Education Carphone Warehouse and Phones 4 U any good?

Hi there guys and gals, looking for a bit of advice on phone upgrades .

I'm currently due an upgrade on my Orange HTC Desire and I have noticed that CW and P4U are always cheaper than direct from Orange. Even speaking to Orange to see if they can wiggle the price a bit means they are more expensive.

I'm a bit sceptical of using CW or P4U as they have awful reviews online about how they "scam" people and send refurbished phones as new ones. I can kind of ignore the scamming part as I'm not daft enough to sign up to a £15 "scam" insurance policy and I'm pretty tech savvy so won't end up with a rubbish phone, but the refurbished phones does worry me as it would be my word against theirs. Has anybody ever used CW or P4U? Were they any good? Did you have problems? Would you recommend them?

Cheers

The Monk

TLDR: Carphone Warehouse and Phones 4 U any good?

 

As rule of thumb you pay for what you get stick with the main line I had nothing but trouble with both of them and never had a problem in the orange shop.
Buying the phone is never the problem with them its when they go wrong they don't wont to know.

 

Upgraded both my phone and my wife's through phones 4 u and they were great. Everything went very smoothly and best of all the ones you get via them are unbranded and unlocked.

Both phones were new and still factory sealed.

 

One thing to keep in mind is that if you upgrade early, the time remaining on your existing contract is added to the new contract....... so it's longer before you can upgrade again

 

Yeah I can imagine they would be more than happy to take my money. The only thing is, I can't really see what can go wrong. I plan on rooting it and therefore voiding my warranty after a few weeks anyway.

 

The 'scam' thing you've read online is partially right. They sometimes offer refurbished phones out when you've made a warranty claim and your phone is beyond economical repair. You are told about this anyway. They don't sell refurbished as new as that's illegal. Anyway to me refurbished means 'guaranteed to work' as somebody has spent time fixing whatever small issue it had and made sure the phone works 100%.

Rooting doesn't void warranty. And I've had no problems with Carphone Warehouse. I had a Huawei U8800 which died (my fault!) and they swapped it for a newer refurb phone (Motorola Defy) because they no longer stocked the Huawei. I consider that good service. And I was told about it being a refurb before I agreed. The phone looked and felt brand new.

Phones4u are good also because 9 times out of 10 the phones they sell are unlocked because rather than stock 5 of the same phone for each network they just have unlocked phones direct from the manufacturer. So if you need an unlocked phone that'll save you some money.

 

I upgraded my Orange contract through car phone warehouse, only issue I had was dust under the screen after a week but they replaced the phone with a new one there and then no issues since.

 

I worked for them and left them because I was unhappy with them but if I bought a phone I would go through them everytime

 

Carphone Warehouse always been fine here...

Would't touch any others with a bargepole

 

My last two phones have been through Phones4U, no problems and new/sealed/unlocked handsets both times.

 

never had a problem with carphone , Vodafone and orange shop is a different story....

 

I've only used Carphone Whorehouse once, on launch day of the iPhone 3G... they were fine..

Never had any further dealings with them however, I only ever dealt with Applecare for getting my MANY replacements...

 

I just got a Sony Xperia S from phones 4U, and everything went fine.

 

Thanks for the info guys, just got a shiny new Samsung Galaxy S3 from CW

 

Lucky swine very jealous

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

 

Just to throw another name into the mix, buymobilephones.net are another alternative to Carphone Warehouse and Phones 4 U. I've usually found them the cheapest as well.

I haven't had any problems, but then I would usually deal with phone issues myself before taking it to the shop. I upgraded my phone through them (terrible phone, but that was just my poor choice!). My brother upgraded to an IPhone through them too.

Also my wife got a new contract with them a few weeks back. After Phones 4 U messed her about for two days, in the end saying she failed a security check, she ordered a new contract (same as the Phones 4 U one she was refused) with buymobilephones.net. She placed the order 18:30 Friday, the phone was with us Saturday afternoon, charged it, activated it and then on Monday transferred her old number. Amazing service!

PS: LG Optimus 2X sucks

 

mobiles.co.uk. They are an online only off shoot of car phone warehouse and offer much better deals and all the phones are unlocked and have no carrier customization. I did my last orange upgrade through them.

 

Same. Got my Moto Defy through them on contract, brand new and sealed, then had a repair done (through CPW I might add, just walked straight into the shop), and got the same phone back once fixed.

 

I used to work for Phones 4 U (about 15 years ago) and even met John Caudwell, nice chap... can't vouch for their service now though. CPWH I have had more recent dealings with and they were fine too.

 

There are actually a few online off shoots of Car Phone Warehouse and Phones4U. I've bought from Mobiles.co.uk a few times and never had any trouble.
You can get some kick ass deals if you're willing to carefully jump through the hoops and claim cashback throughout the contract. My mum is paying next to nothing (under £6PM) on a contract that includes a smart phone, enough minutes once you take into account Orange magic numbers and some (albeit not much) data.