You're going to GIVE me a Treo 600?

This is where the ‘Gobsmacked’ Smiley would have been entirely appropriate.

I need to upgrade my mobile handset; I currently have a Nokia 8210 that is about six years old and is starting to look a little worn and I really would like to have a Treo 600, trouble is that I’m on a real bottom-feeder tariff (I pay £15 per month and get 30 minutes of any network calls inclusive) - Even though I’m well outside the 12 month initial contract, nobody could offer me a cost-effective handset upgrade (upgrade fee to the Treo is £229 on my tariff).

No matter, thought I, I’ll just pull my usual stunt of ending the current contract and signing up for a new one; OK, I’ll lose my current number, but what the heck, so I phoned the telco to terminate the contract - the nice young lady in customer services said maybe they could bring the upgrade price down to £199, but I explained that I’d seen some deals where I can get a new contract with the Treo for peanuts, albeit on a slightly higher tariff.

“OK”, she says, “I’ll transfer you to someone who can deal with your contract termination” - a two minute hold and I’m now talking to a guy who says “How about we give you the upgrade for free?” - a moment or two of confused silence, then I manage to splutter “Yes, but, but…”.
“Your tariff and number remain unchanged, you’ll have the new phone tomorrow, is that something you’d be interested in?”. Of course I’m interested, so that’s a deal.

But think about that for a moment; they aren’t going to do this if it makes them a loss - they can afford to cut their margin by £229, that means they are printing money, doesn’t it?

Ah, who cares; I’m getting far more than I originally hoped for. Yipppeee!

Sounds to me like you were at the right place at the right time. Your cell phone company didn’t want to lose a customer and probably had some sort of unknown promotion going on to retain it’s shrinking customer base. It looks like you got a rockin’ good deal, but keep an eye out to make sure you are not changed over to a new plan and then charged accordingly.

Yeah; the guy was emphatic that my tariff would not change - I have, of course, committed to another 12 month period (as is standard with any upgrade) and there’s a cooling off period anyway, but yes, I will be reading ALL the small print.

Wooo Hooo! It arrived today and it is 'tastic! As far as I’ve been able to tell, there is no catch - my tariff is unchanged and there has been no charge.

I know how they are hoping to make up the money though - this thing has a proper email client and a decent graphical web browser built in, plus you can take (VGA) snapshots and send them directly by email, plus the text messaging interface is more like a chat client (I susually despise SMS, but I could get used to this… It would be very easy indeed to rack up some serious and costly airtime on this thing.