When I took out a monthly contract with Phones 4u, there was a cashback deal of £120 after 6 months subject to still being on the same tarrif etc. I had read some reviews about difficulty with the cashback scheme so have been really careful to save all paperwork, e-mails etc. When I sent the cashback redemption voucher along with the 6 month bill, I used recorded delivery so I could track the letter - you can check on the Royal Mail website exactly when your letter has been delivered. The cashback cheque was to be sent within 30 days of receipt according to the voucher. This period has passed and now Phones 4u said first of all they have a backlog and I will just have to wait, then they claim that they did not receive the documents and I will have to send them again (presumably waiting another 30+ days). They state that proof of delivery is meaningless as they claim I could have sent an envelope of blank papers although I cannot see how that would benefit anyone. I am writing this review to warn people to take care with cashback offers from this company, based on the experience I have had with them. I have resent all the documents and am now waiting again to see what will happen.

Phones 4U assured me I was getting this £20 a month deal, and we talked about it for hours. When I was asked to sign the contract, it was for £35 a month. I didn't notice and signed it. I also wanted my husband on the same deal, he questioned why it said £35 a month instead of £20, and they said that it was a misprint, and not to worry as it meant the same thing. He was told it would be OK, and so he signed. I called when we got our bills through, and was told I'd 'invented' this deal; and when I asked to talk to the manager who I'd arranged the deal with, they put me on hold. After being on hold for 15 minutes I hung up and dialed again, only to find that they'd gone home for the evening. I've tried calling the store numerous times, but every time they say that there is no one available to talk to me. They take my number, promise to get someone to call and no one does. I'm really unhappy and I know that I've got to take these phones back, as the 14 days is not up. I bet they'll discover some reason why they're non-returnable.

Went into the Edinburgh Princes Street Phones4u shop, having checked out various deals at other shops and online, and knowing what I wanted but shopping around for the best price. Asked the guy what the best price he could do for my chosen phone and network was. He refused to answer and insisted I took a seat and was assigned a sales person. I asked again just for a straight answer but was told "That's not how we do things here Sir" - went along with it out of politeness, and I end up sitting down at a table talking to the sales boy. He jabbers on for ages about a load of rubbish - finding the right deal for me, and all the time I am asking him for a price for a specific phone, on a specific tariff, on a specific network. He is trying to up-sell to me, with all the "How many minutes do you use a month?" "no more than 120" "Oh well you should go for the 240 minute plan then to be more flexible".

After a while I eventually get a price, it is the highest I have been quoted so far, both for the handset, plus the monthly plan. I tell him that and he throws in some extras, but I am not interested, so I go to leave. At this point he insists on writing it all down for me, and I tell him it doesn't matter, but he insists he needs to as it is his job.

"OK then" I say.

But he does not have any paper! So he needs to go into the back of the shop to get some. I think of doing a runner, but out of politeness wait for him to come back. Back he comes with the bit of paper, a phone in a box (just to show me) and the shop manager! This was what the pantomime with the bit of paper was about, as the two of them then say opposite me to give me the hard-sell. I felt very pressurised with this, and while they were sort of friendly on the surface, they were also kind of accusatory, asking me to justify why I would not buy the phone from them!

Eventually the manager says "What deal would I have to make for you to buy it then?" and I tell him the best offer I have had so far. He then starts to give me all the problems he has in running a shop with overheads and staff costs and all that, and how he needs to make a decent profit - what is Phones4u - a charity?

Anyways, eventually I have to be rude to get away, and I get out the shop, with them still trying their pressurising techniques as I leave. At this point even if they gave me the best deal ever I would never go back in that shop ever again. Total time in Phones4u to get a straight answer - 1.5 hours.

Walked into the Orange shop a few doors down, told them the deal I wanted and I walked out satisfied in about 15 minutes!

Stepson bought a sim-free handset at Phones4U on the 16th September.

Looking through the tech' spec' when he got home he saw that the set did not have all of the features promised by the salesman.

He asked his girlfriend to return the phone for a refund the next day.

She was sent back with another set in exchange.

