I'm looking at a new phone and new contract for my wife, and came across the mobiles.co.uk site. They offer a deal with 7 months worth of "line rental" cash back, which the original provider (Orange in this case) does not. They also supply the handset for free while Orange, on the same monthly charge, charges £150 for the handset (HTC Desire S).

Is mobiles.co.uk genuine? It almost sounds too good to be true; what's the catch?

I do believe mobiles.co.uk is a sister company of The Carphone Warehouse so I would say it's legit...

I have used mobiles.co.uk and they are perfectly fine - all they do is deal with sending out your phone and setting up your contract via you chosen network.

The money back scheme is simple enough, but if you don't follow the rules you get nothing. you have to send them copies of your bills every 3, 6, 12 months etc and they then backdate your payments. If it's cashback up front then it's different, but if it's gradual it's a bit of a pain.

They're fine. I believe they're related to Carphone Warehouse. Iv'e gone for their cashback schemes and free offers before and never had a probem.

Buy a diary and note when commitments have to be met.

They are not the cheapest and their apparently attractive deals have very strict restrictions. They magically changed from saying they would notify me when to apply for a rebate to me having to apply. Guess what, "oh dear you missed the deadline". You will also be bombarded with telephone calls for upgrades or renewals when you are eligible, all from different numbers but who which do not leave messages!

O2 did a very good deal on the Samsung Galaxy S and the Sony Arc (got one) this weekend. Free handset and voice/internet packages from £16.50. Only 50mins/250 SMS but you can up this and the data package includes 500Mb and 50 MMS, Deal ends today.

The deal with ALL of these cashback deals is that they rely on you to send in the paperwork, because they get to keep the money if you forget, miss the deadline etc. In fact their businesses rely on the fact that people are flaky enough to forget so they won't have to pay you!