About a year or so ago, it was time for my Dad’s mobile phone contract renewal.
He chose the smartphone he wanted (which was the same as mine) and agreed to let me contact O2 on his behalf to thrash out the new deal. I was fresh from scoring a great deal for myself with T-mobile, Dad was clearly jealous of my new phone, and I felt confident I could get the best data, text and call minutes deal I could for him.
My dad’s deaf, I should add, and doesn’t use the talking parts of a smartphone.
But hang on a moment, I thought. Minutes? MINUTES! He doesn’t need minutes. He has never spoken on the phone in his entire life. So the challenge for me was not just to get a good deal, but to make sure he wouldn’t be paying for minutes he would never, ever use.
I had to negotiate a new kind of contract .. The Deaf Deal.
Dad set a password with O2 years ago so I can deal with them on his behalf – its always worked and we have never had any hassle in that respect. I was put through to the Renewals Team and set about the task of saving some money and getting a deal that actually reflected what Dad was going to use.
So I proposed the Deaf Deal. It wasn’t easy.
I demanded to speak to managers and had to hang in there for a while but I felt I was on solid ground. Right was on my side.
My argument was that by only offering tariffs that included and charged for talk-time minutes, which we all knew would never be used, my dad was getting a raw deal.There was no suitable ‘zero minute’ alternative; so I argued that my dad was being unfairly treated by being forced to pay for something he wouldn’t use. I pointed out that over the years, he had never used a single talking minute and they always took his money.
Yes, I suppose it got a little heavy compared to an average mobile phone renewal call, but it was worth it. We got a monthly discount of £5 which amounted to a saving of £120 for the duration of the contract. Not bad, eh?
I’m not sure how effective this would be by email or textphone and I cannot guarantee that you’ll get a similar result, but if you give it a go, good luck!
By Andy Palmer, The Limping Chicken’s Editor-at-Large.
Andy volunteers for the Peterborough and District Deaf Children’s Society on their website, deaf football coaching and other events as well as working for a hearing loss charity. Contact him on twitter @LC_AndyP (all views expressed are his own).
The Limping Chicken’s supporters provide: Deaf Theatre (Deafinitely Theatre), Sign language interpreting and communications support (Deaf Umbrella), online BSL video interpreting (SignVideo), captioning and speech-to-text services (121 Captions), online BSL tuition (Signworld), theatre captioning (STAGETEXT), legal advice for Deaf people (RAD Deaf Law Centre), Remote Captioning (Bee Communications), visual theatre with BSL (Krazy Kat) , healthcare support for Deaf people (SignHealth), specialist lipspeaking support (Lipspeaker UK), deaf television programmes online (SDHH), sign language and Red Dot online video interpreting (Action Deafness Communications) education for Deaf children (Hamilton Lodge School in Brighton), and a conference on deafness and autism/learning difficulties on June 13th in Manchester (St George Healthcare group).
sirgarg
June 7, 2013
Its always worth trying for the deaf deal..I’ve followed the example of most of the deafies I know and gone for the haggle/negotiation meeting in the shop. I always pop in and have a look around months before my contracts end and I’ve built up good relationships with the guys in the shop that will call the service provider on my behalf and negotiate for me. I have even provided some feedback for them on suitable phones we can use ie good vibe and alert settings.
Its possible to get a reasonable deal and get great reductions on monthly tariff with a phone that will do everything from entertain you, to organize your social and work life.
I know a few deaf geeks who I’m sure will give you some tips and guide you to the best dog n bone out there, maybe get together as a club and negotiate.
Zoe Hammy Hebden
June 7, 2013
I wrote a letter -To whom it may concern,
I am a mobile phone customer and profoundly deaf and I would like to ask for your consideration to enable deaf customers to have access to a different phone package than hearing customers as there are many features that we cannot use therefore we have to pay for services that are not really available to us. We do not use our phones to talk to people therefore use the text service or the internet so most of the packages on offer are not good value for us as the minutes offered are wasted.
I was wondering whether a package which is more Deaf aware could be made possible. There are more than 10 million people with some form of hearing loss. 800,000 of them are Deaf. See link- http://www.actiononhearingloss.org.uk/your-hearing/about-deafness-and-hearing-loss/statistics.aspx
If this was done it would be a goodwill gesture towards Deaf people and it would show how Deaf aware your company is.
Many thanks for your consideration and assistance in this matter on behalf of the deaf community and I look forward to hearing from you in the near future.
Kind regards
Zoe Hebden
cc: 02
EE
Vodafone
Three
Dear Miss Hebden
Thanks for your letter
I understand you’re looking for a more suitable package.