Again, this wasn't the set that was wanted.

I returned the second phone a few days later, was told that I couldn't have a refund because there was nothing wrong with the phone.

I pointed out that was nonsense, Sale Of Goods Act 1979, blah, blah, got you under 'description' and you are obliged to refund.

"Ah, I can't refund from here, I have to get a code from Customer Services..."

The manager then calls CS, is told to phone some kind of area manager who tells him to call.... Customer Services. Second call to CS has the manager passing me the phone saying "They need to talk to you". They just repeated the illegal rubbish about there being nothing wrong with the phone an that's that.

I've since spoken with our local Trading Standards Office and the information they gave me may be of use to some of you as well;

1) The store you bought your phone from is the 'Trader' who is legally responsible, they cannot hide behind head office or manufacturer.

2) They are legally obliged to refund you if the phone is faulty or does not match the saleman's description.

3) Call your local Trading Standards Office, ours (East Sussex) are now conducting an investigation on our behalf.

I would still buy a phone from Phones4u seeing as they are quite cheap, but the customer service was bad.

I brought a LG u8120 from them about 2 months ago, on Threepay. They delivery was fine, about 2 days. Getting it back, all it had inside was the SIM, the handset and charger... no instructions. I am quite protective about my phone, so the first thing I wanted to do was put half a dozern pin codes on it, but I could not seeing as there was already a code on it, such as 1111 or 0000 on all the pins, which was probably down in the instructions. I would not be bothered if I knew the original pin to the phone.

I called Phones4u on their customer careline and told them, and got the reply well can you not get along with the phone without instructions? Of course not!

They continued.. it would be much easier then sending all the packaging and waiting for it.

No I repeated over and over again until she took my address. 3 weeks passed, I phoned again, and said it would be between 3-4 days. 1 week exactly. Altogether, to get a pack of instructions for my phone it took over a month.

I would still buy a handset from phones4u, but not offline, one of their stores. Also, if i had another choice, I would order off of a cheaper site, but their not bad.

I went to phones4u back in November 2004, to purchase a mobile phone for my daughter's christmas present. After selecting the phone, I went downstairs with a sales assistant to complete the transaction. I told him that it was for a Christmas present, and I said 'If It is not okay, can I bring it back and swap it?' and the sales assistant promised that I would be able to. At no point during the transaction did he give me a leaflet explaining their rules, on returning items to the store.
On boxing day, however, the phone broke! It turned off every 2 minutes without warning, so we took the phone to phones4u a few days later, once they opened. We asked if we could swap the phone, or get a refund, and the unfriendly staff member asked us the date we bought the phone. we presented the reciept (complete with date) and they refused to take the phone back. He then implied that we were stupid for not reading the leaflet. when we told him we weren't given the leaflet, he obviously didn't believe us. we offered to pay extra for another phone (The O2 X2, the previous phone being an O2 X1i) and he, once again, refused, because 'It has been over 28 days since the phone was purchased' It had not, however, been 28 Working days. he then offered to send the phone for repair, which he promised would be back within 1 week. My daughter said that that was alright, as long as she got her phone back within 1 week. We sent the phone for repair. 1 week later, we rang the store. They were very off-hand and said 'we will phone you when we get the phone back in.'When I enquired when this would be, he said it would take another week. 10 days later, we rang again. Once again, we found that the phone wasn't back yet. When we asked, again, when it would be back, he said 'one more week'. A week later we rang again. It was exactly one month since the phone was sent off for repair. We rang phones4u and they said 'yes, your phone is back', they then said 'If you don't come within a week, your phone will be kept by us, and sold again' (um, excuse me?!?). We went back the next day, and the sales assistant handed us the phone and glared at us. No apologies whatsoever for the delay.

They will try in so many ways to make the phones they are showing you sound better than the one you wanted in the first place. Once they have sorted out a phone and a tariff, then its time to move on to getting your application through. Towards the end they always try and get people to buy the insurance. If you want a phone with Orange it's cheaper direct, same with Vodaphone and Three. You can end up paying through the nose for insurance. If/When your phone breaks down and you go back to the store, you will undoubtedly find that the store won't give you a replacment until your phone is fixed. They will no doubt say and I quote "(All our phones are out at the moment)" this is just a way of saying there is not much we can do apart from send it away to be fixed.

