When I got the man for the job on the line, it was very hard to hear him in the noisy shop, and I had to make him shout. What added to my requests for him to repeat himself, was that I couldn’t believe what he was now telling me: reverting back to PAYG would take a month! I asked him why this was and he told me that it was because it was a 1-month contract. I explained that I had mistakenly been put onto the contract, and that it was mis-sold to me, but that made no difference. I told him that I would be happy to still pay for the full month, if he could just change me over to PAYG now, so I could make international calls again, but he said that it had nothing to do with the payments, which I found hard to believe as I could be transferred _onto_ the contract in less than a day, so why would it take a month to transfer me back.

All in all, the experience has left me with a bad taste in my mouth, and while I had previously been marginally satisfied with T-Mobile (mostly because I had never had to deal with them before), I’ve decided that I’m going to leave them as a provider now.

I’ve been looking around for alternatives, and so far I’ve looked at GiffGaff and TalkTalk, but if anyone else would recommend anyone, either PAYG or contract, then please post in the comments. My only requirement is that I get internet in some sort of allowance-based system (not pay-per-mb) and can make international calls from the UK at a decent price. Other features that I would appreciate would be good minute rates in the UK, decent international roaming prices and maybe the ability to buy limited international internet allocations (one of the best features T-Mobile were offering).