Three offer to unlock phones for NOTHING

Having a locked phone can be rather annoying, not only do you often have bloatware to contend with, it can also be tricky if you want to swap to a different network at the end of your contract. You’ll also have problems if you want to sell the phone on.

Previously Three used to charge you £15.32 for the privilege of unlocking your device but no more – it is now free, nothing, nada, zilch. Note it needs to be the original account holder who gets the device unlocked.

This brings them in line with O2 who have offered free unlocking for some time for contract phones and means they are considerably cheaper than the £20 charged by Orange and T-Mobile. Vodafone charge £19.99 in first year of contract but nothing after.

Whilst they haven’t publicised this yet, it has been confirmed by their Twitter team and the Three site no longer mentions a fee, although the summary text in a Google search does.

If you’re on Three and want to unlock your device then call 333 – option 3,3,1 or head over to the Three website here

Sources: Hotukdeals and Twitter

Cash4Phones – Have you experienced a reduced offer?

 

It was pretty interesting to see Cash4Phones appear on the BBC consumer show “Watchdog” last night. Like those “We Buy Any Car” operations, they seem to be providing online quotations which are attractive but, when you send off your handset, they suddenly find “issues” with your handset and reduce their offer.

There’s a couple of problems to add into the equation. Firstly, after getting the online evaluation you just send off the phone in a freepost return envelope. You’ll then be contacted by the company and they’ll tell you if they’ve found any issues. I actually used this company some years ago, and the problems found by over one thousand Watchdog viewers mirrored my own. My handset was sent off, but I then received a message telling me that the handset had “Excessive Wear and Tear”.

It didn’t, and the new valuation was less than half the original.

This is when you hit problem number two, because if you do decide to get the phone back and refuse the new offer you’ll need to pay an £8.95 return fee. Now, if your phone has a new evaluation of £40 you might well decide to cut your losses here, but I’d advise that you try every possible avenue to contact them.

..ahhhh….

Now. “Somehow” they deleted their phone number off the website. Tssk.. careless. I think the web designer forgot.

Luckily I still have it from my old email, and it’s 0845 460 1064. Try that or their contact form, but my advice is to challenge the valuation if you don’t agree with it.