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Dialaphone Review

It’s like that film, 28 days later…

I recently decided to get a Sony PSP. I still love my DS but I was lured by the power of the PSP and frankly I haven’t seen any good DS games for a while. Anyway I decided that instead of just gong out the shop or buying one online I would renew my mobile phone contract. Dialaphone had an offer that would get me a new phone which I could give to my partner as I already have a fairly decent Nokia N95, £70 cash back and a Sony PSP. Now I realise that you are essentially still buying the PSP but the contract was actually cheaper than I was currently paying so it made sense.

I had problems from the word go. When I added the phone I wanted to the shopping cart, the PSP and all other offers strangely disappeared and I became a tiny bit suspicious of the website. I decided I better make my order by phone. I thought there might be a catch of some sort so I carefully checked the terms and conditions that are on every page. See below

You will notice there is no mention of the free gift but there is mention that you will be getting free next day delivery. Great! Well actually not so great because only when you purchase your phone and sign up to your contract do you get to find out that you have to wait 28 days before they will part with any free gifts. You see, the thing is they get a commissions from orange, o2 or whoever you go with and use part of that free commission to entice you in. Its win-win for them. They don’t want anyone closing their contract with the phone provider otherwise they will be out of pocket. The problem is people tend to do a lot less impulse buying when they find out their “free” PSP, Wii, Playstation or whatever will take over a month to arrive. So they carefully omit to tell you this.

Is this deception? I’m not sure but all I do know is that I genuinely thought I would have my PSP within a couple of weeks and it turns out I will actually have to wait over 5 weeks. I wanted to clarify the situation so I phoned their support system. Unlike the nice people in sales, the support system is run a robot called Rachel. Rachel recognises voices commands and understands your post code and date of birth. I am not taking the mick – she really is a robot, a very limited AI program, possibly running of one of the old Nokia 8210’s they have lying around. Anyway, I was getting nowhere with Rachel, she was severely lacking in charisma so I decided to email a support request in:

Hi

I am just wondering, am I likely to have to wait the whole 28 days for my free gift? My contract is connected now and I don’t intend to cancel.

Many thanks

I received and email the next day stating:

Dear X

Customer Reference: xxxxx

Thank you for contacting Dial-A-Phone Customer Care.

Unfortunately for security reasons we ask that all customers must wait until 28 days after their 7 day peace of mind period before any free gift will be despatched.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused.

Kind Regards,

Dial-A-Phone Customer Care

Yours sincerely,

Dial-a-Phone Customer Care.

I’m not sure why they said kind regards and your sincerely, but anyway I emailed back:

Hi there

It seems very odd and unfair to me that before I brought the phone your site says there is free next day delivery (doesn’t say this excludes gifts or any mention of waiting on the product page), then once you press the buy button your site says my free gift will be delivered “within 28 days”, then after I ordered it I was told it will be exactly 28 days, and now you just told me it will be 28 days plus 7 days - 35 days?? Which one is it and why does it keep going up?

Is there no way we can speed this up, I only changed contract to get the free gift and will not be using the peace of mind period or anything like that - I could put this in writing if it helps? I understand that maybe some people get the free gift then ask for a refund or something but I will not be doing this. It just doesn’t seem fair how your site gave me the impression that I would have my free gift the next day, which then turns out to be 5 weeks…

Can you not make an exception in my case? I was about to buy the free gift (which is a Sony PSP worth £100) when I stumbled across your site and decided to change contract just to get the PSP, but if I had known delivery would be 5 weeks later I simply would not have done it. I have signed up with orange for 18 months, been forced to take out insurance and 1 month trial of gadget support (whatever that is) so I think it would be nice if you could be a bit accommodating for me. Pretty please?

Kind regards

They dryly replied:

Thank you for your recent email. As mentioned in previous correspondence we will be unable to bring forward the delivery date of your free gift. This is due to security reasons.

You will receive notification when your free gift is being despatched.

Security reasons? That sounds like a fob off to me if ever I heard one. I quickly replied (again):

Dear Dial a phone

As I understand it you have done a credit check which I have passed, you have ascertained my identity, you have my bank details and my credit card number and you have made me agree to a direct debit as well as sign up for insurance and support. I have signed up for a 18 month contract with Orange. You have my name, address, postcode, date of birth, phone number, gender, mobile number and you know I have been with my bank for over 17 years. Can you explain to me exactly what these security reasons are as it seems to me you have everything you need? Would you like my blood type maybe or a retina scan? I think I could swab some DNA for you if you wish

Also you did not answer my question, so ill ask it again. How come your site says free next day delivery, even your terms do not say I will have to wait for my free gift. Then when I ordered the phone I am told I will have to wait anywhere up to 28 days (I assumed it would be around a week as everyone says this when you order something). Then when the order is confirmed I am told I will have to wait exactly 28 days. Then I am told by you I have to wait at least 35 days. Which one is it and why does it keep changing? I wont go away until I get an answer!

Also please can you provide me with the customer support number so that I can follow this up with a call.

Many thanks for your time,

I decided to give them a call anyway as this was beginning to annoy me big time.

I bypassed Rachel and got through to sales as that seems to be the only way you get to speak to someone of the same species. The guy was very pleasant, but what did he know, he was in sales. I got passed on to customer support (also human). Really it wasn’t this guys fault but I was fed up. I was getting nowhere. He told me that the site says it will be 28 days. I pointed out that on the terms and conditions it doesn’t say that. Indeed, it covers everything else except the free gift. He asked me where the terms page was and I pointed out it was at the bottom of every page on his website. He put me on hold 4 times giving me a different excuse each time, basically he was trying to make me give up. I didn’t give up and the call lasted over 45 minutes, but I didn’t get anywhere. He wouldn’t budge. I asked him if he had had anyone else phone in about the 28 days thing and he said no, I was the only person who has ever thought it was misleading. He told me that if it doesn’t say how long the PSP will be, its up to them. I told him that means he could send it in 10 years…We went round in circles and in the end I was resigned to failure.

I made a tiny, but petty moral victory. A last futile attempt, and very childish. When I said goodbye to the man, I did not put the phone down, as I know they cant terminate the call in case a customer said “Your rude man put the phone down on me.” I paused, as did he. He said goodbye, and I repeated goodbye. This went on a few times until I asked him to terminate the call. He said he can’t I replied that was fine with me its a free number, by the way thanks for putting me on hold all those times before. He huffed. Then I told him I couldn’t terminate the call either, due to ethical reasons and my religion. He put me on hold and I hung up.

So to summarize, I am still waiting for my PSP. It will be over a month until I see it, if I see it. Unless the man I annoyed does actually send it in 10 years. That’s the thing, I feel I don’t actually like this company now, I really feel a like I have negative feelings toward it. That’s not really a good way to run a business. The deal was good for me, but it is misleading. They don’t point out the truth in their terms and they force to you sign up to free insurance and free gadget support that combined costs over £100 a year if you forget to cancel it. Also for the cash offer they make you wait 6 months and then pay you in stages. I suspect lots of people forget to do this…

I have written all of this to try and inform others as I couldn’t see much information about this company on other sites. Also I am considering contacting Ofcom, Trading Standards and Watchdog – but I will see what happens with the PSP. Maybe if I got a few other Free gifts I might take this page down, or even change my seemingly negative attitude. An apology would be nice too as long as its not an automated rendition that sounds like Stephen Hawkins’s Wife…