High Street chain collapse sweepstake

[cwathen]

Same thing up in their stores, this was at Torquay this morning...

[Nick Harvey]

Looks like they're still making pots of money then, with all their phone lines on 0844, so, effectively, premium rate.

[barcode]

GOOD, Awful pushy company which give anyone else a bad name. EE probably got fed up with the amount of complaints about sales and insurance via phones 4 u.

EE are happy to deal with Tesco moblie shop, and Carphone warehouse.

[cwathen]

I have read with interest that whilst O2 and Vodafone chose not to renew and pulled out (which they were entirely within their rights to do), the EE contract with Phones 4U doesn't expire for another year - so EE have pulled the plug early? I can't see what possible justification they could have for doing that as there clearly was no issue with Phones 4U's ability to deliver and resell their products as agreed. Since they appear to have breached a contract entered into in good faith and that breach has killed a profitable and successful company (with EE responsible for half their contracts even before any operators started pulling out of Phones 4U) it will be interesting to see what the competition commission have to say about it - particularly when Phones 4U can claim that they were thinking beyond reselling products by launching Life Mobile last year and so given time could potentially have tried going it alone as an operator in their own right and seen the business saved.

It does all seem a bit short-sighted on the part of the operators. Only EE has a comparable high street network to phones 4 u, all other operators have less stores and are on less high streets. Even with EE, the comparable network is largely because of the history of those stores as separate T-Mobile and Orange stores doubling the store count in many towns which is never a situation which will continue forever (in Torquay they've ended up with 2 stores on the same street less than 10 doors apart), there are still many more towns without an EE store than the numbers would suggest.

That means that in many towns Phones 4U provided the only high street outlet for some operators, and whilst renewed contracts with the same operator may now have largely moved to the operator's call centre, new customers to an operator I would suggest are still largely acquired through the high street - certainly when I was looking at renewal last year the only real consideration to taking out a contract over the phone / via the internet was renewing with my existing operator (which I did) - any consideration towards jumping ship was made by looking at high street deals and if I had done so it would have been through a high street shop.

GOOD, Awful pushy company which give anyone else a bad name. EE probably got fed up with the amount of complaints about sales and insurance via phones 4 u.

Don't get me wrong, as I said in my earlier post I've no time for Phones 4U, but I'm sure the same dodgy techniques are used in all mobile shops and indeed when using the operator's direct telesales operations too - I'm still not too happy about my experience of renewing my Orange/EE contract last year when the person I got on the phone directly lied to me in saying they had no retentions department and would not move on their price when trying to get my contract renewed in an attempt to get me to pay more. It went all the way to me asking for the PAC code before they folded and the apparently non-existent retentions department called me with a retentions deal.

EE are happy to deal with Tesco moblie shop, and Carphone warehouse.

For how long though? The operators have all but admitted that this is about channelling retail sales through their own branded stores rather than through resellers. How long before they start pulling out of other resellers?

[Martin Phillp]

I went past a branch of Phones 4u in Stratford, East London. (The town has two, with another in Westfield) where it had the generic closed notice with the unhappy smiley face.

It appeared they took all the dummy handsets off the shelves, but rather bizarrely left the plasma on behind the shop window promoting a new Samsung handset.

[JAS84]

It does all seem a bit short-sighted on the part of the operators. Only EE has a comparable high street network to phones 4 u, all other operators have less stores and are on less high streets. Even with EE, the comparable network is largely because of the history of those stores as separate T-Mobile and Orange stores doubling the store count in many towns which is never a situation which will continue forever (in Torquay they've ended up with 2 stores on the same street less than 10 doors apart), there are still many more towns without an EE store than the numbers would suggest.

In Hull there was an Orange store right opposite a T-Mobile store. Both rebranded as Three only for one of them to close shortly afterwards.

[Alexia]

It does all seem a bit short-sighted on the part of the operators. Only EE has a comparable high street network to phones 4 u, all other operators have less stores and are on less high streets. Even with EE, the comparable network is largely because of the history of those stores as separate T-Mobile and Orange stores doubling the store count in many towns which is never a situation which will continue forever (in Torquay they've ended up with 2 stores on the same street less than 10 doors apart), there are still many more towns without an EE store than the numbers would suggest.

In Hull there was an Orange store right opposite a T-Mobile store. Both rebranded as Three only for one of them to close shortly afterwards.

Do you mean EE?

[bilky asko]

It does all seem a bit short-sighted on the part of the operators. Only EE has a comparable high street network to phones 4 u, all other operators have less stores and are on less high streets. Even with EE, the comparable network is largely because of the history of those stores as separate T-Mobile and Orange stores doubling the store count in many towns which is never a situation which will continue forever (in Torquay they've ended up with 2 stores on the same street less than 10 doors apart), there are still many more towns without an EE store than the numbers would suggest.

In Hull there was an Orange store right opposite a T-Mobile store. Both rebranded as Three only for one of them to close shortly afterwards.

Do you mean EE?

If it's the stores I'm thinking of in Hull, he does.

Before I forget, the Paragon Sainsbury's local is now a Heron Foods - and you wouldn't believe it, but the milk is the same price as any other Heron I've been into! I'm glad someone has broken the Hull milk cartel.

[WillPS]

Before I forget, the Paragon Sainsbury's local is now a Heron Foods - and you wouldn't believe it, but the milk is the same price as any other Heron I've been into! I'm glad someone has broken the Hull milk cartel.

*memories*

[WillPS]

Unbelievable insight in to phones4u at its peak here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/09/18 ... go_boilers

[Martin Phillp]

Apparently Phones 4u owe at least £90m in tax, out of a company which claimed to have £110m in the bank.