O2 and T-Mobile have reassured newsagents that they have no plans to copy Vodafone’s e-top up commission cuts.
Newsagents and convenience store owners are fearful that T-Mobile, O2, 3 and Orange will copy Vodafone’s 1% cut to commission rates, which it is estimated will cost newsagents £100 per year and save Vodafone in the region of £1.2m when it begins in August.
10,000 newsagents staged a second two day boycott of Vodafone products on Friday and Saturday when they refused to process prepay payments, with some newsagents handing out free Sim cards for rival networks.
Spar’s trading director Chris Lewis said that in the past when one network reduced its payment commission, the other operators quicky fell into line.
‘The last cut, of half a per cent, was two years ago, and was led by T-Mobile. Everyone followed suit,’ he said.
But a spokesman for T-Mobile told Mobile that the network had no plans to change the commission structure at the moment.
And a spokeswoman for O2 said it had no plans to change its payment plans at present.
Lewis added that Spar would be conducting its own protest against Vodafone by switching its Vodafone business account of ‘thousands’ of handsets to another account.
‘We will look to re-tender the whole contract. There is no appetite to continue supporting Vodafone,’ he said.
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