I went to phones 4U on last weekend to buy a contract phone. They sold me an 02 phone with Samsung E720 even after my insisting that 3G provides better call time. Their sales staff said that 750 minutes of 3G is "in reality" equivalent to 200 minutes of 02. The phone came with no manual, and the instructions were in Korean. Moreover, the phone was software locked when I put the SIM card on. It took me two days and four hours to get the contract cancelled and I had to repeat the problem over a dozen times to the customer services at various levels of hierarchy. I strongly advice anyone to explore alternative options before landing at Phones 4 U.

Phones 4U has a great website, which a huge selection of deals. I can't recommend them highly enough. Had a couple of problems with internet shopping before, but these guys delivered when they said that they would and you can't ask for more than that.

Salesman at Cardiff shop continually pressured me on "Homecall" & "Mobile Phone Insurance".
Even after saying "NO" to each at least 3 times he still printed out agreements and tried to get me to sign.

When I said "NO" yet again he went off and returned saying "that his manager refuses to let me buy the handset without taking Insurance out on it with them"

When I then encountered the manager himself over this - he sheepishly denied saying anything of the sort and then sneakily disappeared.

How many people know no better and fall foul of this - BEWARE!

Believe me !!! Phones4U company is totally rubbish. I had to cancel my t-mobile contract just because of the fault of phones4u. During filling up my form they added me to my cousins account (who had an account with t-mobile) and then refused to accept that it was their fault (simply denied to discuss on the matter!!!) even though I had WRITTEN PROOF of their mistake. A lot of their staff are Chinese (personally its not a problem) but they can't either speak or understand English and have no knowledge on handsets or network tarrifs. Please be aware that the staff always seem to lie (I VARIFIED it by visiting different phones4u outlets), gives false information on tarrifs and offers. All they want is to sell a product to you somehow!!! The store managers are even worse and very rude. Sometimes they have seemingly good offers BUT PLEASE DON'T FALL FOR IT!!! Once they've sold you a product YOU ARE HISTORY TO THEM!!! Trust me on this!!!

I tried to get connected to a network and asked them to recommend one (I currently already have a vodafone and T-mobile). The sales lady did not know fully about different networks and aware of any special offers! After consulting with her boss, she disappeared to the store room for 10 minutes and returned with a new phone and sim card! She basically repeated what her boss said about O2 should be good for me. She did not in fact discuss about the difference between any networks, why O2 was good for me...etc.

I wasted the inital 5 minutes joining the queue to be served, 5 minutes explaining to the staff who can't really speak English, 10 minutes filling in a form which (she fills it in) meanwhile she was chatting with someone else, and then about 1 minutes chatting with her boss about my package, 10 minutes in the store room. I was not impressed with the fact that I was "Given" a network without being explainied what I was getting myself into. Other customers were complaining about it takes more than an hour to get a mobile connected. Some other staff (including the one who served me) was yawning all the time. It's like a cowboy phone shop!!!

It's probably Phones 4 u that's the problem!!! I started by wanting a nokia and a contract under £20 one for me and one for my boyfriend. I walked away with 2 Samsungs that I had to pay an extra £80 each for, and 2 £30 contracts. I know, I know I should have put my foot down but I'm a 5 foot shy girl! I do really like Samsung I have no prob's with that it Phones 4 u that I hate.

I had a P400 first, within a month my phone charger broke and I had to pay for a new one, £20.00. My phone got stolen and it had to be replaced with a different phone coz there was none in stock in 3 different shops!
Then when my b/fs phone broke on the 16th August 2004 they never got back to me until the 27th of September even though I phoned them at least 4 times a week!!!! 3 weeks WHATEVER!! I have only just received all the relevant forms from them to claim on my insurance so that's been well over 10 weeks!!!! This seems to defeat the object of why I bought the phones in the first place to spend nearly 3 months without a phone!
I would never advise anyone to buy from phones for you!!!! They're rubbish.

