Buying a new phone as a present - totally confused

tomhenryford

Hi there,

I want to buy a phone for someone for Christmas. They are on billpay with Vodafone and their phone is broken. I don't want to buy a 'billpay' phone for them because I don't want to extend their contract as it's supposed to be a surprise. If I buy the phone at the prepay price can they switch it/add it onto their existing bill?

I was chatting to a Vodafone rep earlier who was foreign so maybe they were misunderstanding me but they said that to do that I would need to top up the phone by 127 in order to get an unlocking code to transfer it to the existing bill but sure that couldn't be right could it? As I'll be paying more for the phone on prepay anyway.

Like what happens in the situation where say you buy an iPhone on a 24 month contract and its stolen with no insurance, you're liable for the 24 month bill with no phone so what happens when you want to buy a new phone? I'm so confused as to what I'm supposed to do for the best. The person I'm buying it for is older so I want to keep the whole thing as straightforward as possible. I know they're earlier into a renewed contract but their phone is acting up and they don't qualify for an upgrade so basically all I want to do is buy them a new phone and leave everything else the way it is. Any help much appreciated.

One eyed Jack

You could buy the phone on Vodafone prepay and then simply put the billpay sim card into it. You won't have to worry about getting the phone unlocked from the Vodafone network at all.

DivingDuck

If you buy a prepay phone from the same network as they have their billpay contract, they should simply be able to ditch the prepay sim and put in their own one.

Unless things have changed since I last did this, you shouldn't need to unlock a prepay phone to use a billpay sim from the same network. If you buy the prepay phone from another network, you'll have to unlock it before you can use another network's sim, but if it's from the same one, there shouldn't be an issue.

Are you sure the other person's contact is with Vodafone?

Mezcita

tomhenryford wrote: »

Hi there,

I want to buy a phone for someone for Christmas. They are on billpay with Vodafone and their phone is broken. I don't want to buy a 'billpay' phone for them because I don't want to extend their contract as it's supposed to be a surprise. If I buy the phone at the prepay price can they switch it/add it onto their existing bill?

So the key thing here is to either get a phone which is from the same network which your friend currently uses. Or to buy and "unlocked" phone. An unlocked phone is a phone which will work no matter which SIM card is inserted into it (Vodafone, 3 etc.)

tomhenryford wrote: »

I was chatting to a Vodafone rep earlier who was foreign so maybe they were misunderstanding me but they said that to do that I would need to top up the phone by 127 in order to get an unlocking code to transfer it to the existing bill but sure that couldn't be right could it? As I'll be paying more for the phone on prepay anyway.

Vodafone's prepaid phones will only work with their SIM cards. Unless you get the phone unlocked. You can either get the unlock code by buying enough credit to comply with their terms. That wouldn't be ideal for your friend because you would have to pay for the phone and pay Vodafone the 127 for the unlock code. The easier option is to just buy an unlock code on EBay. You basically send the seller the IMEI number of the phone and they send you code to unlock the phone. To clarify though, you wouldn't need to get a Vodafone phone unlocked if you bought one of their phones. Your friend's sim would work fine in it.

tomhenryford wrote: »

Like what happens in the situation where say you buy an iPhone on a 24 month contract and its stolen with no insurance, you're liable for the 24 month bill with no phone so what happens when you want to buy a new phone? I'm so confused as to what I'm supposed to do for the best. The person I'm buying it for is older so I want to keep the whole thing as straightforward as possible. I know they're earlier into a renewed contract but their phone is acting up and they don't qualify for an upgrade so basically all I want to do is buy them a new phone and leave everything else the way it is. Any help much appreciated.

If you lose a phone you are still liable for the contract. Your friend is at the start of a contract so basically has to stay with Vodafone until that contract is up. Therefore you just need to get them a new phone, put their sim card into it and everything continues as before.

Let us know how much your budget is for the new phone and I'm sure people will give you a few suggestions.

tomhenryford

Thanks for the replies everyone. That's what I thought but the rep did reiterate what she said when I tried to clarify it. My friends sim is the wrong size sim for the phone I'm looking at, is that an issue?

They are defo two with Vodafone. Going to go into a Vodafone store today and see what they say.

Mezcita

tomhenryford wrote: »

My friends sim is the wrong size sim for the phone I'm looking at, is that an issue?

Nah. Vodafone can either cut the sim down for you or give you a replacement one for free.