End of contract profit-taking leaves a bad taste

[Anonymous]

I currenly have two iPhone contracts with O2 and I have put over £100 in their pocket each month for 3 years now. I have done so willingly until recently, as I have always good reasonably good service from O2. However, this has changed recently.

Gripe #1:
My iPhone 3G £35 contract expired in March 2010, but I only realised this a few weeks back. Call me lazy but the end date of my contract is not something I keep particularly top-of-mind, especially when I encounter very little problems with the service or handset. When the iPhone 4 news broke, I checked out O2's site and found an iPhone Simplicity 1-month package for £20 that offered better service (unlimited texts) than my £35 expired package.

I'm not asking O2 to automatically change my contract for me. But I find it a little hard to swallow that O2 can send me an email every other day about Priority Tickets or some other marketing blag, but can't let me know when my contract is up. It seems they are quite happy to stick their head in the sand and hope I don't notice so they can continue to fleece me for £10 per month.

Does anyone else feel that this is a bit of blatant profit-taking?

Gripe #2:
O2's data network is up to no good lately. It's clearly worse than it has been before.

Given the above, why should I consider getting iPhone 4 through O2?

[Anonymous]

T-Mobile do the exact same thing. I bet it's a common practice with them all to take more money, regardless of what is best for the customer. And I think o2 should notify people when their contract is coming up for renewal/expiration and stop this blatant daylight robbery.

[Anonymous]

It's your responsibility to remember your contract dates. No excuse.

[Anonymous]

And if you get the my o2 app, the date of the end of your contract is right there on your phone. How hard is that to check.

[Anonymous]

did you opt in for marketing? if not you wont get a call off o2

[Anonymous]

you should know the dates of when contracts are about to expire
i do with broadband mobile homeline car insurace etc etc

[Anonymous]

Your contract isn't "up", or about to "expire", you've just reached the end of your minimum term, what you do after this time is up to you and it's up to you to remember the date.

[Anonymous]

Exactly, people have this weird idea that the contract is for a specific time. It isn't, there is a minimum period and after that you can cancel if you want.

People should remember what it used to be like before contracts were regulated: if you didn't cancel/upgrade within 28 days of the minimum term; you couldn't leave for 12 months.

[Anonymous]

I think some companies still do things like that