TalkMobile
TalkMobile is a virtual network operated by the Carphone Warehouse. It replaced the existing Carphone Warehouse virtual networks Mobile World & Fresh Mobile and one in five Carphone Warehouse prepay sales are now on TalkMobile. There are already well over 300,000 customers.
The operator launched in 2007 and offers both low-cost short-term contracts and PAYG deals which can be augmented with add-on rewards of voice minutes and texts. Its contracts are often attractive as they are shorter than its rivals. As it is part of Carphone Warehouse, TalkMobile often has attractive deals on new handsets. TalkMobile uses the Vodafone cell towers and infrastructure for its network backbone.
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TalkMobile review
TalkMobile is a relatively new virtual network that intends to compete on price. As well as having some great contract deals on new handsets, its Essentials tariff is an extremely good value PAYG option with voice minutes just 8p each and text only 4p. These rates make it easily one of the cheapest networks operating in the UK. They also give a small amount of internet for a cheap price daily and it’s still quite cheap even if you go over the limit. The Rewards tariff is much worse value for regular use but does give you the option of free minutes, texts or even international calls.
TalkMobile uses the Vodafone network and the coverage is great in most areas of the country and they have a decent 3G signal. They operate a good, well-informed phone customer service which rarely forces an automated system on you and has short waiting time. The impressive customer service also means that they provide very fast number transfers once you’ve got your PAC. One of the best things about TalkMobile is that all their handsets come from the Carphone Warehouse so are not loaded with bloatware and are fully unlocked for any network. A great example to other carriers.
Overall, TalkMobile offers a good service at a very cheap rate using its Essentials tariff. As well as offering good value, they have decent customer service and fast number porting. On all their PAYG tariffs, the half price calls and texts between TalkMobile customers is a huge boon too. While they are not the very cheapest network, they offer much better prices than the majority of their competitors.
PAYG Pricing
At a glance
TalkMobile Rewards
TalkMobile Essentials
Details
TalkMobile offers PAYG customers two options – the Rewards tariff or the cut-price Essentials tariff. Both include mobile internet for only 25p per day (with a fair use limit of 25MB per day) and both tariffs also provide half price calls and texts to other TalkMobile customers. These are all great deals we’re delighted to see offered as standard.
The Rewards tariff is quite interesting as, like the Vodafone Freebees offer, you get a bonus allowance every time you top up. These include free minutes, unlimited texts (subject to a fair use policy of 3000 every 30 days) or even included international minutes. Some rewards are better than other but, for example, if you really need effectively unlimited texts, they can prove to be great value.
However, unfortunately, the call charges are very expensive even for a regular mobile network let alone a virtual one. Calls are 25p/minute to UK landlines and mobiles and texts are quite pricey too at 10p each. MMS is also quite expensive as it’s 30p per message and they even charge 50p per call for talking to customer service. The good things are that calls fall to 10p/minute if you’re calling other TalkMobile customers while texts drop to 5p each, voicemail is free and mobile internet is 25p/day for 25MB.
The more attractive option is the Essential tariff which offers some of the lowest prices available. UK calls are only 8p at all times while texts are just 4p each. And it gets even better as these prices are slashed in half when you’re communicating with other TalkMobiles. Yes, that’s right, texts are just 2p each and calls are 4p per minute. You still get the 25p internet deal but voicemail is 8p per minute and MMS are still 30p each.
Even so, these are some great rates and the Essentials deal makes TalkMobile one of the best value networks going.
Deals
The Rewards tariff offers four options for your top-up bonuses.
Textmania is the best which gives you unlimited texts for a set period every time you add new credit. The way it works is the more you top-up, the longer you get free unlimited texts for – £5 buys you 7 days, £10 gives you two weeks all the way up to a whole month for just £15.
Another option is Chatterbox which gives you 30 UK minutes that last 7 days for a £5 top-up, 60 minutes for 14 days for £10 and 120 minutes that expire after 30 days if you buy £20 credit.
The FamilyFusion reward gives you landline minutes and unlimited SMS for your top-up – £5 gives you texts and 50 minutes calls for 7 days while £20 gives you texts and 200 minutes for 30 days.
Finally, the Globetalker reward gives you free international minutes for a variety of countries for 30 days. The number of minutes ranges from 75 for a £10 top-up to 300 for a £50 top-up.
As ever, please carefully check all the terms and conditions before signing up to these rewards.
Price comparison
To compare TalkMobile’s latest pricing for both of its tariffs with that of other networks, please see our conclusive price comparison page.
Coverage
Summary
Coverage map
TalkMobile runs on the Vodafone network. Please see our TalkMobile coverage page to learn the network coverage in your area. For more information, compare it with other mobile phone networks’ coverage.
