The power of “No”

Published by Robert Brown on May 15, 2008 under Budget tips

Last month I spoke of going onto pay-as-you-go on my mobile to try and cut expenses, they offered me an £18 a month contract which despite hard work from the TSR at the call centre I said no to. Pleads included “This offer is only going until next week!”

Well today I was phoned up by another salesman from 3 (My mobile phone provider) asking for me - nowadays I always answer “Is this Robert Brown?” with “Who’s speaking?”, and I was about to launch into a murder scene interrogation…..

…but as I was lining it up with grunts and obscure mutterings (I doubt I could of pulled it off with the Tom Mabe style) the guy at 3 offered me £10 a month for life for 500 minutes anytime/any network. 

This works out over £300 a year less than what I was paying for up till this month, with 100 minutes more text/calls.

Just goes to show how desperate companies are to fix you into a contract - no doubt the iPhone is taking away a lot of business so they get me locked in for another 18 months, hell they even threw in a new phone (Nokia 6500 Slide), which I read a few reviews of and it breaks a lot, but I could always sell it on ebay.  I’m pretty happy today since I would have probably used about £10 a month in top-ups.

Anyway, a good lesson for me: never accept the first thing they offer you.  Just by saying “no” I’ve saved probably £100 a year.