Ever been WAPPED

Green_Onions

Hello Forum

:hello:

I'm new here, can anybody help?

My son has got a problem with his Car Phone Warehouse O2 mobile contract. He moved to 02 from T mobile and put the new SIM card in his old phone as it fitted the car kit.

He'd been using it without a problem for a month but he couldn't get the picture messaging working. Last month he called into Car Phone Warehouse in the Trafford Centre. The assistant took the phone and changed some settings, " ..as they had been set to T-Mobile from your previous contract".

On his next bill there were 5 WAP Internet browsing sessions charged at a total of £247. :sad:

The first session was round about the time the assistant changed the phone settings. The other 4 have been between 21:40 and midnight, one was for £119!! :shocked: He works early and is normally in bed by 9, nobody else has access to his phone.

He's tried talking to 02 and Car Phone Warehouse but this involves hanging on the 0870 phone number for ages and broken promises of returned calls. They just keep saying he must have made the calls and will have to pay

Anybody got any ideas? :huh:

smcicr

Hi,

No idea what the actual problem is but if it's definitely not actual usage then a trip to CPW to speak to the manager seems a good first step. If they won't help and pass the buck (they may actually not be able to do anything) then check out saynoto0870.com for cheaper ways of calling o2 (and everywhere else pretty much...). maybe try an o2 shop - they may be aware of system problems that might have caused the bills or at least could check the phone to see what the settings are and if there is anything odd there.

finally, last port of call - write to peter erskine (o2 big cheese) - if you do a search on this forum you'll find his details - i can't remember them accurately right now, sorry.

hth - good luck.

seaniboy

no good writing mr erskine - cpw have inhouse billing for o2 the contract is with cpw whom buy airtime off o2

Green_Onions

There are two problems here:
1. How has the phone been charged for these WAP sessions?
2. How to sort out the problem?

The CPW / O2 division of responsibility makes it almost impossible to solve.
CPW will only talk about billing and O2 will only talk about technical matters.

CPW say "we've been charged £247 by O2 for your calls and you'll have to pay it" .
O2 say "we don't know why the charges have been made..... bye"

Woby_Tide

did he receive picture messages at the time the WAP calls were made? If the shop changed the settings and has for whatever reason set the default to use WAP then when a picture message arrives instead of using a GPRS connection and being charged for the data received, it may be making a WAP call to receive the data that way, if the pictures are big (or more the fact that WAP is slow) and it takes a while to downalod the whole picture could soon rack up the minutes.

DonnyDave

Green_Onions wrote:

He'd been using it without a problem for a month but he couldn't get the picture messaging working. Last month he called into Car Phone Warehouse in the Trafford Centre. The assistant took the phone and changed some settings, " ..as they had been set to T-Mobile from your previous contract".

On his next bill there were 5 WAP Internet browsing sessions charged at a total of £247. :sad:

The reason your son has incurred these charges is because he was connecting to T-Mobile's WAP service. This would also explain why he couldn't receive picture messages on O2; because it was setup for T-Mobile's. Essentially, he was making cross-network calls when accessing WAP.

When he switched networks he should have also changed the settings on the phone.

Green_Onions wrote:

The first session was round about the time the assistant changed the phone settings. The other 4 have been between 21:40 and midnight, one was for £119!! :shocked: He works early and is normally in bed by 9, nobody else has access to his phone.

There's two ways of accessing WAP:
1. Dial-up, known as CSD. This is akin to using dial-up on a PC; charges are dependant on the length of the call (thus it's important to disconnect when finished).
2. GPRS, which can be likened to broadband on a landline. It's always on and charges are dependant on the amount of data the user downloads. Phones with GPRS also support CSD.

From what you've said, you're son was using CSD and didn't terminate the calls. Did he find that his battery didn't last long around these times? Perhaps the calls were terminated because the battery went flat.

Cumbrian_Male

For CPW dial 0800 049 0049

Use the menu to route to o2 Customer Service which from memory is Option 2, 2 , 1

simon0314

Thanks DonnyDave - I'm "the son" - really helpful, that may explain it. I did not notice a loss in battery during this time although it all comes back to when the settings were changed. Will visit CPW again tomorrow and discuss. When I took up the contract I advised CPW that I would ble using my existing phone (also CPW but with T-Mobile previously) and they put the sim in for me and to quote "set everything up" for me.

simon0314

So anybody any ideas how I can argue the toss on this one? I have called CPW several times who say it will take upto 8 weeks to investigate, written to CPW at various levels and have had very little luck with the CPW store. Do I have a leg to stand on considering I have not touched the settings on my phone and trusted CPW to set me up on the new contract?

Cumbrian_Male

complain to Charles Dunstone [EMAIL="cdunstone@cpw.co.uk"]cdunstone@cpw.co.uk[/EMAIL] about the shop not setting your phone up correctly.

From what I have read you moved contract from T-mobile to o2 both via CPW, you didn't change your phone, they swapped the sims and you inadvertently used T-mobile wap or GPRS on your o2 contract resulting in these charges.
I would ask that they reduce the cost to what it would have been on own network.

alf

How is it possible to use T-mobile Wap on an O2 sim? I have an Orange sim in a T-mobile phone (nokia 9300) and I cannot connect using my old T-mobile settings(wap, GPRS, MMS etc) which are still present in my phone.