Rating
Give your own rating to TalkMobile below:
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DOES NOT SUPPORT BLACKBERRY! IF YOU HAVE A BLACKBERRY IT WILL NOT CONNECT TO 3G INTERNET (only wi-fi). BLACKBERRY MESSENGER (and other messenger apps) ARE NOT SUPPORTED! POOR SERVICE!
How can they not support Blackberry 3G or 2G data? Do you just mean BIS or all 3G traffic?
In order to acess Blackberry services, you need to have a tariff with Blackberry services activated/included. As far as I understand it, Talkmbile certainly do offer Blacberry tariffs and services.
Thanks for that. So, as we thought, it does support Blackberrys and it also supports BIS if you pay for it.
Usually following a top up – the Talk mobile essentials gives value to a host of mobile service providers. I noticed today after calling my daughter on her new BBerry that my Talk mobile pay-as-you go credits were eaten up. As with most things I learned the hard way. Now I have to find more resources to top up and be weary of calls to BBerry’s.
I took out a phone contract earlier this year and having returned it a day later, I have been harassed by TalkMobile constantly. Having spoken to the customer service team constantly and then some weeks ago, I was advised that a large bill had been credited and I owed nothing at all on my account. I have found this evening that the account was never cleared and a debt collection agency is chasing me. I have spent hours on the phone to a non local number over the past few months, sent the phone back 3 times and then returned, once to the store in person, and since May this is still continuing. I have never felt more bullied to pay for something which is not even mine to pay. The phone calls are all recorded under my name and address above, and no one ever seems to get things done at the Carphone warehouse. The last phone call I made even had a customer services rep stating there was NO MONEY owing on the account. Why am I now being told, having had numerous people state all is fine, that I have to pay for a phone I don’t even have?!
I am at my wits end, and feel that they will not leave me alone until they have this supposed debt paid. I don’t even have the phone! Please can you help. I am now completely lost as Talkmobile are not interested at all in sorting this. I have taken the steps to contact Ofcom and they are now aware of this situation. This has got to stop. Surely this is not too much to ask. I have never experienced such terrible customer service and care standards ever.
Gareth
Hi Gareth, I had this same problem a couple of years ago with TalkTalk. I ended up taking them to small claims court and they paid me £270 compensation and we’re forced to correct my credit history.
Reply to Gareth comment above- I just went onto ofcom website and saw that talktalk and tiscali have been fined £3m for incorrectly billing tens of thousands of customers. see http://www.ofcom.org.uk/. serves them right!!
TalkMobile are no longer anything to do with TalkTalk.
I have bought a Blackberry 9300 off TalkMobile the £15 a month tarrif for 24 month and its been six day still not been in ! How long will it take I want my phone now ! ?
Sarah, you’ll have to call TalkMobile with your reference number to find out.
i have very mixed feelings about them. i chose them because the phone i want, on a 12month contract, was cheaper by more than £70 to any other company.
but:
i was a customer for one week and had to cancel my contract because they messed up my number porting (it took nearly 2hours of phone time to speak to someone and establish the problem). had to return my handset. had to call them up again in order to get a refund of a £100 deposit they took (they don’t automatically refund it). just found that this contract wasn’t immediately cancelled and so they debited £16 from my bank account. i just called to query this and they’ve finally cancelled the account, but i have to call back on monday to request the refund of the £16 (they can’t refund this automatically).
because i was keen on this particular phone, 12mnth contract and the saving, i took out a contract with them again. went reasonably smooth, it’s been two weeks.
but:
i found that whilst using mobile internet (they piggyback on vodafone, btw. signal and data speeds are the same as what you’d find using vodafone), certain websites would be blocked with an error message stating the site contains 18+ adult content and i must contact my provider in order to lift the block. this error message is created by vodafone (as is made clear by the url in the address bar, online.vodafone.co.uk/ blah blah).
note that the website i was trying to access is a page for an oktoberfest in london this weekend… nothing more dubious.
i contacted talkmobile, and to my utter surprise, disappointment, and frustration i was told that i would have to pay £100 deposit (refunded after 6months!) or they have to receive three months of successful direct debits from me, before they can lift this block. their reasoning behind this is that some websites can bill high charges to my mobile account, and they need consolation that i am able to pay that back (by £100 deposit or 3months direct debits).
they were absolutely resolute about this. it is vaguely stated in their t&c’s, and i mean very vaguely. what is even more frustrating to me, considering this is a vodafone system, vodafone piggyback (i know talkmobile is a carphonewarehouse company), is that vodafone simply requires their customers to provide proof of age! that’s all! one could call them and give them your credit card details, or walk into a vf shop and show them id, and they’d lift it. not talkmobile!
anyway, i don’t know what i’m going to do… live with this for three months, or fork out another £100 deposit. that’s my problem.
hope i was able to give you some insight into their operation and enabled you to make an informed decision before choosing them.
