I have a too good to be true offer on the Sony Xperia from one of these phone websites - £18 and 500 texs plus 1gb internet - is purchasing mobiles from these sites ok? Anything I need to know/look out for? Im guessing they do a credit check online before confirming?

There are loads of sites and loads of different Xperia's
3 even sell the Sony Ericsson X8 Black at £99 PAYG via its website.

Tesco selling X8 white on O2 for 49.99 if brought with £10 credit

How can anyone comment if the website isn't named?

All gone darn. I'd have had a dozen.

If you do buy from a website don't forget under the Distance Selling Regulations you have 7 days from delivery to change your mind and return it without giving a reason if you want. You'd still be liable for any charged run up in that time including pro rata line rental.

Sorry its mobiles.co.uk - not gonna bother as after I posted I checked out some reviews and they are terrible!

I've had a good experience with dialaphone http://www.dialaphone.co.uk/ if that helps.

There are plenty of CW sites like buymobilephones.net and e2save.

mobiles.co.uk is a major website and owned by CPW too.
I had a contract through them before and was very happy with the service, they processed my cashbacks faster than anyone. They also made it quite clear when exactly I needed to send off my claims. A happy customer.

I do understand however that if you have any problems, getting through to them in terms of customer services can sometimes be as good as non-existent. It's one of those cases of works great when nothing goes wrong (and nothing normally goes wrong) but if it does, might be a problem.