Tethering blackberry on o2 - warning and help needed!!

james1933

(For tl;dr see last 2 or 3 paragraphs)
I'm a student who's just moved into a new place and will be the only one there over the summer so instead of paying for internet subscription, attempted to use my BB Bold as a modem on my laptop. I searched for a while for 'o2 blackberry modem' etc on how to set it up and didn't find anybody talking about excess charges as I was under the impression the ~£10 a month I was paying for unlimited internet would cover it, up to the 200mb 'fair usage' anyway.

After using it for 3 or 4 days my phone was blocked and unable to make outgoing calls, ringing o2 up I discovered I had £290 of outstanding charges, shocked and asking questions, the girl on the other end put me through to Carphone Warehouse to 'sort it out'. They then told me to sort it out with e2save, with whom I had a contract with before, who told me my contract was now with Carphone warehouse.

Ringing CPW again was a pain in the !!!, it's so hard to get through to an actual person to speak to, after trying for 15 mins I decided to call their sales department and got through immediately. In the right department they unblocked my phone by raising my credit limit to about £300. The next day it was blocked again and the bill was now £350. The person claimed it wouldn't get blocked again as long as I hadn't used the modem in the last 48hrs as that is the delay they have. The same happened and the today it was £380. I went to the CPW store but they couldn't help me out there they just let me use the phone to ring CS. They raised the limit AGAIN and I explained I felt a bit misled by the unlimited part of the contract. He is now going to check the phone logs when I was sold the phone to check I wasn't told I could use it as a modem.

I know I'm naive/stupid etc in not reading the small print and finding that o2.mobile.co.uk is charged at £1/mb and they are well within their right to charge me, but you know how it is, some things you just find out the hard way. Basically the point of this post is to ask for some advise.
Currently, seeing how hard it is to get through to CPW and speak to someone who doesn't fob me off with the same stuff, would it be worth my while asking for a supervisor, or getting a more direct number off Ofcom? Just so I can try and explain my situation, e.g. I've been looking VERY hard and extensively for a job at the moment and can't don't physically have the money to pay this bill, I also need my phone to ring up agencies and find work to pay the bill, catch 22.

Do you think they would come to a compromise if I pay half maybe or am I wasting my time? Would a letter be more effective? Does anyone have any experience dealing with CPW/o2 or a similar situation that could give me any advise on how to handle it the best way? Also do credit limits mean anything for me? Mine was supposed to be £150, are they right in not cutting my spending off when it went above because of this 48hr delay they are talking about?
I've been a loyal o2 customer for years but it seems to be irrelevant when you owe them money. I'm not asking to get away with it I just want them to be reasonable and talk to me about it. I would ideally like to talk to someone face to face but it doesn't seem like that's possible with CPW.

Thanks a lot for your help, I really appreciate it. Sorry for the novel.:o

MRC_2

Your right, it's in your terms that you can't use it as a modem.

When you call, don't be nasty/argumentative with them and hopefully they can come to an agreement to maybe cut the costs down as it's your first time.