That’s pretty poor and we’d be really upset with that treatment too. If there’s really no way to make them see sense, you might just have to bite the bullet and fork out the £100. At least it’s only a deposit.
It sounds like the claim that “some websites can bill high charges” is a load a baloney and that the true reason is the 18+ block for alcohol sites which, unfortunately, all the major networks usually apply. As it seems the people you’ve spoken to don’t really know what they are talking about, it might be worth calling again or even trying to speak to someone at Vodafone.
Please keep us updated.
I had the same problem with my internet . . . after paying a £100 quid deposit when i got the phone i thought they had some cheek asking me for another £100 so i could use my internet free-ly. Using my phone for online shopping, i couldnt even get onto websites that sold alcohol.
HOWEVER . . i did manage to get round the problem. One of the geek squad team told me that if i downloaded the “Opera Mini” app (for free) on my phone, and used that for my internet browser it would bi-pass the restriction, and it works. Hope this saves you giving them £100 of your hard earned cash for 6 months
Yeah – Opera Mini will always bypass network filtering as it caches and serves everything from its own off-site servers. A good loophole to get past these ridiculous £100 charges.
Hello there (apparently) today i switched my phone on to make a phone call then while it was ringing its said ” im sorry but your currently unable to make any calls as you have an unbilled balance of £65.56 ” i was terribly shocked i found out through my call log i only used 50 mins when i get 200 mins. So i decide to switch my phone off take the sim card and leave it … 3 days later I WAS UNBILLED BALANCE OF £80 can anyone please tell me what to do what action should i take ?
thanks
amar
What have customer services said to you? If you can’t work out anything with them, it’s worth contacting Ofcom.
Please let us know how you get on with this.
I am so bloody sick and tired of this network and l have only been with them for like a month.
I took out a contract because it was a short contract, only 12months and I really liked the phone l was going to get with it, had recently lost a similar phone.
But taking a contract with TalkMobile is the biggest mistake l ever made. Firstly I had to find out after my phone was blocked that I couldn`t get my accurate allowance when I rang Customer Services. It was all 48hrs or even more delayed.
now I was furious about this -WHY DIDN`T THEY TELL ME WHEN I WAS GETTING THE CONTRACT??
I have had to pay more than £60 in my first month that`s more than twice than what I should be paying for my contract.
Yesterday I rang Customer Services and was told I had about 75mins left, even though there is a 48hr delay l am pretty sure in the last 24hrs or 48hrs l made calls of more than 20mins at the most. But only to call today and be told l have 0mins and a bill of £10 -extra after my normal bill. EXCLUDING Tax…………….
NOW seriously seriously how can thid be???
I HATE TALKMOBILE HATE IT HATE IT HATE IT HATE IT … I REALLY WANNA LEAVE THEM!!! PLEASE HELP! I HONESTLY CAN`T LIVE LIKE THIS FOR 10/11 MORE MONTHS
dont worry my friend, this happened to me.
Dear valued customer, on behalf of Talkmobile we apologise for any inconveniences caused. Allow me to offer you a renewed mobile phone contract offer. Please contact us on one of the following numbers
Call 5888 from your Talkmobile phone.
0870 071 5888 from landlines or other mobiles
(call charges may vary)
Pay Monthly Sales
0800 049 4401
Pay As You Go Handset Sales Queries
0844 873 0333
Please ask for ADAM GRIMES and i will be able to assist you personally.
Here at talk mobile we thrive for 100% customer satisfaction.
Thank You
Adam Grimes
Talk Mobile
I think you mean strive Adam…
talk mobile is the worst service i have ever used.
dont buy it.
they say 97 % coverage i dont understand how much area is in the rest 3% because where ever i am it says out of service area even on the high street while other networks are working in the same location.
i am trapped for 2years plz guys make a sensible chioce dont fell into there teap just for 4 or 5 quits per month
They have exactly the same coverage as Vodafone. Have you looked what their coverage map says for your town and where is it that you can’t get coverage?
If you’ve been with them for two years, what’s stopping you from switching away? We have great guides to changing mobile network easily.
i have completed only 7 months till now n thank u for the advice i will check for the switching plans.
i hope the plans are good as stated. because i have seen the great 97% coverage.