But Samsungs are good!

Phones4U argue with you to an extent where even I had to call up my service provider (o2) and ask them what I should do. When I told phones4u what they said they immediatly gave me my money back, and that was before I found out I could have just said, "I don't like this phone can I have my money back" and they would have said yes. ADVICE TO EVERYONE: Just don't use them in the first place you'll get a lot of hassle!

I believe that Phones 4U fraudulently used bank details given to apply for a mobile telephone (which I failed the credit check on) to join me up onto a "homecall" cheap land line call service I never asked for.

I have ALWAYS dealt with The Link, but our local Swindon store of Phones4U was offering a very good deal so I thought I'd give them a go. HUGE mistake. My daughter and I purchased a phone each and we wanted to go on O2 as we have had exceptional service from them in the past. We were connected via Singlepoint (that's another story, involving OfTel). My daughter's phone (a Nokia) gave problems from day one. It was swapped 3 times. The next time, they refused to swap it again saying it was outside the 30 day period - this despite the fact she had only had it for 2 days, although the original was purchased 32 days previously.

The sales staff took her battery out without switching off first, thereby losing all the data saved to the phone, although we asked her to switch it off first as we were aware this could happen.

Then they refused to increase her text bolt-on, saying she DIDN'T NEED to! I could go on for ages, as I had similar problems.

My other daughter also purchased a phone and after just 25 days it gave trouble. Unfortunately, she was sent away unexpectedly on business and got back on the day after the "cool off" period expired. They refused pointblank and very rudely to even compromise. She was prepared to pay half the value. I phoned and was called a liar and that I was making up a story about her being away and therefore unable to bring the phone in. I asked to speak to someone in authority and was told to f*** off!!

Consumer BEWARE be very AWARE!!! Phones 4U have to be the very worst company I have ever had the misfortune to deal with. In Jan 2004 I went into the Chichester branch and asked to change my tarriff for Singlepoint. (The bills had been outragous). I was told no problem we can do that for you. I then said ok I will try it for a while and see how it goes. Oh said the young man you haven't ever had an upgrade I'll chuck one in for you,(what a nice young man!!) What he FAILED to tell me that by accepting the brand new phone I had committed myself to another 12 months of misery and big bills!!!! At no point did he say you do realise that you are agreeing to a new 12 month contract. If I had I would never have accepted the phone. I have spent the last 3 hours on the phone (land line) between Singlepoint and Phones 4U. One plays the other off saying that the contract is with the other!! I cannot cancel the contract even though I felt I was totally misled.The manger in the shop was not at all sympathetic basically saying tough you signed for the phone so you are now in another contract! So I am left to pay for a phone that I no longer have and a line rental that is of no use to me. I wrote in June to cancel with Singlepoint who did not bother to inform me that I couldn't cancel so they sat on the letter without advising me that there was a problem! I only realised I was in trouble when the bills kept on coming through! I then phoned Singlepoint who told me I was still in contract!!! All I can do is to pay the basic £15.00 per month until the contract expires!!!!Do we really have money to throw away I don't think so! so remember NEW PHONE MEANS NEW CONTRACT!!!!!!

Phones for you, for less, at Phones 4U...

You can't have missed the incredibly annoying adverts with that tune that sticks in your mind (Everybody step into a big canoe, and row on down to Phones 4U...), and to be honest those adverts had put me off wanting to buy from Phones 4U... or at least, I thought that I had been put off buying from them. In actual fact, this weekend saw me parting with my hard earned cash in a local Phones 4U shop...

Background
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The mobile I had was nearing the end of its contract. It's a Nokia 7210 on a T-Mobile contract and was bought from a T-Mobile shop. I've had it 10 months, and not one of my 10 bills I've had so far from T-Mobile has been 100% correct with no adjustments. I'd been overcharged on calls, then the following month after complaining I'd have a credit applied because of the overcharge in the previous month, but I'd also be overcharged again in the current month, meaning I'd have to complain again to get a credit for the amount I'd been overcharged... this would go on and on most months. That's all another story, one which I may very well write a review on in the future, but anyway, the hassle I'd had with T-Mobile is what had made me start thinking about cancelling my contract and changing networks.

