When you sign up for a new mobile phone contract these days, you will often find that the networks and the phone suppliers will offer you a discount line rental as part of the package of incentives that they offer to convince you to sign up with them.
Generally, you have to sign up for a mobile phone with a new contract, for a period of either 12 or eighteen months, and then the company who supply you with the phone will discount the line rental charged by the network. Usually, the money that you save has to be claimed back, and there are usually a number of conditions applied to the contract that can make it difficult to actually get your money back.
There are two kinds of discount line rental on mobile phones. The first is when the network themselves offer a lower charge to new customers. When you have this option, the network discount the price at source, and you only pay half the regular price – or whatever the particular details of the offer are. This discount is applied at source, and you never have to pay any more.
The alternative and more common discount line rental packages work slightly differently, and these are offered by the particular shop that you are getting the phone from. With these, you pay the regular price for your phone direct to the network, and then the shop were you got the phone require you to send them a copy of your bill and then they send you a cheque for the discount.
This kind of arrangement has come in for some criticism, because some shops make it almost impossible for customers to claim back the money that they are owed, making them jump through hoops and so on in order to ensure that in as many cases as possible, the customer is unable to get the discount.
If you have a problem with a mobile phone company not applying a discount to your account, or are struggling to claim back money that you are owed on your account, then write a letter to the company and send a copy to your local trading standards office, and they will almost always apply the discount, or send you the money that you are owed within a couple of days. Ultimately, if you are owed money, despite what the terms and conditions of the offer are, if they are unreasonable, you will get what you are entitled to.
