1. About mobilife
1.1
Who are Mobilife?
Mobilife is a subsidiary of CInergy International who are a
respected name in the provision of mobile competitive information for the
leading mobile phon networks
1.2 Where is mobilife Registered?
Mobilife is a brand name of CInergy International Ltd in the UK.
1.3
Who should consider using mobilife?
Anyone who is looking for a new mobile phone, deal or contract!
There is something for everyone.
1.4 What are the benefits of using mobilife?
Mobilife provides accurate price comparison for the whole UK mobile phone contract handset market. –
We are OFCOM approved which means we always present the best mobile phone deals for you first,
based on the information you have provided to us and some assumptions.
For example, you may be better off paying a
small up front fee for a mobile phone and hence a lower monthly line rental for a usage
that more accurately represents how you use your phone. Paying
£49.99 for a handset and then paying £15 a month for 18 months for
a contract that covers all your usage (a total of £319.99) is better than
paying nothing for the handset and paying £15 a month for 24 months (a
total of £360.00) for a contract that comes with 100 minutes more and
unlimited text when you only send a couple of hundred texts per month and ties you in
for 6 months more!
2. How does mobilife work?
2.1
How does mobilife select the best mobile phone deals?
Mobilife uses a number of criteria to search for deals suitable
to you, you can provide any combination of the following information and we
will identify the best deals in the market for you. Information can consist of
a particular handset and/or free gift you are interested in, how much you use your
mobile in terms of minutes, texts and data or you can submit
your mobile phone bills in Adobe Acrobat PDF format or let us login to your online network account and get the
information directly. Once we have the information you wish to base the search
on we search all mobile phone contract deals in the UK for the best deals and
show you how you can save you the most money.
2.2 How is mobilife different?
Other mobile phone price comparison sites use
the information you enter to find a deal that has sufficient inclusive
allowances to meet your needs or present mobile phone deals they have been paid to advertise
by the mobile phone networks or other partners.
Mobilife actually analyses every deal to see how
your usage would be charged against the specific deal and decides which deal is best for you.
We also analyse the bundles and extras
available with some deals to see if you would be better taking advantage of
one of these and if so, we recommend it to you. Mobilife also has the ability to
accurately identify your real mobile phone usage from your bills or online account
details.
2.3
Where is mobilife recommending deals from?
We recommend deals from mobile phone networks and
independent retailers who provide deals on behalf of the mobile phone networks. Ultimately
this is no different from shopping on the high street, we just give you access
to MORE deals with LESS legwork which are BETTER suited to your monthly needs.
2.4 Is mobilife really free? How do you make your money?
Mobilife makes it money from a commission paid to it by the
retailers that provide the deals we recommend. We only receive a commission when a user orders
from a retailer's website. We do not take this into account when we search for the best deals for you.
We would rather have a happy customer who will recommend us than
an extra couple of pounds commission.
3. Mobilife Bill Analyser BETA
3.1 Mobilife Bill Analyser BETA Account Login
3.1.1
Why do you need my mobile phone login details?
In order to analyse your mobile phone bills, we need your username and password that you use to log into your
mobile phone network for online billing or ‘My account’ area to view your bills.
This can sometimes be your email address or a mobile number etc and varies
from network to network.
3.1.2
How do you use my mobile phone login details?
All your mobile phone login information is kept in a secure database in an encrypted format
so you don’t have to worry about your data being read by anyone else.
Also, we do NOT store your username and password.
3.1.3
Are my mobile phone login details and bills secure?
We log in to your mobile phone account using the same process as you do which are all secured by HTTPS
so not only is your communication to us secure but so
are all communications between mobilife and your mobile phone network.
3.1.4
How long does Mobilife Bill Analyser Account Login take?
In order to obtain your information we actually need to visit a number
of web pages on your mobile phone network’s website and download your billing information.
It can take some time to login and download your last three bills. We are reliant on the
speed of the mobile phone network’s website and if they are very busy then this may impact
the speed in which we can retrieve your results.
