Be Warned !
Your mobile phone insurance, !
Is as useless as tits on a donkey.
Check it out? does it really cover your personal risks and needs or are you just paying into some companies pension fund ?
What ever way you look at it, the mobile phone is a "must have" accessory and it would seem everybody has one and needs one.
Now the cost of this "Must Have" accessory is high for the average person and most would not really be able to buy one.
But then some clever Dude came up with the idea of contracts. ( I bet the champagne bottles were popping in the board rooms that day) !
I saw this story on "Rip Off Britain the TV series, this young lady passed it on so that others would beware and not be caught out. So here's her story.
Like many millions of others she got her phone from her high street shop and decided to get it on contract, as it seemed to be the more affordable for her.
The sales person went through the details and paper work and fully explained the fine print,
as she stood starring at her new "Must Have" item, of course, she was not listening very carefully to the sales persons spiel.
Her "Must Have" item had taker her to another planet?
Just like most of us she could only see herself! walking, standing, sitting, with her new, "Must Have" accessory which would make her look so cool, making calls to all her friends and joining the "Face Book" media, she took a deep breath, she felt so great!
Signing all the paper work and stuffing the paperwork into her bag, she headed for the street,
last words she remembers from the sales person was" remember your phone unit is "fully comprehensively insured", "so no worries, enjoy".
She was so taken with her "Must Have" accessory she hardly remembered the sales persons face.
So here's her story as I remember it;
Coming home after a night out, (on the juice) she found she had no phone! "Oh my God"
Not to worry! one of her friends may have picked it up for her,
In the morning she will get out her lap top and start searching her friends,
Unfortunately none of her friends had any memory of her phone, not to worry! she just thought she would go to the hotel where they were last at, and ask if "anybody had handed it in ", they knew nothing?
Now she will go to her phone shop in the high street and report it, digging out all her paper work for her phone from the bottom of her bag, (more than likely the first time she has looked at it) with her phone insurance in her hand.
The shop staff were absolutely wonderful accepting her paper work and telling her "she will have a new phone first class mail, in one day," She was just so happy.
Here's the Kicker!
When she got her phone account at the end of the month, somebody had run up over £600 in extra phone calls.
Then the penny dropped she grabbed her paper work and went running back to the phone shop,
This time, the staff were friendly but very cautious and business like, checking her paper work over and over again, she was in the shop for hours, she spoke with her service provider, who after many phone calls and what seemed like hours, she left the shop with the understanding that she is responsible for all calls made up to the time, she reported the phone stolen or lost, and her Comprehensive policy didn't cover that area of illegal use? and she signed the papers to say she had read and understood the conditions when she got her phone.
She was gutted, she never had the money to pay this charge,
The next day she went around to the shop and told them she was fully comprehensively insured and she refused to pay the charges, her phone was cut off by the service supplier and after a week she gave up and agreed to pay off her dept.
Now I know many of you will say " well she should have read the small print" Just casting her aside and selfishly forgetting her, okay that's your choice?
But where's your empathy? surely 85% of us have done the same thing and been lucky not to lose our phones ? most of us have never even looked at our phone insurance policies.
It really boils down to? is us showing apathy towards a fellow human, do you never think "That could be me?"
On the face of it the phone supplier seems blameless, but let me point out a couple of thing I find a wee bit suspicious.
For me this boils down to what your definition is of comprehensive and what the insurance companies definition is.
What's yours?
Mine Is ! as I understand it
Comprehensive ; Fully, Completely, Thoroughly Totally, Wholly.
Complete protection for the buyer from all loss! including everything ! what ever ? to ensure any loss to the buyer. Why would anybody ensure for anything else?
So I would have expected to be fully and totally, even thoroughly and completely covered by such a policy.
Now another small point! the cost, I drive a new cheap car value £7800 full comprehensive insurance
cost me £140.00 per year,
The Phone in Question cost about £500.00, full comprehensive cover cost's £220. per year.
It was reported on the TV show that these are a standard policy used by most phone companies, so that means anybody with these insurance policies are wasting their money.
As I said, useless as tits on a donkey.
Until such time as somebody? in government who has no interests in the phone companies
shares.
has a look at this smelly practise and cleans it out, we may be stuck with it? so be warned.
I think its fair to say most of the shop staff would not be advised of this small print kicker! and will be shocked, when they realise they would have been pushing the policy as a good thing.
I think there is a smell of PPI about this!
Agman;
