A word of warning

Don't buy your phone from Phones 4 u. DO NOT under any circumstances get a Samsung U600 and tell anyone who calls up about some insurance you took out with phones 4 u in store to fuck right off.

I bought a phone from a Phones 4 u store in Edinburgh. They brought me out a nice phone which they said was top of the range blah blah. I asked if it made and received calls, which they said it did, which was ideal for my purposes of using it to make and receive calls.

So I get a phone and I take out insurance with the intention of canceling it after a couple of months when the phone has lost it's value.

The Monday morning I am back in the office when I get a phone call from a company saying they are Phones 4 u and talking about the insurance I purchased, saying that price I had to pay is being cut. Not it's a new deal they're offering me on top of my insurance I've already purchased, because that's the insurance they're talking to me about.

Alas, when I open my bank statements, £39.99 has been taken from my account by a company called 'future phones'. These people don't appear to be able to answer their phones and have not bothered to contact me with any records of why they have taken money from me.

Over the few weeks following my purchase from Phones 4 u I was bombarded with calls from people trying to sell me insurance. I asked one girl where my details were published that people felt they could continually call me and she said Phones 4 U had given it out. I also received two letters from a company I had never heard of both informing me of the monthly direct debit they were going to take out of my account (they had my account details) for, guess what! Phone insurance. I asked them who the fuck they were and why they were trying to con me twice over and they said that Phones 4 U had sent them my account details as I wanted more insurance. Oh yes. More fucking insurance.

The irony is, of course, that despite having crooked companies stealing from me left, right and centre, when I actually wanted to use my insurance I can't find the fuckers. I need to use it because the phone I was sold is as feeble as an anorexic after a hike up Everest. I took it out of my handbag and there was a crack on the screen. I hadn't been throwing my bag around since it's a rather expensive Jimmy Choo bag. The other place it had been was on my desk at work. Again, it's a desk. The most vicious thing on it is a tiger, and he's a stuffed toy. It's not made out of bricks and granite and other phone perils.

Nevertheless, having sent my phone off to Phones 4 U for them to repair it, I get a letter back saying that the circuit board was cracked and it's my fault for throwing it around. One minute my phone works fine, the next minute it refuses to take charge. (from the charger, not boss things in my handbag around). This is my fault, they tell me. That's very convenient for them, I say, seeing as it had to be sent off to a warehouse where they 'investigate' it and then they send me a letter saying that if I want it back I am going to have to pay for it. This, of course, means that if I want to get anyone else to look at it I have to pay Phones 4 U.

So I have insurance I can't use, a phone which has been taken from me and won't be returned unless I pay the ransom money and which is broken anyway but they won't fix because they tell me I've been throwing around against walls.

Because if my use of the phone as something I want to keep in my handbag has broken it, then it's not suitable to be imposed on a phone using public. Robust is what we want, not weedy, fragile things that break because you've put them on top of your contacts book rather than in a feather bed.

I think that the managing director of Phones 4 U requires a letter from me which I shall copy into the relevant regulatory authority.

But in the mean time, don't use phones 4 u or get a Samsung U600.