Do not go with Talkmobile. They use the Vodafone network so their coverage is fine, not amazing or anything, but nothing to complain about. However, they have a habit of randomly charging me. I had wrongly been billed £35 over my £18/month contract and was forced to call them up as they blocked me being able to make calls, send texts or use Mobile Internet. So I called them up and asked what the problem was. They apoloigised for wrongly billing me and I asked what date my allowances get reset. They said the 21st of every month. I specifically remember this as my birthday is on a 21st so that’s how I remembered it. I had 3 minutes left of my contract on the 19th of October, so I didn’t make calls until the 21st at 11pm. The call was 1h50 long. I get a bill through a week later saying I owe them £66? So I called them up and it was the same person as before. I told him he’d said it was the 21st that I got topped up on and he denied it. He said he’d get his manager to listen to our conversation from the previous call, and that he’d call back within 3/4 working days. That was two weeks ago and they’ve still not called. I have called them a few times and they said that the first guy would get back to me, still nothing… Oh, and as I said, they have a habit of not letting you make any calls, send any texts or use mobile internet (of which I’m meant to get unlimited). It seems like they are just waiting for an excuse to cut you off…
Could they have meant it’s reset after the 21st? You should call them again and not hang up until they’ve refunded you.
I am a Talkmobile customer since Mobile World finished and switched me to. I am satisfied with the tariff, the coverage, the services but not the thing they called ‘Customer Support’. First, my SIM card went partly wrong and despite of the clear error message on any phone I and Carphonewarehouse expert put it in they tried to convince me that the problem is in my phones. After 3 month fighting they sent a new SIM eventually and it works.
Even I had top-up successfully a couple of times, now I cannot top-up my card because the Talkmobile webpage gives error to anything I want to do: top-up, change details, add debit or credit card, register or anything.
SMS top-up does not work either.
Can you help me telling other ways to top-up?
Have you tried topping up by e-voucher? Also, what do they say about it?
I just tried to join TalkMobile with a PAC code from o2.
I ordered a sim online (which took 2 weeks to arrive) and inserted it into my phone. I then rang TalkMobile to retrieve my old phone number from my PAC. …turns out they can’t do this. After a loooong conversation with a confused customer service rep, I managed to cancel my contract (which apparently you can’t do over the phone? you normally have to go to a carphone warehouse!).
Oh yes, I also received an email from Talk Mobile saying I failed my credit check …I queiried this on the phone anf they said they don’t know why it was sent out. …slightly worrying.
Needless to say, I cancelled my PAC and renewed with o2.
TalkMobile certainly do offer cheap contracts. I am going to focus on the SIM only plans.
Their SIM Only plans are very cheap indeed and offer excellent value for money. They run on the Vodafone network.
However, if you wish to run a SIM Only contract on the TalkMobile network using an iPhone, then be prepared for relentless “Welcome to talk mobile…download your settings” black screens ALL THE TIME. This is because TalkMobile do not have a formal contract with Apple to run their phones on their network (thus when you try to download settings, it doesn’t work and you’re stuck with these black screens)! Very annoying, but still…the plans are very good value!
There are other forums on the internet with people experiencing the same issue. iPhone users, beware. If you could deal with the black screens, the sim plans are a bargain.
As far as I know this does not affect other phones (i.e. android etc).
Hope this helps!
(p.s. I’m still with them…£8 PCM for 6 month contract is so cheap)
Has anyone used the talkmobile tarrif with an ipro i6 phone. I have been making enquires for my son, but no one seems to know if the internet will work with the phone as they dont know the settings. Any information would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
It should work fine and the settings for internet will be the same as with any other handset. Let us know if you need any more help.
been with talkmobile for a while with no problems, but today none of my texts would sent, later i tryed to call someone and there was a message saying ”you have £98.18 of unbilled calls to pay for, you must pay for these calls before making any calls”. but i know for a FACT that i dont use my phone anywhere near enough to go that far over a bill, i came on here and read some of the other stories and saw that talkmobile have messed up peoples bills before. i have also been suggested to call customer services but each time i try to call customer services it trys to make me pay for this outstanding bill. also i tryed to log online and check my bill, but i need my account number, and the only way to get that is to pay £1.50 to text for paper billing, which as you can guess talkmobile will not let me do. i am just going around in circles now, anyone got any ideas? thanks
I have the same problem. I left the country and I convienently get a bill of over 69 quid when my usual bill is 20 to 30 a month.
Had a 12 month upfront phone contract from dec22 2010 till dec22 2011, gave adequate notice to terminate and they disconnected on time.they acknowledge this to be correct. Now I am getting threatening letters and warned of debt recovery for £8.38 ,they assure me this is a mistake but another letter came today, Their letter gives a contact number to call ,once dialed it asks for mobile number concerned with call ,inputting the now defunct number meets with number nor recognised no other options and eventually times out. Cowboys is too gentle a word to describe them and their customer (dont) care team are not to be trusted.rather worried and very very annoyed with this company.