My boyfriend, also on T-Mobile, had had not quite so many problems as me with T-Mobile, but he'd had more than enough, despite only being with the company for about 4 or 5 months. As we were both thinking of changing networks, and therefore getting a new mobile we started to look at what phone we fancied... Our decision - the Sharp GX30. We decided to shop for the same phone in the hope that by buying two phones we might get a discount!

The Shopping Trip!
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We'd done some research online to see what kind of deals were available. The phone we were after is only currently available on the Vodafone network, so we'd looked at the Vodafone website as well as various other sites such as The Link, Carphone Warehouse, Mobile Chooser and Phones 4U. Armed with our research we hit the High Street!

First stop was a Phones 4U shop. There are two Phones 4U stores in the town I live in, one a bit smaller than the other, the first visited was the smaller of the two...

Phones 4U - Shop 1 - the smaller shop
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First impressions were that the shop was neat and tidy, and well laid out so we could see exactly where we needed to be. We headed for the display and started to read the information about the phone we were interested in. It was obvious we'd been spotted by a Phones 4U salesman, but he held back a while whilst we were reading the info then stepped in to see if he could help. After explaining what we were looking for and telling him we'd already done a bit of research so were now out to see what the best deal we could get for purchasing two phones and taking up two new contracts would be his immediate response was along the lines of 'Well, I'm sure we can do something about the price, in fact, I could probably do the two phones at half price'. Well, already we were hearing the kinds of things we wanted to hear, but not wanting to be too hasty after hearing what he could offer we thanked him and went to our next shop.

Visits to other shops
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We visited a few other shops, and to be honest weren't impressed - I won't go into too much detail here as it's irrelevant to the Phones 4U review, but needless to say at this point it still seemed like Phones 4U would be the shop for us.

Phones 4U - Shop 2 - the larger shop
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The second Phones 4U shop we visited was larger than the first, and situated in a more central and busier area within the town. The fact that it was a busier area made it slightly more difficult to browse the displays, but once again, as expected, the displays were neatly laid out and it was easy to find what we were looking for. It wasn't long before we were approached by a salesman, who this time escorted us to his desk to discuss what we were after.
We didn't particularly reveal much about what the salesman at the other store had said, but we did mention we'd been in the other store. His response was, that being a bigger store he would probably be able to offer a better deal. Sounded good so far! We once again explained what we were after, but this time, rather than starting to tell us what he could offer he seemed reluctant - he told us that this month O2 were doing the best offers, and as the phone we wanted was on Vodafone then we should perhaps wait until next month, as what usually happens is that if one company does a good deal one month, therefore taking more of the sales, the other companies tend to do a good deal the next month. This sounded plausible. He then went on to say that if we waited until next month he could probably save us about £100 between us. Now, that may sound good, but the salesman at the smaller store had already offered a deal that saved £100 and that was without us actually getting down to negotiating a deal.

Back to the Smaller Store!
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So, to cut a long story short, it was back to the smaller store. The salesman there had been much more approachable and seemed more willing to help us the first time around so we were happy to give him our custom.
Once we told him we were definitely interested he was extremely helpful in assisting us to complete our transaction. The phones weren't in stock due to high demand, but he immediately offered us alternative phones to use for the time being until our new phones arrived. As we were purchasing two phones he asked for two of the sales assistants who put the transactions through the till at the same time in order to save us time. As we started to fill out the paperwork and the sales assistants performed our credit checks he disappeared for a while. When he came back he said he'd been able to drop the price even further for us, saving us 75% on each phone. This was great! We'd already been happy with the 50% reduction and were starting on the transaction so the fact that he went this one step further for us was a welcome surprise!

