Carphone emails fuel iPhone scandal

Ouch. A few weeks ago, BBC's Watchdog programme outed Carphone Warehouse for misselling iPhone insurance - CPW customers complained that they'd been told they had to get store insurance with an iPhone because, if they lost their Jesusphone with no CPW insurance, they'd have to buy not only a new handset but a new contract. That'll be around £900 thank you very much.

Of course, this is rubbish. Pay for the new handset, yes, but a new contract? Who comes up with this stuff? Oh, wait... Carphone Warehouse management, according to the Mobile website, which has a copy of an internal email sent to store staff. From the email:

This will probably be the easiest Lifeline [CPW insurance] sale you can make - there are two major points we need to make all our customers aware of If you lose it or its water damaged - you cannot replace it without our insurance as the phone cannot be bought sim free. Therefore to replace the phone it will cost $900 [sic] (270 for a new phone and 18 x $35 [sic] line rental).

Allllrighty then! Mobile also has this statement from CPW CEO Andrew Harrison, whose staff have been understandably far from gruntled at being accused of dishonesty by irate customers:

"I sent the guys in store an email, telling them I didn’t blame any of them [cheers, mate!]. The issue arose out of the fact we don’t sell a sim free version [no-one does, outside of France] and that the box says you need a new 18 month contract. Somewhere along the line - and its difficult to ascertain where - there was confusion over this. I’m upset that they were called liars, they are not; there was just genuine confusion. We contained it from a customer point of view [eh?] and have reiterated all the facts."

Sterling work!