A York mum has hit out at BT Cellnet's decision to scrap £5 mobile phone vouchers - because it's clamming up her family.

Carol Daniel, of Barstow Avenue, Hull Road, was very fond of the £5 voucher, and so was the rest of the family. Four of her children - Stephen, Sarah, Samantha and StJohn - husband Geoff, nephews Richard, Thomas and Andrew, and their best friend's daughter, Katie, all had the same type of phone.

BT Cellnet stopped printing the £5 vouchers earlier this year, and York shops soon ran dry of the few remaining vouchers.

Top-up vouchers for £10, £15 and £20 are available, but the larger up-front payments have increased the initial cost of using a mobile phone.

Carol says her children use up their credit more quickly if they have a large amount in their phones.

"I can't really afford to buy the kids £10 or £20 vouchers.

"Once they have the credit on their phones, they use it all up."

Her children get £5 pocket money every week, and they now have to save up for three weeks to use their phones.

Carol says that she gave her children the phones for peace of mind.

"They've only got them to call me and say where they are, to text friends and generally keep in touch."

She's upset that the phones have not delivered what they promised.

"It's written on the side of the box that you can buy £5 vouchers, the phones came with £5 free credit and other companies offer £5 vouchers. I can't see why BT Cellnet has done this," she said.

Most of her family and friends have been affected by this as they bought the same phone to avoid expensive calls to other networks.

A spokesman for BT Cellnet denied that the new pricing policy hurts customers.

"It simply means the customer spends the same amount of money in a given period but at less frequent intervals.

"Customers may feel they are disadvantaged but as you can see this is not the case, the cost of using the phone has not changed."

A spokesman for Vodafone, a rival mobile phone network, said: "Five pound vouchers are our most popular, there are no plans to discontinue them in the foreseeable future."

The Orange network does however, have plans to phase out £5 vouchers and replace them with a swipe card system over the next few months.

Updated: 10:48 Monday, January 22, 2001