Heroes and Villains

T-mobile vs Nationwide

Monday, 16 March 2009

No-one escapes the Heroes and Villains column. The good, the bad and the ugly providers will find themselves here, praised for their excellence or named and shamed for their misdemeanours...

Hero – T-mobile

Mobile broadband will conquer the world. This I am sure of. Who wants to pay BT (www.bt.com) over a tenner line rental a month, not to mention £125 for line installation, when you can get broadband without a phone line?!

The speeds will need to be improved and the download limits increased, but I am fairly confident that one day, the majority of the population will be using mobile broadband.

On this note, I say hats off to T-mobile (www.t-mobile.co.uk) for leading the way in mobile broadband provision and coming top in a recent independent YouGov survey.

T-mobile’s mobile broadband service ranked first in a massive nine out of 13 categories including the following:

• Value for money
• Reliability during the day
• Upload speeds
• Download speeds
• Getting connected
• Ease of use
• Billing
• Customer services

Clearly it is keeping its customers happy.

My advice to other mobile broadband providers? Sort yourselves out! Mobile broadband is increasing in popularity, there are more of us than ever ready to join the mobile broadband revolution, so now is the time to improve your offerings and give us your best deal…

Download our complete guide to mobile broadband >>>

Villain - Nationwide

Where have all the fee-free holiday cards gone?

Once upon a time there was an array of credit cards offering an attractive 0% commission for spending overseas, but now, one by one, they are vanishing from the market!

First of all, Abbey pulled its Abbey Zero credit card. This was a great tragedy as not only did it not charge fees for spending abroad, it also allowed you to withdraw cash abroad for free.

Then, Thomas Cook announced it will introduce overseas fees for the first time for its credit card customers. From 18 April, those with a Thomas Cook credit card will be charged 2.5% on purchases and cash withdrawals abroad, on top of the pre-existing 2.99% fee on cash withdrawals in the UK and overseas.

And finally, just to top off all the bad news, it transpired that from May Nationwide (www.nationwide.co.uk) will be charging credit card customers 0.84% for any transactions made outside Europe. They will charge debit card customers the same fee from 1 June, and the fee for both types of cards will be hiked to 1% from 1 July.

In the scheme of things, Nationwide is still offering a fairly good deal. Its charges are lower than Thomas Cook’s, they only apply outside Europe and at least it hasn’t pulled its cards completely like Abbey. So why does Nationwide earn the title of villain?

Well, because they broke my heart. As my mum would say, I’m not angry, I’m just disappointed. Over the years Nationwide has made a big song and dance about how great its cards are for those who like to travel, and has heavily promoted it’s promise of fee-free overseas spending.

Indeed, it was this promise that made Nationwide stand out as a shining example among credit card providers, and it’s the previous boasts that make this U-turn all the more disappointing…

Now, please Post Office (www.postoffice.co.uk), don’t let me down. Your credit cards are the only ones left that won’t charge me to spend on my holidays!

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Who are your Heroes and Villains? If you reckon you know who needs to be named and shamed or praised for their excellence, please drop me an email and your suggestions could appear in the next column.

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