[8525, TyTN, MDA Vario II, JasJam General] christopherwoods:
My contract with O2 ends on the 24th of this month, so I've been trying to get a TyTn on O2. Nope, not a sausage. All of the stores (in Birmingham) I asked had no idea when it was coming to retail (if ever), and O2 retail (the online branch of the company) hadn't a clue either.

So, today I took the plunge, and am now a proud owner of the Vario 2! Flext 25 18-month tariff which only costs £20 a month because all the tariffs have £5 off a month, and Web 'n Walk for £7.50 a month.

I originally ordered via the T-Mobile site, because the first three months' worth of WnW is free, but I got an email saying they were out of stock. So, I went along to my local store, and told them the price of everything - the phone was costing me £79.99 and the tariff was £20 + the £7.50 after the first three months.

The guy said, I can't give you the first three months' worth of WnW free, but what I can do is give you the phone for £60. So yeah, I've lost £2.50 over buying it on the web, but I got it straight away!

SIXTY QUID! Bargain! I'm only paying £27.50 a month for WAY more than I had on O2 for £30 a month (O2 gave me 200 anytime minutes and 200 texts a month, on T-Mobile I have £60 of allowance which I can spend however I like each month for just £20 a month, agreed it's an 18 month contract but BLOODY HELL! For that kind of value I don't see myself changing away from T-Mobile for the foreseeable future.

The icing on the cake today was when I rang up O2 to get my handset unlocked, and I was told that it would take 28 days if I did it over the phone or if I went into a store they could do it in a week - but it would cost FIFTEEN QUID.

No thanks, I said, I'll not bother...

...And used pda_all_unlock-v1.3 to unlock it for nowt. :D I got the Bluetooth license expired message when I first booted the phone, but I just went into the Bluetooth Settings and tapped the big ON button, and it's fired up fine (and my bluetooth headset connected fine), so I think that was just a one-off problem. Tried my T-Mobile SIM in my newly-unlocked old phone (the Alpine), and it worked first time no hassle.

So, given that final icing on the cake, and the past year of being jacked about, and the HUGE amount of hassle I've had in the past two months from them - and the fact that they were totally unwilling to offer me anything more than £100 credit on my account if I didn't get a new phone, and half-price line rental (£15/mo), they've totally put me off. I lost my rag when the bloke told me I'd have to pay £15 to get my phone unlatched. O2 have definitely lost my custom. For ever.

Hello T-Mobile!

You think YOU were fobbed off? I said 'I want an XDA Trion or another phone with similar value' and was basically given a flat 'no.' I then said, ok, what's the best phone you can offer me...

SAMSUNG Z400, he says. Z400?! Give me strength. He then said 'well, I can offer you the new SonyEricsson with iTunes built into it to which I just said straight away 'that's a crap phone and the version of iTUnes on it is awful, no way do I want that phone.' My only alternative was the Motorola RAZR v3im, whatever that is (I think it also has iTunes on it), so that was another straight refusal.

Ended the call with 'thanks for nothing, I'll have my PAC code please as I won't be renewing.' What a godawful provider, I won't make the mistake of moving to them again. All year I was paying for a subscription where I couldn't even properly send MMS because they cocked up my account on their servers - and in the end when I tried to resolve the problem myself, the bloke I spoke to just took the MMS allowance off my account entirely! He said 'it'll come back on your next billing cycle,' to which I replied, 'that's when my contract is up.'

'Oh.' And he didn't fix it, either. AND I was put on the wrong tariff when I signed up. Awful service. Awful.