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1p Mobile UK Reduces PAYG Minimum Spend Period from 90 to 60 Days UPDATE

Saturday, Oct 5th, 2024 (12:01 am) - Score 4,440
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Mobile network operator 1p Mobile appears to have recently reduced the “minimum spend requirement” period on their classic Pay As You Go (PAYG) plans from at least £10 every 90-days, to £10 every 60-days. But the provider’s Terms & Conditions appear to be confused about when this change was actually introduced.

The change, which was spotted by one of our readers (credits to Ben), appears to have occurred sometime over the past few weeks. But a quick look at 1p Mobile’s T&Cs (here), which at the time of writing are dated to be “Effective from 08 February 2024“, confusingly suggests that it was introduced a long time ago, when it wasn’t.

NOTE: 1p Mobile is a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) on EE’s UK platform.

A quick history check via the Wayback Machine (Internet Archive) shows that both the PAYG page and T&Cs were still showing the previous 90-day period up to around the end of August 2024. In other words, somebody has updated the T&Cs, albeit without correcting the date at the same time or uploading a historic ‘version‘ copy to help customers identify exactly when the change to their legal text was updated.

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We’ve notified 1p Mobile of all this and so hopefully the issue should be resolved soon, although it’s currently unclear why they’ve reduced the minimum spend requirement. But it may result in some very casual PAYG mobile users having to pay more.

UPDATE 6:31am

A spokesperson for 1p Mobile has informed us that the incorrectly dated T&Cs was likely to have been a “server cache” issue, which has now been resolved. The new terms appear to be dated to 3rd October 2024. In addition, the reason given for the change to the minimum spend requirement is indicated to be because their costs have increases and “until this year we haven’t increased our prices since 2019.”

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Mark-Jackson
By Mark Jackson
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook and .
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39 Responses

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  1. Avatar photo Rich Branston says:

    ~18months ago it was still promoted as £10 every 180 days so it’s now doubled in price if you use less than the minimum credit spend. The 1p face value is no longer very valuable.

    1. Avatar photo kim says:

      did you mean 120 days?

    2. Avatar photo Will says:

      Agreed. I’m glad I moved away from them as EE is shocking in my rural area, much better on VOXI who uses Vodafone.

    3. Avatar photo Old blue shirt guy says:

      Indeed. Ironcally the service is good, but the pricing and marketing so confusing it’s a complete show stopper for the average user. At this point they need to rebrand and just say what the price actually is.

    4. Avatar photo anonymous says:

      I disagree. The rolling monthly subscriptions are much better than EE direct. For £10 I get 25Gb of uncapped data speed, roaming, voWiFi, voLTE, full frequency band coverage, 5G, ability to add extra data for 1 month whenever I want to in case of sudden demand. 1p also use EE systems not their own, so you don’t get half the issues some other MVNO operators have on EE network.

      As a new customer that is not Blue Light or student, I could never rock up to EE direct and get 25GB for £10 on a monthly contract with uncapped data speeds.

  2. Avatar photo Ben says:

    They must have a very unusual “server cache” if it cached the top part of the page with the date on it but not the part further down with the minimum spend details.

    IMO their PAYG plan is no longer viable — customers spending £5 a month or more are likely to take a “boost” (either with 1pMobile or a competitor). I guess the only reason they’re keeping it around is because it’s such a core part of their branding.

    1. Avatar photo Matt says:

      cache makes sense if someone made a mistake, they saw it, changed it and it didn’t get pushed out again (e.g. they forgot to properly “publish” it)

  3. Avatar photo Mark says:

    So effectively a minimum charge of £5/month which gets you 500 mins or 500 texts or 0.5GB data or some combination thereof. Doesn’t sound very competitive when you can get SIM only contracts for less which offer unlimited mins and texts and well over that amount of data.

  4. Avatar photo Raymond says:

    They increased cost of their yearly talker plan earlier this year. It went from £36 to £48 but they did double the data from 250mb to 500mb per month. Although price increases are never welcome it is still great value.
    This plan now gives you unlimited calls, text and 500mb of data per month for full year for a single payment of £48.

