O2 Don't Care

Darryl68

I am now at the end of my patience with O2.



We have used O2 for home phone and broadband for some time now and had trouble free service. Unfortunately, this all went wrong back in April.



I received my monthly bill statement and noticed that it was very high. Normally the charge is in the £30-£35 range but this time it was £88. Quite enough of a leap for me to investigate my billing. I found that I had been billed £44 for a call to a premium rate telephone line seemingly based in the far east (god knows what it actually was but it didn't look nice). The timing of the call was also interesting. We rarely use our landline so any calls from it are easy to track down. This one was at the exact same time as we had telephoned AXA insurance to renwew our motor insurance. I told O2 this. They denied it, implied that I was a liar and that I was trying to avoid paying for calls that I had run up excessive charges for.



I was, to say the least, a bit annoyed at this response. In order to prompt O2 to do the right thing I contacted AXA. They were really helpful and provided me with written proof of the call their customer services had received including dates and timing etc. This was undeniable proof that there was a fault with O2s security and that they should refund my charges and admit responsibility. I informed O2 that I now had proof. They responded by saying that theiy had carried out a full and thorough investigation andf their records shoewed that we had made a call to a premium rate number. Well "no s@*t Sherlock". that information was available in my account details. A full and thorough and "we don't care because we're a big company" type investigation that must have took all of 2 minutes. I complained again and requested a deadlock letter so I could take the matter further. The reply I got stated that, although I was at fault (!!!!), O2 would refund the call charge as a "gesture of goodwill". NO DEADLOCK LETTER.



I wrote back, saying that this was unacceptable. O2 must admit responsibility and investigate properly or there was no guarantee that this could not happen again. I requested a deadlock letter again.



It's June by now and I'm getting very aggravated by the obtuse attitude taken by O2. The next reply requested that I send the AXA letter to them. NO DEADLOCK LETTER again. On the bright side, I thought naiively, they will now take it seriously and admit that they were wrong. After all I had submitted documentary proof from a reliable third party that the call was made to AXA, so I sent the letter to them as an e-mail attachment. I also reminde them of my deadlock letter requests. The response "we've checked our records and don't believe an error has occured". Aaaaaaarghhh.



On top of this I got a rundown of the details of the number O2 claimed we had called, something I'd found out for myself back in May. They didn't even bother to contact AXA. So no proper investigation or admission of guilt despite documentary evidence to the contrary and we appear to be back in the same place we were 3 months ago. I'm about to make my third formal request for a deadlock letter so that I can take this complaint to the ombudsman. Part of me hopes that O2 show the same attitude and refuse to send one, although I am still clinging to the possibility that they will start showing some common sense and admit their responsibilities. Refusing to send a dealock letter to a customer is an automatic loss in a any ombudsman investigation.



So, from me, it'll soon be goodbye to O2. I will pursue for a full refund and admission of responsibility plus compensation for all the trouble they have caused me. I have the proof that O2 are in the wrong but they refuse to acknowledge it. There are no winners here. O2 will lose (publicly if can arrange it). I have already lost a great deal of time wasted trying to sort this out on O2s behalf, time that I could better have spent on other things. I will also lose later as the trouble of changing my contacts will affect my social, professional and, most of all, business contacts profoundly.



Thanks for nothing to O2. They'll fit into the SKY family well. They're already displaying the same customer service traits as their parent company.

Buzby

Why crucify yourself? You complained, and they agreed to refund the full cost to your bill - what more could they do? The billing systems are tightly accredited so unlikely they would generate a single premium call to spite you - when there is fraud it is invariably ongoing until any loophole is closed or the perpetrator caught. I doubt any other network would have treated you differently.

Have you ever blocked Premium Rate Calls? If not, why not? It prevents this type of abuse and you have the ultimate defence. If you don't have premium barring, get it done immediately.

Darryl68

The reason I'm uptight about this is that if their records show that this number was called then they clearly have a security issue within their system that they refuse to admit too. Where's my defence if this happens again? Or anybody else's for that matter? I'm afraid my own personal principles won't allow me to let this go however much trouble it is. I just can't see why a communications company would be so unconcerned about a security problem within it's own systems. It's ludicrously careless.

Thanks for the tip about call barring though. I'll sort that out asap, although it'll probably be with my new phone/broadband provider.

ilovelondontown

No experience with this matter specifically but I appreciate your frustration...

... but I agree 02's customer service has gone down hill of late. I had my own ongoing frustration with them which because of spending 30 mins+ trying to get through to someone on the phone I promptly ended my contract with them.