I found their customer service just OK. It took them a day to contact me to verify my address and credit card data. My account with them had a support ticket mentioning that they had tried to ring me twice to verify my data. However, that it is difficult to believe as I gave them a mobile number as a contact, and no missing-call message was to be found. So I had to ring at my own expense to Queensland from WA, saving them some money.
The online chat is great, and the person behind was truthful and honest in her explanations. However, she seemed to be busy as sometimes took here quite a while to reply to my questions. It could just be that the chat system is slow or that she was attending to two things at the same time. The latter was my impression..
The delivery has been quite fast, but not within the time specified for capital cities, just a day over. Not good enough if you really need the phone. However, I ordered on a Tuesday and got it on a Monday. Which is still great.
Their rating system is requested just after ordering. The website is great and everybody is in a good mood after shopping, so your rating is going to be always high. That is a well known marketing strategy. However, it is impossible to leave your rating afterwards, once you have the phone -at least that is my case- as the rating system pops up automatically after you order. How can I rate a whole service just after ordering? Shouldn't they wait until the phone reach destination and the customer has been through the whole process? Otherwise, you are going to give them full marks. Then, if problem arise, you cannot change your vote. On the other hand, their rating site only shows their best reviews, and those who gave them 1, 2 or 3 stars are not displayed just mentioned/computed. Just those with 4 and 5 stars can be read. Of course, you can leave your review in the phone's page, but unless a consumer visits that specific page and you mention all your issues with Mobicity, the review is not going to be that useful. The general reviews page is the first thing I check in an online place, and Mobicity's needs to improve it and have more transparency.
The telephone I got, despite being unlocked and new, had been been locked to Telstra at the factory, and a good part of the menus, logos, and most configurations are pre-set for Telstra and, therefore, impossible to erase. The phone's cover case bears Telstra's logo, as well as the box and start-up images. That's extremely annoying, and disloyal on the part of Mobicity, which does not clearly state that in the mobile's page. If I had known, I would have bought my phone in WA, unlocked myself in an independent shop on the same day without having to pay the courier fees or wait a natural week to get it. An unlocked telephone -as the ones you can find in shops like Dick Smith for ex.- is a phone that is not only unlocked, but has never been locked to any phone carrier. I was expecting the same from Mobicity. This is reason enough to me to think twice before buying with Mobicity again.
Mobicity has a good service, but a few dodgy practices of which they should get rid of, if they want me to buy anything from them or to recommend them. Most people seem happy, but most unhappy people don't complain.
UPDATE MARCH 2016
Mobicity rebranded to Yatango a few years ago and the browsing of the website and the operations of the company worsened. I bought my last camera through Yatango and there was a serious problem of communication between the Australian company and the warehouse in Hong Kong. Yet, they had great prices, so at the end all was worth it, even the long discussions on the phone, about the problems in the fulfillment of the product, which I received out of my "harassing" their customer service.
Since then, Yatango went downhill. The browsing in Australia was a pain (way better prices and browsing experience in Yatango NZ) with offshore chat sellers popping up every second asking if they could help you and offering discounts.
The company collapsed in November 2015 both in their mobile carrier area and in the selling area. No surprise. It is surprised that it didn't fall earlier on.
News about collapse
