Have you ever heard of a free line rental mobile deal? Chances are you have not, as they are pretty obscure!
First off, what does a free line rental deal give you? Well, as the name suggests, a free line rental mobile gives you a free mobile phone handset, and free line rental, and free text messages. That means that your entire contract will not cost you a penny!
So how can this be? Surely any company offering free line rental deals would go out of business? Well, yes, indeed many have gone out of business, the ones that got their free line rental terms wrong!
The way it works is this, when taking out your new mobile contract the retailer offers to give you cash back, to cover the cost of your bills. So, initially you have to pay the bill as normal. At this point, you are out of pocket, not what you would expect from a 12 months free line rental deal!
At a later date, often 9, 10 or 11 months into the contract, you have to submit a claim for cashback. Assuming you have done everything the retailer asked you to when you took out the mobile contract, the retailer will refund your money, via instant cash back which will cover the entire cost of your phone contract. Thus, the retailers are able to advertise these as free line rental deals.
So where is the catch? Well, it is clear that the retailers will actually lose money by dong this, so they make it tricky to make that claim for cashback.
They insist that you make your claim on a specified date (which you may forget) and insist that you produce documentation and phone bills (which you may lose). The retailers ensure that only a minority of people who take out a free line rental deal actually get the cash back.
So, in summary, it is possible to get a 12 months free line rental mobile contract, and the deals are legitimate, legal and above board. But, they are also too good to be true. There are a lot of strings attached, and only the smart customer is likely to walk away with a free phone. The rest will pay their line rental as normal!
If you take out a free line rental deal, just make sure that you organise yourself. That you know when you have to make your claim, and that you also know where all the necessary paperwork is!
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