    1. Avatar photo insertfloppydiskhere says:

      Not really competitive though. At the moment, you can get it cheaper from Spusu and O2 (possibly RWG too) which has 1GB of data.

      Spusu’s offer is 1GB unltdmins unltdtxts £2.90
      O2’s offer is 1GB unltdmins unltdtxts £2.99

      You get access to Priority for that price too on O2 and they still currently use RPI+3.9% so it won’t be as big of a jump as other networks.

  5. Avatar photo Ivor says:

    I assume they’re trying to dislodge the lightest users with this move, or at least get them to pay a bit more. Anyone who uses their phone regularly enough to have a bundle or “boost” still complies with this requirement anyway.

    It’s a bit misleading for them to say they haven’t raised their prices, not just in sneaky ways like this but directly – the price of the “1 year” boosts has increased over the last few years.

    1. Avatar photo anonymous says:

      But still cheaper for new customers than EE direct tariffs are.

      I use them for monthly rolling, and for £10 its excellent.

  6. Avatar photo Phil says:

    minimum spend requirement should be BANNED as it seem very unfair! The only provider doesn’t have it is RWG Mobile (also run by EE)

    1. Avatar photo NE555 says:

      RWG used to use the EE network, but now uses Three.

    2. Avatar photo Paul Donovan says:

      When did they switch to three there website is still showing ee

    3. Avatar photo Grant says:

      Rwg pay as you go still runs on ee.
      Some of their monthly plans now run on 3, some you can choose the underlying network, some run on ee.

  7. Avatar photo Phil says:

    I purchased 25GB data boost for my daughter phone with unlimited calls and text with 25GB data but 1p mobile seem to put incorrect data usage of 1,151,903MB instead of 25,600MB?

    See screenshot https://ibb.co/p1t7LRC

    1. Avatar photo Luke says:

      That happens when the boosts been added it takes a few days to sort itself out IV found

  8. Avatar photo Crotchety says:

    Irregular phone users like myself and wife will be penalised. I recently had notice that not using enough in the last 90 days allowed them to take money off me and because that reduced my money with them they then topped up my account with another 10 pounds. It is no longer a cheap deal and will probably encourage users to look elsewhere for value.

    1. Avatar photo Greg says:

      I am in a similar situation. I don’t make anytwhere near enough outgoing calls or txts to cover the £10 mminimum spend requirement, and I’ve been penalised twice by them this year. They took (or IMO stole) £4.90 from my balance in May because I hadn’t fulfilled used £10 of calls/txts.
      Similarly, they did it again in August, taking (stealing) £5.80 from my balance, then another £1.19 (total £6.99) as soon as I’d topped up with another £10.

      If the usage commitment changes to £10 every 60 days, 1p Mobile is no longer viable for me, unless I start regularly entering those £2 per entry prize draw competitions on TV!

    2. Avatar photo Grant says:

      Make sure auto topup is switched off or you will never be able to run your balance down to 0. Then port to someone else or buy a regular monthly bundle.

  9. Avatar photo Sunil Sood says:

    “Mobile network operator 1p Mobile appears to have recently reduced the “minimum spend requirement” on their classic Pay As You Go (PAYG) plans from at least £10 every 90-days, to £10 every 60-days.”

    Surely it’s an increase not a reduction?

  10. Avatar photo Nwit says:

    Not worth it.

  11. Avatar photo Phil says:

    Before was £10 minimum spend every 180 days, down to 120 days, down to 90 days and now down to 60 days, but I bet next one will be down to 30 days!

  12. Avatar photo greggles says:

    EE themselves out bid 1p on price for me, which shows the cost isnt that good, for a very casual user 1p mobile isnt that attractive I think unless you have issues that require you to use the EE network, giffgaff is far better.

    1. Avatar photo anonymous says:

      Can you show me how to get 25GB EE direct tariff as a normal customer (not a student etc) for £10 with uncapped speeds, roaming and ability to not be in a contract longer than 30 days, use all LTE bands and 5G?????

      Intrigued.

    2. Avatar photo greggles says:

      All I did was request a PAC, then very quickly got a call from retentions. The offer also has no expiry, so I still have all the extra data and discounts after contract ended with just annual uplift.

