WARNING BEFORE YOU START!
This deal relies on you applying for cashback – if you’re the type of person who forgets, it’s an abysmal deal!
What’s the deal?
e2save (owned by the Carphone warehouse) is offering a 6 month pay monthly Virgin mobile deal, that includes 150 texts a month and 150 free cross network minutes (calls to all UK mobiles and landlines) for free.
Isn’t that too good to be true?
Yes! The specific deal is the Virgin £15 Sim only* deal. To get it you need to pay £15 a month by direct debit, and then reclaim it by sending in the right bills at the right times. Plus there’s no handset, just a Sim card (the card that goes in the back of your phone to give it its identity), but that’s not a problem; you can simply pop this in any phone after unlocking it (see the unlock phones for free article).
How to reclaim?
You need to post your third and sixth bill in by recorded delivery (so there is a £2 total cost) strictly within 30 days of the billed date (which should be listed on the bill). Of course you may not get the bill until a week after that date, so you effectively need to be on the ball and send it right away (full reclaim terms lower down).
It is quite deliberate that you have to jump through hoops, the companies make money by people forgetting to reclaim, – so if you’re not going to, and aren’t good at diarising, stop reading right now (and go to the normal Mobile Cost Cutting article instead).
How much does it cost?
Provided you don’t go over your allocation of free texts and minutes you won’t pay any other charges, otherwise you’ll be charged at Virgin’s normal rates; 10p/text, 15p/min to landlines and 35p/min to mobiles. If you don’t use up your minutes or texts in a month they will roll over to the next month (but only for one month). There's no cost for billing.
As this is just a Sim card deal, this is ideal, as it means you can pop this card in your phone, use up the free minutes and texts allocation, then put your normal card back in and carry on if you choose.
What happens after the six months
After the initial six month contract, if you do nothing you will continue to be charged £15/month for the 150 texts and 150 minutes; yet if you want to simply cancel the contract simply call up Virgin customer services anytime from the sixth month on.