No Pay As You Go iPhone Option from o2
I was at the Apple store last night looking at the little iPhone and all that – man, it was pretty cool but unfortunately the 18 months of service with o2 didn’t look so attractive – especially seeing as it would be my ‘second’ cell phone.
iPhone ships for £269, then add on to that 18 months of service at £35/month – that makes for a very expensive gadget to ‘wow’ your friend with, in fact that adds up to £899!
However, in the US, if you failed the credit check AT&T offered you a pre-paid (pay as you go) option for the handset. I was hoping o2 would do the same however two ‘clauses’ in their online documentation seem to suggest otherwise.
Firstly, o2 may require a deposit before activating iPhone:
Depending on the credit check results, you may be asked to pay a deposit in order to activate your iPhone. This deposit will be retained by O2 for three months and then returned, provided all your bills are paid on time.
This suggest that o2 will be offering iPhone contracts to those who would normally fail he credit check by taking a deposit of offset the risk until such times as the customer demonstrates their credit worthiness. This can been seen as making iPhone available to as many as possible – including the sub-prime.
But the killer wording to my pre-paid iPhone dream came further down the website page:
Unfortunately, if you fail the credit check you’ll not be able to activate your iPhone. Please return the iPhone in as new condition with all original packaging and accessories to the original point of purchase, together with a valid till receipt or other proof of purchase and your e-mail confirming activation failure, within 14 days for a full refund.
So it looks like its 18 months of service or no service from o2! I would however like to know what happens if you fail the credit check and the 14 day window for returns has expired? Are you left with a £269 brick?
One more thing, if you were thing of singing up for service and were looking into the early termination route, you are not going to like this from the o2 Airtime Terms and Conditions:
If this Agreement is ended during the Minimum Period, you may be required to pay us the monthly subscription charges up to the end of that Minimum Period.
So it looks like o2 reserve the right to bill you for the remanded of the minimum period. Sucks to be you!
