Phones 4Me! (Phones 4U)

Member Name: FraggleFan

Product:	Phones 4U
Date:	16/10/08 (301 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great service

Disadvantages: Some pricing

I'd had my contract phone for about two years, and thought to myself it was about time my contract was coming to an end. When I signed up for the contract, things were different for me than they are now, and I really don't use my phone nearly enough to warrant the £20 a month contract. So off I headed to a few mobile phone shops, to see what I could get.

Very quickly, I realised Phones 4 U were different from other retailers. I explained my situation, and the staff member I talked to took me through various options. She was very down to earth, and explained things in a way that I could easily understand - always good for a not particularly techie person like myself.

One of the first things she did was to contact the company I had my contract with, to check exactly when it was up. Apparently it had been up for about five months, but they had been happy to take my £20 a month even though I wasn't even vaguely coming near to using all of the minutes and texts each month. I must admit I had a bit of a rant about that!

I decided to go with a pay as you go phone (Samsung E250 - review to follow), as it was cheap and very practical, and fitted my needs exactly. I also went for a provider, and the staff member again was absolutely invaluable here, as she explained all of the different tariffs in an easy to understand way. I'd looked them up online prior to going shopping and had been completely baffled!

I wanted to keep my old number, so the staff member explained the process of 'porting' your number to me. SHe then telephoned my previous provider to get my PAC code. The woman on the phone asked to speak to me and started to offer me various incentives to keep my contract with them. When she started to offer free phones, again the Phones 4U staff member was superb, letting me see each one in turn and pointing out various aspects of each of them, like it doesn't have a camera, battery life, etc. Eventually I said to my previous provider that I wasn't interested (the offers were really not that great, plus if they'd wanted to keep me, they should have phoned when my contract was up, not five months later when I was about to leave!).

Once I'd completely decided to go ahead with the sale, and I have to stress here that at no point did I feel even slightly pressured, the Phones 4U staff member set up my new phone, putting credit on it, enabling various things and giving me a pretty detailed tutorial on how to use it.

I think I spent a good three quarters of an hour in the shop, and I had the staff members undivided attention throughout. I wasn't spending a huge amount of money, I think it was about £40 quid all in, but that didn't seem to matter.

I know I have already recommended Phones 4U to friends and family, because of how helpful I found them. Obviously I don't know if this was an isolated helpful staff member!

Oh, the only other thing to say is to check prices. I noticed they were not the cheapest for some phones/packages, but they were with others. As it turned out, the phone I chose I could have got cheaper elsewhere, but not by much.

Summary: Good mobile phone shop