Billing.

[Anonymous]

I hate this new method of billing in separate chunks for airtime and device. It's pointless and costly. Due to a bad crossover of funds, money didn't come into my account on time by a day so my direct debit bounced - not the issue; what I'm peeved about is that I'll now get charged twice for what is actually the same bill from my bank as it's classed as 2 items that have bounced. Then when I tried to pay today (the next day!), it had to be done as two separate payments. What possible benefit is this to me as a customer? In my previous contract with 02 it was still technically billed as airtime and device, but came out of my bank in one payment. For the life of me I can't fathom the point of being billed as 3 items (2 devices, 1 airtime). It's 2015, we should be able to consolidate billing not make it more needlessly complex to suit the accounting team at Telefonica!!!
Apologies if this is an old topic, I'm just cross as it's the first time it's really mattered.
Rant over.

[MI5]

It is designed to help you as the device plan can be paid off separately.
This leaves you free to continue as a sim only plan (cheaper) or walk away (without additional costs) or upgrade your phone earlier than you would have been able to on the old 2 year contracts.

[viridis]

Praise be to refresh.

[MI5]

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@viridis wrote:
Praise be to refresh.

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Excellent indeed - wife just looking to refresh to a new phone tonight.

[Anonymous]

Whilst I sympathise with the bad cross over of payments.

The refresh system is what was signed up to when you either signed or ticked the box when taking out the contract.

[jonsie]

The reason you pay separately for the device and airtime is that the device is a interest free hire purchase agreement designed so you can pay off and change handsets when you want to. Also with the annual rip increase adopted by all the networks now, the increase is only applied to the airtime. So many benefits and no downside.

[Cleoriff]

Not sure why anyone would want to criticise Refresh. Seems one of the best ideas a mobile network has had. I think others are looking for ways to copy the scheme...

[Anonymous]

Can someone explain Refresh to me? So for example if I were on a refresh contract however like in a few months in I wanted to change my handset how would I do so and how is the money worked out?

[Cleoriff]

A good guide to Refresh here

https://community.o2.co.uk/t5/Discussions-Feedback/A-Guide-To-O2-Refresh/m-p/877701/highlight/true#M...

[MI5]

Pay what you owe on the handset (device) plan and upgrade or walk for free.