As both my boyfriend and I work during the day and the phones we have ordered are expected in during the week the salesman immediately offered to drop the phones off at our house one evening. It was then more surprising to see a couple another member of staff offer to deliver them instead as they lived slightly closer to us. This was a level of service we certainly hadn't expected! Additionally, another nice touch to the service was that, while we were in the store both my boyfriend and I phoned up T-Mobile to obtain our PAC codes in order to transfer our existing numbers to our new contracts. My phone battery was about to die by the time I'd finished my call, and without asking him, the salesman offered to put my phone on charge whilst we completed the transaction - again, only a small gesture, but added to the good service we'd received whilst in this shop it's just one more thing that would make me consider going back there in the future and will certainly be making me recommend friends and family to visit the shop.

Final Thoughts
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It seems that I was wrong to be put off Phones 4U because of the adverts. Although I wasn't particularly impressed with the larger store the salesman was still much more accomodating than in other shops we visited. Maybe the salesman in the larger store was trying to do us a favour, but it seems a bit odd when a salesman tries to put you off buying by telling you to come back next month - being the cynical people we are, we put it down to the fact that perhaps this salesman had already reached his sales target for this month and would prefer to add us to his figures for next month.

The service we received within the smaller store was excellent. The salesman did his best to do a good deal for us and seemed to be honest enough. 75% off as well as a few months free insurance and the phones being delivered to our houses in person one evening in order to save us a trip into town all seemed like a good deal to us!

I've heard of people having bad encounters with Phones 4U, but I would certainly say don't let the adverts and other people's bad encounters put you off. They're certainly worth a look if you're thinking of changing your mobile phone.

Had I only been to the larger store I would probably have given Phones 4U a score of 6 or 7. Had I only been to the smaller store I would probably have jumped straight in with a 9 or 10. As I've encountered great service as well as ok service I'll settle with a score of 9 out of 10.

After the shannanigans that I had with the Mobile Republic I found an offer in the Phones 4U high street shop in Warrington. For £99 you get a Sony Ericsson low end phone with 100 minutes per month anytime plus £12 of extras per month (MMS, SMS etc) on Vodafone via Singlepoint UK on a 12 month pay in advance contract. I was not interested in getting the latest mobile as I had a respectable Nokia 7210 that worked okay.

Quite simply I ordered the phone there, collected the phone 5 days later (due to the way that Vodafone operate when you port your number across), recieved a phone call from Phones 4U when the phone and new Vodafone SIM was ready for collection. Has worked ever since.

My only gripe was that Singlepoint 4U contacted me with a once in lifetime offer. Basically if I agreed there and then on paying an annual fee (approx £46) I would then be guaranteed to choose from a list of latest mobile phones at my contract renwal. Talk about putting you on the spot. I questioned them why this offer was only going to be made available during the phone call though but the sales person declined my request to give me more tme to think about it. I turned it down although it could have been a good offer. However this has nothing to do with Phones 4U who were excellent.

3 weeks ago, I went to the Phones4u shop in Brent Cross, London. My husband and I decided to get the new NEC E616 phone on the 3g network. We were charged £100 for each phone which was fair enough as we were the first ones to get it out.
We were told by the salesman it wasn't going to drop price in months, which I thought was a load of rubbish. In my opinion, it will drop within the next two months.
Okay, we took the phone home and told everyone about the good deal we got.
The next day my brother went to Phones4u in lincoln and he got the same deal with the same phone for £50!!!!
My brother immediately told me on the phone that the salesman in BC had ripped us of for £50 on both phones, making it £100 as we purchased two phones.
We went back to Brent Cross and they said they would refund us £100 back. So dishonest, same phone, same shop, same deal but ripped us off by £100.
That was not the only thing, it was a week later that we decided to check our bank account to find out that the refund of a £100 was not made, so my husband checked the receipt, DO YOU KNOW WHAT??? The bottom of the receipt had somehow been cut with a pair of scissors by the salesman and we suspected that the receipt must have been voided.
Thus we rung the manager up, the manager explained to us that the day we went back for a refund the machine was not operating all day, so a refund could not have been taken place.

Later on, We went to the Phones4u store and they checked the receipt and said that it was voided.
We took it up to the HQ and after all that we got our £100 back.
But what I must say is ' I will never ever recommend anyone to Phones4U for their dishonest behaviour'.