Typical results are available in under 2 minutes.
3.1.5
I don’t have a mobile phone online account, can I get one?
If you don’t have an online account it only takes a couple of minutes to register.
There is a link to the correct page within mobilife Bill Analyser BETA – just select
your mobile phone network and follow the links provided. You may need your mobile with
you as they sometimes send a PIN number to your phone for added security.
3.1.6
I don’t have a mobile phone online account, can I get one?
For security reasons, we cannot get your mobile phone online login details for you but we can point you in the right direction!
There is a link to the correct page you will need to visit within Bill Analyser BETA – just select your mobile phone network and follow the links provided.
3.2 Mobilife Bill Analyser BETA PDF Upload
3.2.1.
What is PDF Upload? Which mobile phone bills should I upload?
PDF Upload is a facility for you to upload to your mobile phone bills to mobilife in Adobe Acrobat format.
If you don’t already have Adobe Acrobat reader, you can download it from here.
You should provide the bills that you received most recently as these are likely
to contain your current level of usage. Ideally you should provide three months
of bills as this allows us to spot any unusual types of usage that might impact our recommendation.
3.2.2
Where do I find my mobile phone bills?
You can download your bills from your mobile phone network’s online account area
or you may have received them by email. They must be the complete detailed bills as
downloaded from your mobile phone network and not a scanned paper copy you have done
at home as this is not accurate enough for analysis purposes.
3.2.3
Should I always upload my last three mobile phone bills?
Your last three months of mobile phone bills are probably a good reflection of general usage,
but if you have been abroad for a long time recently or your mobile phone use has been unusual,
you might want to omit some bills or select another time period.
3.2.4
Why can’t I use PDF Upload for O2 and T-Mobile?
O2 does not provide bills in Adobe Acrobat PDF format and T-Mobile only provide summary
information in Adobe Acrobat PDF format. For these two mobile phone networks, the information
is available online so please use mobilife Bill Analyser BETA Account Login.
3.2.5
How long does it take to analyse my bills?
PDF bills are very quick to analyse and can be done in a few seconds. This is because
the PDF files include all the information we need and we can capture it all, as opposed
to Account Login where we need to go to multiple web pages to get the information, which
inevitably takes longer.
3.3 Mobile Bill Analyser BETA Simulate Usage
3.3.1
What are landline minutes and mobile minutes?
Some tariffs or extras / bundles provide for unlimited landline calls such as the Orange Racoon tariff.
If we asked you how may minutes you used and you said 800 but in fact actually only used 100 minutes
to call mobile phone numbers and called landline phone numbers for the other 700 minutes then
the landline based tariff would be a much better option for you, hence we split the info to
allow us to take this into account.
4. Mobilife Deal Results
4.1 Free Gifts
4.1.1
What free gifts do you offer?
We offer a wide range of free gifts from games consoles, computers,
TVs through to GPS Sat Nav. systems and hair straighteners.
4.1.2
Are free gifts really free?
You will eventually pay more for free gifts than you would if paying immediately.
For most of our free gifts, we have provided the high-street price so you can understand what it would cost you.
We can also try to find the same deal (in terms of handset and tariff) but without the free gift so you can
understand over the life of the contract what you will actually be paying for the free gift, i.e. a Nintendo
Wii could cost as much as £289 when bough with a network but as little as £117 from when bought direct.
4.2 Mobile phones
4.2.1
Why have some phones got an upfront fee when others are free?
Retailers and mobile phone networks subsidise mobile phones via the cost of the monthly contract so
you will end up paying slightly more for less inclusive usage for an expensive phone
than you would for a cheaper handset. Some retailers make a conscious decision not to
subsidise the price of phones which can be in excess of £500 because they cannot make the money
back on the contract, especially if it is only over a 12 month period, for example, or if a free gift
is included as well. Any up-front charge for the handset is a one off up-front fee
and paid for at the time of application.
