Martin Lewis has issued a warning to anyone with a mobile phone contract.
The Money Saving Expert founder is urging mobile phone customers to send two free texts to save potentially hundreds a year on mobile phone bills. Mr Lewis has warned the average contract is set to rise by 17% in April, but there are some things you can be doing right now to try to keep costs down.
The finance guru hosted a special end of series edition of The Martin Lewis Money Show Live on ITV1 on Tuesday night from Liverpool, where he took aim at the slew of price hikes due to start in April.
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As well as discussing water rates, broadband and council tax hikes, Martin set out a five guide to beat mobile phone price hikes, Leeds Live reports. He told viewers: "On around the beginning of April, many mobile bills are to rise up to a typical 17%.
"Even if you are mid contract, which is something that should be stopped, even including some of the big ones. So what do you do about it?
"Five steps."
Martin then took audiences through five steps to beat the mobile price rise coming in April. He said: "First text INFO on 85075 on your current phone, it's free to do, to find out if you're out of contract and free to leave."
Martin then advised viewers to grab cheap SIM-only deals via price comparison websites rather than go directly to providers.
Three, for example, has a 100GB data plan for £15 per month with cashback that brings it down to £11 a month and there is a £4 per month deal for 5GB of data. Mr Lewis said you can often find a low-price network that uses the same signal.
He told ITV viewers that there are in reality only four mobile networks in the UK, O2, EE, Vodafone and Three, and all the rest such as Sky just use another provider's signal.
Step four is to get your PAC code by texting 'PAC' to 65075. This allows you to give the resulting code to a different network to request that your mobile number be moved across to the company you want to switch to to save cash.
Finally, Martin urged mobile customers that you can use a cheap deal as a benchmark to haggle. He told customers to ask to cancel when negotiating, and get put through to customer retentions.
Here, you can use the "wife trick" to pull out of cancelling at the last minute if they won't offer you a cheaper deal.
Martin added: "When you go to them and that's where you get the better deal, if they say to you 'I'm sorry we will disconnect you, you say 'I just need to check that with my husband, wife or parrot."
Martin heard from someone who ended their mobile contract and swapped to a SIM only deal, saving £545 per year against their previous contract.
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