Ive been with Talk mobile for the past 24months and have never had a problem…untill I called them to upgrade on the 29th de.
They offered me a good deal and a good fone so agrred to go with it, they said the phone would be with me the following day(fri 30th) so waited in all day, no delivery so waited in all the next day(sat 31st)still no delivery but couldnt get hold of them due to the bank holiday untill Tues 3rd Jan, they said there had been a problem and the phoned hadn’t been sent but said it would be with me the following day(wed 4th), waited in all day again and still no phone so called them again, they said again that there had been a problem and the phone hadn’t been sent, again they promised it would be delivered the next day (Fri 6th) so that morning I called them to see if it had been sent and got a tracking number, waited in all day and still no delivery so checked the online tracking, which said that at “6.47pm customer refused to sign” ????? I couldnt call Yodel untill 9am this morning so when I queried the fact that I had been here all day and certainly did not refuse to sign, they then confirmed that Talkmobile had sent my phone to the wrong address!! GIVE ME STRENGTH!!
Called Talkmobile(again) who couldnt understand how it got sent to the wrong address as every time you call you have to confirm all your details, and have now said that they cant send me another phone untill Yodel send the other one back. Totally unaceptable!! Even when I threatened to cancel they couldn’t care less.
God only knows when I will receive this bloody phone!! if it wasn’t for the fact that I was getting such a good phone and deal I would have told them to stick it by now.
Do Not sign a contract with these jokers! Talk mobile is without doubt the WORST company I have ever had the displeasure of dealing with. I won’t bore you with the details, but I have been a customer for just three months and in that time I have been repeatedly ignored or hung-up on by their call centre. They do not reply to emails. BEWARE – They charge 0800 numbers as PREMIUM rate calls – I recently was charged £17 for a call which I assumed would have been cheap if not free! They will not replace a broken handset after 28days, my top of the range smartphone broke after a month and they and gave me a nokia phone worth 5.99 as a replacement, whilst they sent it to be repaired. If you think you will get a 3G signal anywhere, forget it. I use my phone for mobile internet all day everyday across the midlands, and would estimate that I get a 3G signal about 1% of the time. I was on the three network previously with was much better all round. I can’t wait until my contract has finished with these crooks. A complete joke of a company.
I have just given 30 day notice to talk monile after only 2 months- they are terrible!
My initial sim only contract charged for voicemail calls- not suitable for me. after extensive email and telephone contact with customer service I changed my contract.
Next they charged a £100 deposit held for 6 months to enable international roaming…. why can’t they just pre authorise a credit card like the car rental companies.
Lastly I too had problems accessing some sites. I tried to sign an online petition and it would not let me access it. I contacted customer services to all this content. I was advised that they needed ANOTHER deposit of £50.
This was the last straw- this company wanted to hold a total of £150 in deposits just to use their mobile network- I have never had this problem with any of the major networks.
I’m off to Giff Gaff!
Offers a cheap monthly rate. But hidden charges for voice and when you stop the contract they are shitting on you.
Go to Giff Gaff, much better value for money
Had the WORST experience with this company. They provided me a faulty chip, assured my contract had been cancelled as a result, and then charged me the full contract rate for the past sixth months. When confronted, I was informed they had ‘no recordings’ of any conversations I had with their representatives so refused to refund me.
I took out a 6 month contract.
Im on the 7th month and they are still charging me.
how the hell are these guys in the top 4 by the looks of things they are as bad as vectone mobile would have thought of them being a carphone warehouse network that they would have had better standards what a shame….
was thinking of getting a contract with them but am off to giff gaff.
I would recommend that when you call them, get there name and each time you call back ask for the same person, this is how I got my problem sorted,I spoke to about 9 different people who kept telling me different things so I asked for the last person I spoke to and he sorted it all for me, and has even caled me a couple of times since to make sure that every thing is ok. But I must agree that as a company as a whole the customer services are rubbish!!!
I agree
wish id found this site before joining for a 24 month contract with talkmobile didnt know they were carphone warehouse until phone came,
im getting a large bill again paid £25 for what is says is £12 a month but then they add VAT, so its £16
got a bil today for £120 but when you try to make calls it blocked and says i owe £5 which is more acceptable ive used the phone a lot.
do they charge if app is connected? and it seems to have a £75 credit limit,
not sure what to do
was on Gif GAf should stay i with them and cancel talkmobile?