I have to admit, I hadn’t heard of Ling Valentine, but apparently she’s a self-made millionaire thanks to her internet-based car leasing service. Anyway, she’s turned her attention to mobile handsets, with a new site called LingsMobiles which promises a simpler approach to finding a new handset. In short, it furtles through more than 75,000 different mobile contract offers, then serves up the ten best deals for whatever phone you’re interested in. The site multiplies the monthly contract by its length in months, and adds the initial price in the handset (for example, the total cost of a Nokia N95 might be £15 times 18 months, plus £239.99 for the phone, making £509.99 in total). “I hate the mis-selling side of mobile phones where less savvy consumers are enticed by those awful redemption cashback offers,” says Valentine. “They’re difficult to claim and can result in massive contract charges. I have no allegiance to any retailers or networks so I exclude redemption cashback offers, free gifts and other worthless offers.”
