False Galaxy S22 Offer in Black Friday Email

[jonathang1]

Yesterday evening at 18.31 I received an email from Virgin Media with some Volt O2 black Friday mobile deals. When I called the number shown in the email the person at O2 said they could not find the deal that was being offered in the email. No one at virgin mobile knows anything about this either. The specific deal offered in the email that I am interested in is as follows:

Samsung Galaxy S22 phone

£16.55 per month for 36 months with £30 upfront charge

Includes 20GB of data, unlimited calls and texts

This was offered as a total saving of £500 over the contract term and was the second offer in the email, below the SIM only unlimited data deal.

Does anyone know why the deal offered in the email is not actually avaliable? This is false advertising and very misleading! I have spent over two hours this morning talking to both O2 and Virgin but no one can help me with this! The best deal either can offer is £24 per month which is nowhere near the £16.55 advertised. 

What can I do to get this resolved? Anyone else had the same problem? The other two deals in the email were available with O2, but not the Galaxt S22 deal.

Thanks, Jonathan

[newapollo · Accepted solution]

I haven't received an email, however the picture below is from https://www.o2.co.uk/black-friday-cyber-monday#phones 

It indicates the S22 is available from £16.55* a month when you trade in a Samsung Galaxy.

Our Black Friday offers end 7 December 2022.

*Each year your Airtime Plan will be increased by the Retail Price Index (RPI) rate of inflation announced in February plus 3.9%. If RPI is negative, we’ll only apply the 3.9%. You’ll see this increase on your April 2023 bill onwards. See o2.co.uk/prices.

[jonathang1]

Thanks, I'm trying this but it seems I'm expected to sign up at a higher price and hope that the trade in gets discounted later. Its really not transparent, if I sign up to the higher price then I'm committed. Seems crazy the discount can't be applied at checkout, I have to hope the trade in process works or I'm stuck with a higher price 

[newapollo]

Hi again @jonathang1 

Don't forget to budget for the Airtime Plan (sim card price) going up in April  ( 3.9 per cent) plus the RPI

[jonathang1]

I just spoke to O2 direct. The £16.55 per month deal for S22 plus 2GB data using trade in is not possible! The best they could get to was £21.01 per month. The person I spoke to couldn't explain how the £16.55 per month deal was possible. This is false advertising, very misleading! She said perhaps the £16.55 was for the device only per month, not including airtime cost. That can't be right as 2GB data is mentioned on the web page. I feel like this is a con to get people looking at the site and hoping they sign up at a higher price. All very disappointing, I've spent over 3 hours today trying to get to the bottom of this and I end up staying with my current Virgin Mobile deal, crazy! I would like to log a formal complaint, false advertising is totally unacceptable. 

[newapollo]

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@jonathang1 wrote:

I just spoke to O2 direct. The £16.55 per month deal for S22 plus 2GB data using trade in is not possible! The best they could get to was £21.01 per month.

This is false advertising, very misleading! She said perhaps the £16.55 was for the device only per month, not including airtime cost. That can't be right as 2GB data is mentioned on the web page. 

I would like to log a formal complaint, false advertising is totally unacceptable. 

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Hi  again @jonathang1 

Unfortunately you can't do that via the VM Community Forums.

Although the company is VMO2 the mobile deal you are referring to is via O2 which still have their own separate billing and complaints systems

You should open up an account if you haven't already got one on the https://community.o2.co.uk/ forums, and post there. Hopefully their Forum Staff can help you raise the complaint.

I've actually gone through the process of placing an order on the O2 page for the samsung/galaxy-s22  and the picture at the bottom of this post shows there is a £30 upfront cost, and that it's £16.61 a month over 3 years for the device and the tariff is £8 a month**  over 2 years.

Virgin Mobile are offering the  S22 @ £24.95** a month, but VM mobile break down the cost at  £18.95 a month for the device and £6 for the plan which is 2GB of data doubled to 4GB

**Each April your airtime plan will increase by the Retail Price Index rate of inflation announced in February +3.9%. We’ll give you 30 days’ notice of the exact increase.

[jonathang1]

Thanks for your work on this Dave. When I'm only paying £6.80 per month for 9GB of data on Virgin the £24+ option to upgrade to S22 + 4GB isn't that attractive. I would have done it for the £16.55/mo advertised as it would have amounted to a cheap S22 purchase over 3 years. My S8 is still going well and with medium battery saving can still get a full day from the battery. I will wait until Virgin effectively force us all over to O2, there should be some cracking deals then.

[jonathang1]

Plus, I think I'm already on the O2 network as there's no O2 option when I do a manual network search. Just Virgin (O2?), EE, 3, and Vodafone.

[newapollo]

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@jonathang1 wrote:

Plus, I think I'm already on the O2 network as there's no O2 option when I do a manual network search. Just Virgin (O2?), EE, 3, and Vodafone.

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Hi again @jonathang1 

Yes, you have been switched over to the O2 network 😃