generated (weirdly this does happen a lot) you MUST call back and get the code cancelled and the disconnection processed. If you have a PAC code but do not use it within 30 days, your line stays active as the number never moved off of the network.
all in all, you need to call back or go into a shop and have someone go through your bill with you and explain each part. It is highly unlikely to be incorrect, but if it is then there are bill credits etc that can be applied to make things right by customers when people make mistakes.
I hope this very long reply helps!

Had a nightmare with O2 with a blocked phone - took them two months and many phone calls to unblock it. Go in to a store - much better

Are you using the mobile numbers A&B?
If not those contracts need to be cancelled. They should just be on a rolling monthly contract.

Yep - on it! Haven’t used those numbers for many months.