      They gave me 125 gig for £15 which is now £16.16, Getting 25 gig for under a tenner should be easy.

    3. Avatar photo anonymous says:

      Not as a NEW customer though.

  13. Avatar photo Roger says:

    Much better deals out there, Lebara and Spusu offer unlimited calls and texts + 5GB for a £1, not cost effective to be with 1p even as a low user

    1. Avatar photo anonymous says:

      SPUSU has had a load of issue with voice quality, number transfers, data speeds. They don’t use EE systems like 1p do and have their own interface which is causing a lot of issues, but is better if you take a totally new number instead of PAC transferring one.

  14. Avatar photo Webie says:

    Noticed this around the middle of September as I received a email saying I hadn’t used enough credit so I had to make the difference up. I’ve been with them for a few years now as I’m a very light call and text user and mostly used the data side which at 1p is handy.

    This new usage charge will cause me to look elsewhere but I’m not sure who else offers low data costs and I’m not a high enough user to be buying “data packs” or “add-ons” as most other providers seem to use. Only other option I’ve found is to try RWG or possibly ID mobile. Shame this charge has been introduced as they were a good provider for very occasional user

  15. Avatar photo GaryH says:

    The term PAYG has been false for a long time now it really should be banned by the ASA and offcom where a minimum spend or a monthly payment is required regardless of use. Its simply not pay as you go its a monthly rolling contract with a minimum fixed fee.

  16. Avatar photo Bren says:

    1pMobile say that they scrapped their minimum requirement of a £10 top-up every 120 days because customers were building large credit balances.
    What is your problem 1pMobile ? Customers had pre-paid for your services regardless of whether they used it or not and couldn’t claim their large credit balances back from you anyway.
    Plus, you still got customers to top-up regularly.
    It’s the equivalent of Netflix punishing their customers by charging them for not watching or downloading enough content every month.
    Perhaps Mark’s and Spencer’s could slap a fee on customers who buy their clothes but don’t wear them often enough.
    RIP 1pMobile, you’re finished

  17. Avatar photo Greg says:

    Adding to what I posted yesterday, I’ve now found that “Classic PAYG” on O2 might be my best alternative option. The charges are the same as I remember the old 3-2-1 PAYG tariff on Three I was on until they dropped that and hiked their basic PAYG charges quite excessively (IMO) which prompted my switch to 1pMobile in 2021.

    Calls 3p p/m. Texts 2p. Data is 1p/MB. Customer service calls are free Voicemail 3p per call.
    Minimum topup/usage requirement is £10 topup and at least one chargeable use every 6 months.

    https://www.o2.co.uk/help/pay-as-you-go/classic-pay-as-you-go

  18. Avatar photo Greg says:

    Scratch that … I’ve only just noticed this on the page for O2 Classic PAYG:

    Please note, this tariff is no longer available to existing customers wishing to switch to the tariff. If you’re not already on this tariff you won’t be able to switch to it.

    Although it says “existing customers” I assume it also means new customers too.

    1. Avatar photo Grant says:

      You can purchase a classic sim from reseller sites and then call o2 to activate them. At present AFAIK o2 are still honouring them however there are no guarantees.

  19. Avatar photo Emeka says:

    There is an alternative. Talkhome mobile have a payg sim called 5G penny pro. 1p per min, 1p per text, 1p per MB data ( uk ). It rolls over every 30 days. Unlike 1p mobile no minimum or maximum spend required.

  20. Avatar photo !PMCust says:

    https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6562324/1p-mobile-payg-ending-dec-2024#latest

    Is 1p mobile closing their PAYG service late December 2024 as per the above post link. if so, will it be ‘Boost Only’ from January 2025?
    1pm is the best signal in Central London for me and 25GB £10 is value.

  21. Avatar photo Phil says:

    Game over. Will be jumping ship. Taking unused credit by this company should be made illegal. Can you imagine the uproar if your Gas or Electricity company were using this system of daylight robbery and was to take credit off your account for not using the minimum required, and in the winter not having enough in your account to pay the bill.

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