Can you help an 81 year old with his O2 complaint?

Wintermute

I'm seeing a lot of speculation in this thread about data charges, even if they were using an older iPhone or smartphone and had been using data they wouldn't be getting billed any more than £1 a day with that so that's not the case.

Here's what I can see happening from O2's side;

• The OP called to upgrade, retentions took the past few bills into account to suggest an appropriate (which really is all they can base it on).
• The moment the order's despatched from O2 the tariff is changed over (automatic and there's no way around it).
• When the tariff changes over you're unlikely to get your full allowance straight away as it's pro-rata'd until your next billing date so in this case you'd be getting half an hour a day until your next billing date (which is when all your allowances are reset, you're notified of the bills and 14 days before the direct debit is due out).
• To make matters worse O2-O2 calls wasn't added.

Have you got access to your online account as there'd be a few things you really need to check. When are your bills generated? What's the usage in terms of minutes been for the past few months and what is it for the month(s) these charges relate to? What exactly are these charges for (just UK mobile & landlines)?

I'd certainly call back and escalate things again and ask for the call to be listened to, you can submit a subject access request for £10 under the DPA (as previously mentioned), but I think there's a 40 day time scale attached to that so it might be better trying to get it sorted directly with customer services.

When you view your bill online it wont differentiate between O2-O2 calls and standard mobile calls, O2 customer services are in the same boat and will normally just have a three month average figure for the amount of O2-O2 calls made, but not a month by month break down.

What's really going to make a difference in this case I think will be what your grand daughter's past usage was like, if the retentions advisor said 600 minutes (10 hours) would be fine and you opt'd for 900 minutes to be safe then either your grand daughter's use has sky rocketed or the adviser you were speaking to was way off when advising you how many minutes she used. From the text for £417 on the 20th, assuming that's just calls to UK landlines and mobiles that's her going over her allowance by over 20 hours, even with a pro-rata allowance that's a hell of a lot more than the 10 hours you were initially advised about.

My concern is something like this was said; "Your grand daughter's on an unlimited tariff, but most months she barely uses 600 minutes, there's a few months where she's going over, but if you get her to install the MyO2 app and watch her minutes it'll save you £20 a month and you'll be paying around the same as you are just now on the SIMO tariff." Providing most months she was at the 600 minutes mark you haven't been mis-advised or mis-sold and it's leaving the responsibility of going over the minutes firmly in your hands.

Good luck!

mildred1978

An iphone 4s for a 14 year old?

Are you serious???

amersall

mildred1978 wrote: »

An iphone 4s for a 14 year old?

Are you serious???

My nephew got one of these :eek::eek: he is only 10 :eek::eek:
The mind boggles:D
I would not even know how to turn one on and i am "well over 18":rotfl:
I hope the op sorts this out though, i wish him luck x

cubegame

mildred1978 wrote: »

An iphone 4s for a 14 year old?

Are you serious???

I was going to say that as well initially.

:beer:

spinningsheep

It's possible the OP may get reimbursed for the overage charges. As others have said, why on earth did your grandaughter's usage sky rocket so much? She already knew she was on an unlimited calls and texts package yet she only used an average of 600 of those mins, so you opted for 900, just be safe, a very sensible option. However, what caused her to suddenly go 20 hours over? It is most likely the pro rata billing. She wouldn't have received her full allowance of mins that month, it would be a proportion to tide her over until her next bill, when the full 900 mins would be given. If that is not the case, and it gave almost the whole 900 mins when the plan changed (you can check this easily, check the date you upgraded and also check what date your bill is produced each month) if they are close together, it is she has has gone WAY over her allowance pure and simple, if they are some distance apart, you MAY have an argument for a refund if it can be proven that you were not informed of the pro rata billing.

On a side note though I agree that telling your grandaughter everything was fine and to carry on using her phone as much as she wanted, despite that text saying she was already way over, was misguided. I appreciate 02 said it would be sorted, but common sense should have dictated that until you had something in writing/email to SHOW that it was sorted, you should have exercised some restraint in the usage, and ultimately nobody but the OP can be blamed for that lack of judgement.

I would say it is likely you will get a refund but this is not guaranteed. Ask them to place the over amount into query until the next bill. This will give them time to investigate, whilst you just pay the line rental charge, that way, if they do reimburse you, this will reflect as a credit on the next bill with the huge charge on it, cancelling out the big part of the bill. If the decision does not go in your favour, you would be better paying the bill, as not doing so will simply be a huge headache for you and your credit rating. Better to start court action to recover the monies with a clear credit rating that to try and get a tarnished one cleaned up if your court action is sucessful.

magpiedawn

What a lovely thing to do for your grandaughter and what a horrible thing to have go wrong.
I wish you good luck in your quest to sort it out.

baldelectrician

I have had kids with extras on their mobile bill (only £10.00), this was nipped in the bud and didn't happen since

My point of the post is that not all networks are the same- Tesco Mobile do a capped contract, and if they go out of bundle the call does not connect. They can add credit in store (to a contract phone) and the costs are controlled

I would suggest you call and ask to follow O2's internal complaints procedure as you will have to do this before you start down the ofcom route

O2_Company_Representative

We're sorry to hear about the circumstances regarding your granddaughter's phone bill. In this case we would suggest contacting our Customer Services team. Here is the link: http://j.mp/rEWJwa and discuss with them where the charges came from, and how they can be avoided in the future. We understand that you have spoken to them previously, therefore you can ask them to escalate this to our escalations team to investigate this further if you feel it’s necessary.