O2 Gprs Rip-off - Need Advice

charltonfan1

stojio wrote:

in answer to the above quote, it was actually eight times in a row and only happened on one day. never happened again according to the bill. and my MAIN reason for thinking there's an error (aside from the fact i hardly used any GPRS!!!) is that there are two identical entries that i've been charged for. same date, time, bytes uploaded, downloaded, same everything! my reckoning is that if they can make one mistake by double charging me, the whole bill could be full of mistakes!

I think you should use this argument against them. Send a complaint to peter.erskine@o2.com and one of his exec team will contact you to resolve the situation

KeithGinty

Hey there.

Just to let you know, both me and my partner are having the same problem, I have been charged £101 for GPRS usage and she has been charged £50. She has just received a detailed report from o2 that shows the usage being every hour for most the the day and over roughly 8 day.

I am refusing to pay this bill as I am sure we have not used the GPRS to this amount, I think I may demand for information showing me the exact website/ip we connected to and the exact time.

I will keep you informed of developments at my end, would be great if you could do the same.

Keith

stojio

yes, i will certainly keep you updated. i am absolutely not going to pay this bill until i am given a satisfactory explanation or actual, unflawed evidence - i cancelled my direct debit and plan to send them my tariff costs plus VAT only, with a note explaining why. My only worry is that they will cut me off while i am disputing this issue with them, leaving me without a phone! does anybody know if they can do this? i'm sure they probably can...

let me know if you have any success getting an itemised bill showing the sites they claim you accessed.



P.S. Thanks for that email address charltonfan1, that will be my next course of action if this muppet in customer services who is dealing with the "investigation" doesnt respond to my email soon.

chriswuk_2

Normally when you query a bill, it goes into a seperate section & they won't take any money for that month in question until it gets sorted out.

GPRS charges vary from tariff to tariff

stojio

I sent off an email to peter erskine a week ago but haven't had any response yet. I've cancelled my direct debit but plan to send a cheque for the tariff charges minus the GPRS. Is this the right thing to do?

Apex_2

stojio wrote:

I sent off an email to peter erskine a week ago but haven't had any response yet. I've cancelled my direct debit but plan to send a cheque for the tariff charges minus the GPRS. Is this the right thing to do?

You can try but i can see this getting messy for you in relation to bars on the account.....

stojio

Yes, that's my main worry, but I don't see why I should just let them take £163 out of my account which I can't afford, when they've clearly charged me incorrectly but won't get back to me about it. I hope they wouldn't put a bar on my account while the issue is under dispute.

Does anybody have any advice on what they would do in this situation? I would have expected O2 to have responded by now, it really is just not good enough in my opinion.

charltonfan1

Talk to the citizens advice bureau and they might be able to help or OFTEL?

peterbaker

GPRS is a Rip-Off. Period. The phones themselves are part of the problem but that's not your fault. It's their unilaterally-imposed unregulated charging that's the problem.

Just escalate the complaint all the way until they back down. Don't be aggressive or swear, but be firm.

If it helps, you can tell them you know someone who has been paying no more than £7 a month for O2 200 for years and that the same someone gets 1.5MB monthly GPRS allowance too (not that is any use to any serious user of the internet for even a single enquiry of a site like Ryanair for example!).

I've used a Nokia 9500 for 2 years. You'd think that might be the kind of tool that could use GPRS well, wouldnt you? Forget it. The whole system is a sad joke. I have NEVER managed to use my 9500 reliably over GPRS for any normal everyday task like for example Ryanair booking, Flight checking, eBay bidding, Email management, Googling, Streetmap. Whenever I have tried, I have had to find workarounds and my attempts have probably multiplied my chargeable data consumption ten-fold.

It is time someone stuck the real picture to OFCOM too. They have sat on their hands with regard to data calls and SMS, MMS and of course the outrageous proliferation of mobile phone masts to support 3G and similar technologies. It is almost certainly a deliberate blind-eye and personally I think can only be as the result of some "secret" government agreement to let the poor mobile telecoms companies make some money to pay for the huge licence fees they paid (and lost) in the auctions some years ago.

£160? Outrageous. You could get 16 no limit broadband connections for that!

stojio

a week after contacting peter erskine i got a call from one of his team who credited my account to the tune of £400+, covering all incurred GPRS charges to date. i am obviously pleased with this outcome - however, after all this was sorted out, i got an email from customer services saying there was nothing they could do and that they basically didn't believe me! but my account is now over £400 in credit so whatever, i'm not going to argue.

it is worth taking this to the top if you believe you were unfairly charged!