Hi Lana Birmingham is in England as you say. But although it's the second city after London, my problem isn't that things can't be looked at prior to purchase, but that the only cases I could find in phone shops I knew of were not the hard rugged type of case I wanted, they seemed to be softer leather cases, and I wanted to purchase one which had a keyboard built in, and I certainly didn't see any of those in the stores I visited. Like your son, I am with Vodafone. Alexander Shannon