mObscure

Free Line Rental deals offer the promise of a completely free mobile phone contract. That is a free phone, free minutes, free texts, free data… free everything, for free!

Alluring, or confusing?

I mean, how can anyone give away free deals like this without going bust?

Well, you cannot, and indeed some companies have gone bust by offering these deals without due dilligence!

The thing is with these deals that they have more strings attached than a string orchestra!

The way they work is that you have to sign up for a contract, which on the face of it may actually be more expensive than a conventional deal. Then you have to “claim” cash back later on.

The sum of the cashback given is equal to the cost of the contract, meaning, overall the total cost is zero, or, as the buzz goes, FREE!

Of course the purveyors of such deals rely on a given number of customers getting tangled up in the aforementioned strings and actually paying more for their deal, which offsets the amount of money lost on the customers that actually get their money back!

So, for some the contract is indeed free, for others, well, they actually subsidise the freeloaders!

The kind of strings attached include having to submit bills or other bits of documentation that may be lost. They also stipulate dates on which the claims can be made, often many months after the contract is taken out, in the hope that you will forget to make your claim on time.

Worse still, some retailers actually operate a kind of “one strike and your out” policy with their deals, meaining that if you fail to make the first claim (oh yes, did we mention, you may have to make three or four separate claims to get the total amount back) you forfeit the right to make any subsequent claims.

Companies that went bust offering free line rental deals made it too easy for customers to “get it right”, meaning they lost a lot of money on these deals, and subsequently went under.

Others have gone the opposte route and annoyed their customers to the point that they damaged their reputations.

The best advice we could give regards free line rental deals is to first decide on the deal you want, then look to see if there are any free line rental deals on offer, as opposed to starting out looking for a free line rental deal.

That way, at least, if you fail to make your claim successfully you have a phone and a contract you are happy with. Of course, part of this process would involve checking the price, and, if the price is more than other deals you have seen consider whether you are prepared to “gamble the difference”.

The best place to find these deals is on comparison sites, for example Free Line Rental Mobile which not only lists deals in an easy to understand format, but has some objective advice on the pitfalls of free line rental deals.

To be honest, the majority of people are probably better off avoiding this kind of contract, however, if you are an avid bargain hunter who cannot resist a great deal, or a challenge, they may be a dream come true!