4.3 Cash-back
4.3.1
What is cash-back by redemption?
Cash-back is where you commit to a contract of X months and as an incentive to purchase
the retailer gives you a discount of Y months free or half price line rental. To obtain this cash-back
you have to pay the full amount of the bill each month and have to submit various bills through the life
of the contract to the retailer as proof you are still in contract. They should then send you a cheque.
This type of offer is most likely to come from an independent retailer who is offsetting some of their commission
in cash-back to incentivise you to buy from them. In some instances the deals can seem too good to be true
and you may ask how they make money? The fact is they rely on people forgetting to claim their cash-back or
failing to qualify as they send in the wrong bill or fail to claim within the predefined claim window.
4.3.2
What is automatic cash-back?
Automatic cash-back is the same as cash-back by redemption, except that you do not need to submit bills
to the retailer, they will know directly from the network information they receive that you are still in
contract and that you are paying your bill and either send you a cheque or pay the money directly to your
bank. Offers for automatic cash-back are typically less than that of redemption cash-back as the percentage
of people qualifying is a lot higher and so the retailer will have to pay out in more cases.
4.3.3
How do I claim cash-back?
Cash-back works slightly differently for each retailer and the process should be fully understood
before you commit to buy, some may have specific months bills, some may have only a 30 day claim window,
some may state that if you miss one claim you invalidate all future claims.
Mobile phone retailers have come under increasing pressure in recent times to make it easier to claim as they
received a lot of bad press from people falling foul of some of their terms and conditions.
Each retailer should provide links to the detailed information you need to complete your cash-back claim. It is your responsibility to claim your cash-back.
5. Retailers
5.1
Who writes mobilife mobile phone reviews?
The majority of mobilife mobile phone reviews are written exclusively for us by industry
recognised editors. This certainly applies to the latest releases and most popular handsets.
Some of the older mobile phone reviews have been obtained from MobileChoice UK.
6. Mobile Phone Reviews
6.1
Do Mobilife prioritise mobile phone deals that maximise commission?
We are paid a different commission by each of the retailers and may be paid on mobile phone
order or mobile phone connection. We do not reflect or integrate the commission paid to us by
our partners in the mobile phone search results we present to consumers, which are Ofcom Approved.
This means we always show you the best deal for you first.
6.2
Do you cover all mobile phone deals from all networks?
We cover all mobile phone deals from all UK mobile phone network operators O2,
Orange, T-Mobile,
Three and Vodafone – as well as others from the
three “virtual” network operators: Virgin Mobile,
Tesco Mobile
and Talk Mobile.
6.3
Do you work with independent mobile phone retailers?
We include mobile phone deals from the main high street independent mobile phone retailers
as well as the larger internet-only retailers. Some of the internet-only retailers we include
in our mobile phone deals are in fact brand trading names of the large high street retailers,
e.g. Mobiles.co.uk is a group company of Carphone Warehouse.
7. Security
7.1
Do you keep my details?
Mobilife does not retain your mobile phone network online billing user name or password.
These are used once to login to your account while you wait and then deleted. Details of your
search and the results we provided are kept so we can analyse the value and quality
of the information we provided to you.
Your personal details are not stored and will only be shared with third parties if you have opted in.
7.2 How secure is the information I share with you?
The information you share with us is stored in a secure database in
encrypted format, only accessible by the system itself and the data administrators.
7.3
Are you Data Protection Act compliant?
We are compliant with the UK Data Protection Act and any
questions or requests should be forwarded to dpa@mobilife.com.
7.4 Do you pass my details to anyone and if so
who do you provide my details to?
We do not pass
your details to any third party without your permission. You are asked if you with
to opt-in to third offers during the bill analysis
process. Third parties may include, but is not limited to, mobile phone networks,
retailers or various market data aggregators.
7.5
What level of encryption do you use?
mobilife uses 256-bit encryption through the SSL certificates
provided by our domain partner.