O2/sony ericsson ELM SMS / MMS problem

FRANKJOHNSONMUSIC

I have a sony ericsson J105 ’Elm’ on an 02 24 month contract.
My music club meet weekly & i remind members of forthcoming events by sms. Usually 60 odd messages per week sent in smaller batches. No problem on my old w580i phone, I’ve been doing it for the last 3 years.
I noticed bills from June 2010 [when I got the 'Elm' were higher but thought it was down to calling overseas. That was untill a real whopper of a bill arrived. It turns out the phone randomly converts some [not all] of the batched messages to MMS chargeable at 20p+ each.
O2 requested the phone to service and informed me later that there was a fault, it had been fixed and two engineers had then passed it as perfect.
They’d allegedly upgraded the software and it was returned to me over 2 weeks later. The problem immediately recurred. I complained & was told i’d get a new replacement on 25th Sept. I waited in all day but it didn’t arrive. I rang them and was given no explanation other than the new phone order was ’still at the warehouse’. I expressed my displeasure politely & was told I'd get a manager call-back. Still waiting after 2 subsequent promises of the same within 24hrs.
They now say I can only have a second hand refurbished handset. Although they say there is a software upgrade to combat this now recognised problem, I’ll have to fix it myself with a download on the second hand phone.
They say any further issues are between me and Sony Ericsson and they are a third party with no responsibility even though they supplied the phone.
They say i’m liable for all outstanding charges currently £90 for the MMS alone. They’ve already lifted these from my account by direct debit without informing me AFTER I was refunded them and the account placed into dispute. Can this be right?
If they are making hard cash out of a known MMS/SMS problem and not informing customers, how lawful is that [let alone ethical & moral?]
Do O2 have no legal duty of care to their contract customers in this scenario. Is It genuinely a known fault which a download will remedy or am I being fobbed off?
What is Sony Ericsson’s responsibility to me?
I believe O2's customer care is APPALLING in the extreme, especially disappointing as an o2 contract customer of 11 continuous years.
Has anyone any simlar views. Until this matter is satisfactorily resolved I will keep digging. RELENTLESSLY!!!!

Techhead_2

As far as I know, its not so much a 'known problem' as a feature of the phone, whereby longer messages are sent as MMS. You can turn this off in the settings. (because on some tariffs 1xMMS is cheaper than 2xSMS)

The other complication is that the messages in your tariff are only for your own private use, not for an organisation or business use.

What I would do is use the O2 Complaint Review Service (details in your terms and conditions). Include a summary of your complaint and a concise list of events. End with a suggestion of what O2 can do to sort this.

In my experience, these things are more easily sorted when you stick to a neutral tone and use a simple list format.

Good luck with it.

FRANKJOHNSONMUSIC

Thanks for the feedback Mr T. The text alerts I send aren't linked to any commercial gain on my part, but I take your point regarding what I guess O2 would call a question of fair usage.
In terms of your other advice, I've tried what you said and been in the menu to play with my message settings.
There is an option to 'Allow Push Message,' with the following options:
# always
# always ask
# never
Is this the setting I should be adjusting?
It was set to 'always'. I tentatively set it to never and have tried 5 test batches of messages which seem to have gone SMS format with no problem.
Your help is appreciated
FJM