I’ve been a customer of Vodafone Ireland for over 5 years.
Like all Irish networks they divide their customer base into two categories
- Prepay (formerly branded as Vodafone Ready to Go)
- Billpay
I have the misfortune to be a Prepay customer. What this means is I get
- No statements, neither paper nor online, so I have no idea how much a given call/text cost me.
- Original handset is barely subsidised (I can understand why)
- Upgrade handset is barely subsidised (This gets me goat)
Surely, in reference to the upgrade handset, it should be possible to allow an individualised upgrade discount just like Billpay customers enjoy. But alas Vodafone don’t care. Their best, and only, deal is an EUR 10 reduction from the prepay handset price. So my 5 years of custom gets me an EUR 10 discount on an already high handset price. It’s almost like they don’t want to keep me, but hold on the other networks have similiar policies, the word cartel springs to mind.
With that word in mind lets look at the relationship between the Networks and the Handset manufacturers. I’ve wanted a Nokia N95 16Gb since it was released. For some unknown reason Vodafone only offered that to Billpay customers, and as a Prepay customer I could only buy the 8GB version.Secondly now that the successor N96 has been released by Nokia VOdafone are not offering the N95 16GB to any of their customers. I must ask what happens to the stock that is left?
In other businesses like Motor Retailing “end of lines/last years models” are discounted until they are all sold. I imagine that phones are sent back to Nokia where they are sold in lesser developed markets months later or perhaps even melted, yes I bet you they are melted for economic reasons.
Comments