What would it take to get out of an O2 contract?

mmace

The Mrs signed a new 24 month contract in September with a new Xperia U phone (no longer receiving OS updates, Sony announced this a couple of weeks after getting the phone!), 500Mb data bolt on, 50 minutes and loads of texts, £16.50 a month. ("O2 50 24 months" I think it's called)

Upon signing she wasn't told and it's not in the small print that she can only have 2 bolt ons per month (there's nothing on their website either, I've had this confirmed by someone in customer services).
We've been without broadband since Dec 21 so we've been using more than usual. Her minutes/data etc re-set on the 6th of each month.
this month she ran out of data within a few days, went to get a bolt on, it only offered her 100Mb which she took, that soon ran out and she got another 100Mb (she really wanted 500Mb but that wasn't an option).
Once that ran out on the 13th (3 weeks before it's all refreshed) there were no other options
she phoned 202 and they said she cannot have any more, I've just chated with someone online who said her tariff only allows 2 bolt ons per month, but there's nothing in writing about this (I have screen shot of them saying this)

On top of this, her phone kept dropping phone calls or muting her side. I did full re-sets and it was on the latest firmware but this didn't help. We took it in for repair, they promised it would be "on our doorstep" in 5-7 days (not "working days"), this was 10 days ago.

She's now thoroughly fed up with O2 and doesn't want to stay with them for the next 20 months knowing they don't want to help her, is there any way out of this without paying a fortune?

DUTR

Which 2 bolt ons do you have?

mmace

the 500Mb comes with the contract, then she was only allowed to add 100Mb twice, there were no other options apart from 100Mb

DUTR

mmace wrote: »

the 500Mb comes with the contract, then she was only allowed to add 100Mb twice, there were no other options apart from 100Mb

It looks like you opted for a tariff that didn't suit your requirments, the on and on tariff may have suited your needs, but that costs a lot more.
It is O2 that is not offering updates and with good cause, new OS require a greater spec of hardware, some devices can run the newer OS but with reduced performance.
A sales person can only really tell you about what is available that day, tomorrow anything could happen. £16.50 can buy a lot of airtime, but some of your monthly is paying for the handset, it was never free.

mmace

DUTR wrote: »

It looks like you opted for a tariff that didn't suit your requirments, the on and on tariff may have suited your needs, but that costs a lot more.
It is O2 that is not offering updates and with good cause, new OS require a greater spec of hardware, some devices can run the newer OS but with reduced performance.
A sales person can only really tell you about what is available that day, tomorrow anything could happen. £16.50 can buy a lot of airtime, but some of your monthly is paying for the handset, it was never free.

we were never told that the tariff was limited, and it's not written anywhere that it is, it wasn't something we opted for, it was something that was sold to us by someone who could see all her past history with O2 (over 10 years) and knew what she'd need.
It's Sony not offering upgrades to the OS, they have said it will never see JellyBean, nothing to do with O2.

DUTR

mmace wrote: »

we were never told that the tariff was limited, and it's not written anywhere that it is, it wasn't something we opted for, it was something that was sold to us by someone who could see all her past history with O2 (over 10 years) and knew what she'd need.
It's Sony not offering upgrades to the OS, they have said it will never see JellyBean, nothing to do with O2.

In fairness every tariff is limited and some covered by a fair use policy, it is ok to say you were never told, but did you ask? I just checked my account, there are indeed 2 bolt ons, one being unlimted data (not that I hammer it) As you were the slant from O2 was that some handsets would not be getting an upgrade to ICS from Gingerbread, The phones getting Jelly Bean all use at least 1GB of RAM, the xperia U has 512mb, that is not the fault of O2, and once again some further investigation before purchase on your part was required.

mmace

DUTR wrote: »

In fairness every tariff is limited and some covered by a fair use policy, it is ok to say you were never told, but did you ask?

why would I ask that? would would make me think that? If you think like that then you would be there asking every single type of question you could think of, "can I swap my data bolt ons for sweets in your shops?"
The limits should be spelled out to customers.
their website clearly says that data bolt-ons can be purchased up to a total of 5Gb, there's nothing about restricting them

d123

mmace wrote: »

It's Sony not offering upgrades to the OS, they have said it will never see JellyBean, nothing to do with O2.

If the phone doesn't meet the minimum requirements for JB 4.1, it doesn't meet the requirements.

You were happy buying an ICS 4.0 handset, why be annoyed now?

You should probably have bought a higher specification (more expensive) handset if you were worried about OS updates.

A "free" handset on a £16.50 a month contract is always going to be a budget lower spec handset.

[Deleted User]

So, your phone wasn't a good alternative to a broadband connection? That's hardly O2s fault, is it?

Sony are pretty well known for not supporting their handsets for long. It's one of the reasons I got a Samsung (who seem rather good at it) rather than a HTC this upgrade.

If you're not happy, sell the phone and buy a new handset (e.g. the Nexus 4, if you can find one). You're on a very cheap tarif; don't expect the world

mmace

ringo_24601 wrote: »

So, your phone wasn't a good alternative to a broadband connection? That's hardly O2s fault, is it?

Sony are pretty well known for not supporting their handsets for long. It's one of the reasons I got a Samsung (who seem rather good at it) rather than a HTC this upgrade.

If you're not happy, sell the phone and buy a new handset (e.g. the Nexus 4, if you can find one). You're on a very cheap tarif; don't expect the world

nothing to do with an alternative to Broadband, 700Mb a month is not a lot for people who use a smartphone and aren't at home on wifi all day, the tariff is very limited and this should have been pointed out, it seems like they are making these rules up as they go as they couldn't give me anything in writing about it.
I have bought her the S3 Mini, my Nexus 4 is too big for her.

DUTR

mmace wrote: »

why would I ask that? would would make me think that? If you think like that then you would be there asking every single type of question you could think of, "can I swap my data bolt ons for sweets in your shops?"
The limits should be spelled out to customers.
their website clearly says that data bolt-ons can be purchased up to a total of 5Gb, there's nothing about restricting them

You should ask that, because it was important to your requirements, if the sales people sat there telling you what is not included, you would still be on the phone now
Can you show the link to the bolt on up to 5gb ? I am an O2 customer but when I just looked 100mb,500mb or 1gb is what can be purchased on smaller tariffs.
Perhaps you could re-contact O2 and see if you can migrate very earlier to a tariff and handset that more suits your requirements, there may still be a penalty, all be it somewhat reduced.