I agree with most of that but one thing I'd like to say about the network part is this... Before I switched to O2 (a few months ago) I was on Orange and I was using an official (factory unlocked) iPhone on Orange's network. Now I have an O2 (ie locked) iPhone so I'm probably one of the few people that has used an iPhone on both networks in the UK for any length of time. Within London I haven't noticed any difference at all in the speed or quality of 3G coverage. If you live elsewhere or you travel around the UK a lot then fair enough, it might come into play, but if you're living in a place where O2 do actually have reasonable 3G coverage (ie one of the larger cities) then I doubt there's any benefit to be gained from changing to Orange.

Bitterwallet have now published a story based on the MMS/roaming info: iPhone on Orange – you’ll pay for MMS, and texting from abroad | BitterWallet I appreciate 500 texts isn't enough for some people, but I do still think you'd have to spend a lot of your daytime texting to get through that. Probably quicker to actually call and talk to people for some of those conversations.

Fair enough, I guess if you send more than 20 texts per day every single day of the month (ie you're a teenager ) then yeah, it might be important to you but that certainly doesn't apply to me.

Correct, O2 will still be selling the iPhone for a long time to come. I don't know how Vodafone's plans work with regard to MMS and roaming texts coming out of your bundled allowance (or not) but Orange are certainly the worst choice in that department. I never used to send picture (or video) messages before, partly because I used to be on Orange and they charge for each one and partly because the phones I've had in the past had very clumsy MMS implementation. But when I switched to O2 and got an iPhone I thought that since it was free to send MMS I'd give it a go and I was very pleasantly surprised by how well the iPhone deals with MMS. It's basically just a part of the threaded conversation view that you use for normal texting. A small version of the picture or video appears in the conversation view and you just tap on it to see it fullscreen and play the video. It really is a joy to use and completely free on O2 (but not Orange).

No problem. Glad it helped

Hey, I don't know if you guys will find this interesting but I know it would affect my bills personally so maybe it might for the rest of you too. Apologies for starting a new thread but I couldn't see an existing one to slot this info into. Everyone seems to be talking about how Orange's iPhone price plans are identical to O2 (apart from the 750MB data usage cap) but there are two other key (albeit related) differences that I haven't really seen mentioned in many places online so far: 1) On O2 sending an MMS message (picture or video) uses four texts from your bundled allowance instead of being instantly chargeable but on Orange they bill you 25p per message straight away for every MMS message sent, regardless of whether you have anything remaining in the allowance for that month. 2) Similar to above, but on O2 roaming SMS message sent from abroad also use up four texts from your bundle (not from every country, but certainly the popular places like EU, USA, etc) whereas yet again Orange see fit to charge you for every message, even if you've still got loads of bundled messages left. I realise these two things maybe aren't iPhone-specific and are perhaps more general differences between the two networks but in light of the current Orange/iPhone media coverage and the amount of people out there who might be comparing between the two (and deciding which network to go for) I thought this information might be of interest. I've called Orange just now to confirm this and I'm on O2 so I already know how their side works having done both things mentioned above successfully. HTH

Thanks guys, will update this thread when I hear back from them.

Ok, thanks. What letter can I expect to get back from them in response to the 'prove it' letter I've just sent today? Are they likely to start offering discounts right away or will they begin with a letter saying they're 'retrieving my file' or whatever?

As far as Barclay's are concerned the debt is with Lowell's and it's no longer their problem beyond supplying data about the original transactions from when the debt occurred. If I was to string it out, hoping to get to April 2010 when the debt becomes SB, what would be the next stages for Lowell's to go through? If we're talking bailiffs at any point then for the sake of £30-£50 I'm happy to just pay it, especially since it was actually my fault in the first place. I've had bailiffs once before and as you all probably know they're complete c**** to deal with. I might even post a separate thread about that in the not-too-distant.

Ok, I've now sent the 'prove it' letter recorded. Just wanted to save myself some time and hassle if possible, that's why I was asking... Seems like I'll probably end up handing over some money to them at some point so was just wondering if I could cut out the time spent waiting with this hanging over my head.

Ok, so there's no point sending the CCA letter and I should instead send the 'prove it' letter, got that but have one question, as follows... The CCA letter carries the legal responsibility of the whole 12+2 days thing but the 'prove it' letter doesn't have any such timescale, does it? If they don't reply with any proof within, say, a month... What then? Can they take as long as they like? Given that Barclay's were able to tell me over the phone it sounds like the proof exists so sooner or later Lowell's will probably send it to me. Which makes me think that if there's a way of beating them down to the £30 figure this afternoon over the phone then I might as well just clear it today and get on with my life. But is it possible to get that sort of 'discount' without having sent any of these letters or will they only reduce the price that far for people who have written to them using these templates?

Ah, I forgot that the penalty charges would now be deemed unfair, thanks. So you reckon a CCA letter will get them to begin offering discounts? Do I need to go through a few back-and-forth mail exchanges to get them down to the final figure? If I just phone them this afternoon and offer £30, will they accept do you think? Or do I really need to have sent a CCA request before they'll drop down?

Hello everyone, Apologies for starting yet another thread about Lowell's Portfolio 1 but I've read many of the other threads on the web (spent the last hour or so going through them) and I think my problem is slightly different to the norm. The debt they're chasing is from an old Barclay's current account that I used to use for the sole purpose of paying household bills and when I moved out of a flat I used to live in I stopped using the account but made two mistakes: 1) I forgot to cancel one of the standing orders (genuine mistake by me) which resulted in it being returned unpaid a couple of times. 2) I never updated my address with Barclays. However this was less of a mistake on my part because when I moved I was able to change my address with all the other banks I use over the phone, yet Barclays insisted I had to go into the branch to do it, so I didn't bother. Anyway, fast forward five years and I had a letter from Buchanan, Clark & Wells saying they were collecting a debt of £101.52 on behalf of Lowell's. The first thing I did was telephone them (sorry, forgot to Google first) and ask for proof of the debt, because at that stage I didn't know that I'd forgotten to cancel that standing order (only found that bit out today) and Buchanan Clark & Wells (who I'm now going to abbreiviate to BCW) requested paperwork from Lowell's. Lowell's told BCW (by shouting across the office, I imagine) they didn't have any paperwork so BCW handed the case back to Lowell's. I called Lowell's and again asked for proof, the guy said he'd request it from Barclay's. I called Barclay's again just now (first time I called was a month ago and they said they had no info at all) and this time the lady was very helpful and did actually manage to find my old account info over the phone. This is when I first found out that the original debt stemmed from me forgetting to cancel a standing order. So, the facts... This is a genuine debt and I did make a mistake. Thus far, Lowell's have not produced any paperwork. The debt becomes statute barred in April 2010, so nearly a year still to go. The debt is £101.52 on the letter but both BCW and Lowell's have offered discounts over the phone. Lowest I've been offered was £75 but suspect the debt is likely to be £50 ish at most. Barclay's are sending me the relevant old statement in the post so I should be able to see the true debt amount. What would you do in my position? Would you still do the £1 postal order thing and try to get Lowell's to provide proof or would you forget about that and start haggling with them over the actual amount to be paid? If the latter, what can I realistically expect to get them down to? Will they go as low as the actual debt amount? And what's the best technique for getting the lowest price? I'd imagine that phoning them up and saying "I've been on the internet, I know you'll drop to X-amount" isn't going to be the start of a great phone conversation. Thanks for reading