I can see that currently you’re on a £27 monthly tariff which gives you unlimited minutes, unlimited texts and 1gb data.
Considering your situation we can offer to lower your tariff to £20 a month. In this tariff you’ll get 300 free anytime minutes, unlimited texts and 500mb data.
If you’re ok with the above tariff then please write to us with your signature and we’ll help you accordingly.
Also we’ll take your feedback about getting suitable offers for your community.
If we can help you with anything else please call our customer service team on 202 free from any 02 pay monthly phone or email by going to http://www.02.co.uk/contactus
Kind Regards
Neela
Correspondence team
Tim
June 7, 2013
I’m a bit slow keeping up with technology so still prefer to keep my mobile and internet separate, using PAYG for my phone.
In my opinion, contracts were invented for the big things in life, like house sales, cars and employment.. Yet they are crossing over to be used in the ‘small’ things in life I’m afraid that this may be just to catch people out. Do we really have the time to read all that small print? So they hide nasties in there. Did you know, for example, that many so-called ‘fixed’ plans only have a fixed duration but not a fixed price? With some plans the price can go up. Contracts are there for the company benefit, not yours.
Tina
June 7, 2013
I have negotiated a reduction with T-mobile by telling them (via Text Relay) that I wanted to leave my contract and switch to another provider with a better deal. They reduced the price twice, down to about £5 a month. Using Text Relay to contact them wasn’t a problem, they really didn’t want to lose a customer, so you could try this tactic.
SaraK
June 7, 2013
I havet ried to negotiate a reduction with orange for my deaf son but they just said no can do. Think i’ll have another go now 🙂
Jeremy
June 14, 2013
Must pile on shame on UK mobile operators who treats deaf people differently in different countries, as an illustration Vodafone in Austria adds 1 € per month for deaf people to use unlimited video calling and in Albania Vodafone doesn’t charge anything for deaf people to use video calling… UK Vodafone refuses even to consider this!!!
TestingSite
June 27, 2013
Vodafone Austria is not really a Vodafone Company, was only an brad name A1.
Here is the link for the text-only plan:
http://www.a1.net/handys-telefonie/a1-readme-unlimited
But mobile internet is way too expensive with this plan, so many deaf people use “normal” plans with unlimited internet. in Austria you can have plans with unlimited internet and 1000 SMS from 7,5€!
http://www.orange.at/Content.Node/tarife/
and so on …
Ok, I have to admit, that in Austria there are the cheapest cell phone plans of Europe 😉
Rahad
August 13, 2013
This is a great article thanks for sharing this informative information…. I will visit your blog regularly for some latest post. Mobile Phone Deals .
Kitten
May 28, 2014
I’m a year late replying! sorry I have Just upgraded my phone I am profoundly Deaf my contract has always been Unlimited texts and internet as that is what I have always used but this time i went to a different phone shop they were trying to get me a better deal they found out how much data I used a month and tried to get me a deal that way. 3GB was all I use a month apparently believe me that was a shock to me I am a Deaf Geek as sirgarg calls them 🙂 I constantly use the internet and was not very happy to find after three days my 4gb of data ran out!! I am paying £31 a month for unlimited texts and minutes MINUTES that i will never ever use in the next 24 months or years haha. I then went on the phone website and talked to someone on the chat system they said unfortunately I cannot change my unlimited calls to data but If i want more Data I would have to change my tariff and buy more data which is waaayy to expensive. SO I’m kind of stuck in a massive rut!! any help or advice is MUCH appreciated and welcome! I will keep you all up to date about what is happening
xxxxxxx
Donkey
June 13, 2014
Have folk tried doing this with Vodafone?
http://www.vodafone.co.uk/accessibility-services/restricted-hearing/index.htm
You can now call the customer services in BSL. 🙂
BionicNelly
May 14, 2015
I know the feeling – I’m surprised it’s not sinking in with these mobile contractors. I just use giffgaff – it’s loads cheaper, easier and great to share with friends cos calls and text are free with another giffgaff friend – I only spend £5 a month and it’s loads cheaper than contract deals without all that hassling – honestly life is too short! Order your free giffgaff SIM card through this link: https://giffgaff.com/orders/affiliate/bionicnelly, you’ll get £5 extra credit for free when you activate your SIM Bonus: If you order through the above link before the end of May then you’ll automatically be entered into the draw to win a £500 Amazon voucher.
Lana
May 15, 2015
oh yes I pay less cos i do not use minutes – at the moment my phone is old and i only paid £6 monthly and in the past, it was about £13 monthly.
Lynettemullen
August 22, 2015
Can you recommend a smartphone for me as I am looking to buy one, I am deaf so need a really loud volume thank you