Serious O2 Broadband and Homephone Connection Error - Their Responsibilities?

Theo1

I’m looking for advice from people who know the broadband industry, understand the policies, laws, regulations and complaints proceedures.

Here’s our (unresolved) story

• On 20 September we ordered O2 homephone and broadband to our flat.
• We chased (as you do) to confirm things were progressing, told our router had been dispatched and we’d be connected within 2 weeks or so.
• After 2 weeks we chased again (dispatched box hadn’t been received). We were told our order had been rejected since day 1 and nothing had progressed.
• Stupidly, we put in a new order.
• 15 November (yes – 2 months later – amazing!) – our homephone and broadband get connected. Except it doesn’t. Instead of connecting our flat – they accidentally connect our new phoneline and broadband to our neighbour’s flat upstairs – disconnecting their services.
• We phone O2 – this is a big problem – our neighbour can use our phoneline and broadband connection (and O2 have screwed theirs up!) – so O2 disconnect their broadband instantly (but not the new phoneline?!).
• We’re told by O2 this isn’t a problem they can help with – our neighbour should just put in a now order with their original provider (BT) and things will be reverted. Then they ask if we’d like to place a new order for O2 homephone and broadband – they can connect us on 29 December at the earliest!!!!

The customer experience had been completely miserable and we’ve been totally mis-sold from the ‘2 week' connection we were promised in mid-September.

We’re now on 30 November and the situation is:

• Our neighbour has our phoneline (and is using our O2 account as a result). O2 accept no responsibility for this. Our neighbour has had no broadband connection for over 2 weeks.
• BT are telling our neighbour they must sign into a new 12 month contract if they wish to be reconnected to BT (and they prob can’t have their old number back). They were well out of contract, don’t want a new 12 month contract (they’re all moving back to NZ in 6 moths). And their old number was well used and known by friends and family.

O2 refuse to see this as an issue, mistake or error – they have done nothing to connect us or fix our neighbours issue. They have offered no help whatsoever throughout this entire sorry saga!

• Are O2 legally obliged to see this as a problem and help fix things for our neighbour (old number back, fast reconnection to BT and no new 12 month contract)?
• Can we and our neighbour seek compensation from O2? Are we legally entitled to any? If so, who can claim what and for which issues? We were supposed to be connected in early Oct and are still nowhere! They have lied to us on several occasions.

Finally, if you’re considering O2 homephone and broadband I couldn’t recommend them less – it has truly been the worst customer experience I have ever encountered - by a long stretch. This is especially true if you live in a flat – their inability to connected flats is well documented throughout various forums – if only we’d known!

Thanks for your help.

kwikbreaks

Regarding your neighbours problem....

O2 would have commissioned BT OpenReach to connect the line and it was them that made the actual mistake. Your neighbours need to get that mistake rectified by whoever their original phone provider was. If it was BT then BT don't really have any case for requiring a new contract so I suspect that your neighbour didn't make it clear exactly what the problem is (ie their phone number has been changed).

The real problem is that BT OpenReach are not a public facing company and any screwups they make have to be rectified through the organisations that do deal with the public (e.g. BT Retail, PostOffice, etc.)

There have been other tales of woe about O2 not delivering on phone line provision. To my mind most people would be better off forgoing the relatively small savings that can be made by using companies other than BT for their phone line provision. BT are far from perfect but despite them having most UK phonelines you don't often see the sorts of stories about them that come from people trying to use O2 or TalkTalk. Broadband of course is an entirely different matter and BT should be avoided at all costs for that.

spike7451

The reason the broadband is disconnected & not the phone is when a phone line goes into the exchange,it goes into a 'switch' & there the Phone & broadband split off & go to the relevant suppliers equipment thru a series of connections.When you told O2 about your neighbours having your broadband & phone,O2 requested an BT Openreach engineer to disconnect the broadband on O2's behalf,which he did.Now for some reason they haven't disconnected the phone side,maybe the was no work order raised by O2 for the phone.
When I worked for Sky in their Broadband Tier2 Tech Support,we could only report faults on our broadband network,phone faults had to go thru the Sky Talk department so I'm taking a wild guess in saying I'll bet my right nut that the same is with O2...

Ignite

O2 is the company who you have a contract with, not any part of BT (retail or openreach). If O2 are saying that there is nothing that they can do, ask them to send you a deadlock letter. Contact Otello (https://www.otello.org.uk) and make a complaint to them. They will try to sort this out on your behalf.

Next, your neighbour. They should have put in a fault report to BT saying that their internet and phone had gone wrong. If BT will not sort it, then they need to raise a formal complaint as well with BT. All complaints should be raised as formal complaints.

I think probably the best thing is to contact Otello and ask them the best way to move this all forward.