Dialaphone Review
It’s like that film, 28 days later…
I recently decided to get a Sony PSP. I still love my DS but I was lured by the power of the PSP and frankly I haven’t seen any good DS games for a while. Anyway I decided that instead of just gong out the shop or buying one online I would renew my mobile phone contract. Dialaphone had an offer that would get me a new phone which I could give to my partner as I already have a fairly decent Nokia N95, £70 cash back and a Sony PSP. Now I realise that you are essentially still buying the PSP but the contract was actually cheaper than I was currently paying so it made sense.
I had problems from the word go. When I added the phone I wanted to the shopping cart, the PSP and all other offers strangely disappeared and I became a tiny bit suspicious of the website. I decided I better make my order by phone. I thought there might be a catch of some sort so I carefully checked the terms and conditions that are on every page. See below
You will notice there is no mention of the free gift but there is mention that you will be getting free next day delivery. Great! Well actually not so great because only when you purchase your phone and sign up to your contract do you get to find out that you have to wait 28 days before they will part with any free gifts. You see, the thing is they get a commissions from orange, o2 or whoever you go with and use part of that free commission to entice you in. Its win-win for them. They don’t want anyone closing their contract with the phone provider otherwise they will be out of pocket. The problem is people tend to do a lot less impulse buying when they find out their “free” PSP, Wii, Playstation or whatever will take over a month to arrive. So they carefully omit to tell you this.
Is this deception? I’m not sure but all I do know is that I genuinely thought I would have my PSP within a couple of weeks and it turns out I will actually have to wait over 5 weeks. I wanted to clarify the situation so I phoned their support system. Unlike the nice people in sales, the support system is run a robot called Rachel. Rachel recognises voices commands and understands your post code and date of birth. I am not taking the mick – she really is a robot, a very limited AI program, possibly running of one of the old Nokia 8210’s they have lying around. Anyway, I was getting nowhere with Rachel, she was severely lacking in charisma so I decided to email a support request in:
Hi
I am just wondering, am I likely to have to wait the whole 28 days for my free gift? My contract is connected now and I don’t intend to cancel.
Many thanks
I received and email the next day stating:
Dear X
Customer Reference: xxxxx
Thank you for contacting Dial-A-Phone Customer Care.
Unfortunately for security reasons we ask that all customers must wait until 28 days after their 7 day peace of mind period before any free gift will be despatched.
Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused.
Kind Regards,
Dial-A-Phone Customer Care
Yours sincerely,
Dial-a-Phone Customer Care.
I’m not sure why they said kind regards and your sincerely, but anyway I emailed back:
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