O2 customer service vent

Mista_C

My youngest (step-son) is spending this week with his Dad. While out walking with his brother along the footpath of the canal his phone fell out of his pocket and bounced into the water.
The phone's gone, he's a numpty, but his Mum (my OH) had loaded it with credit before he went and wanted to see about getting a new SIM along with transferring his number and credit to put her in old phone.

She phones O2, explains the phone is now at the bottom of the canal, asks for a SIM to be sent out so we can transfer his number. O2 CS chap says we can't transfer his number without his phone but he can do it from their end. Excellent, or so we thought.

We go through the details and O2 chap says he's sent a text to the phone with a code to prove "we" own the phone, can we read it and give him the code? No, the phone is in the canal. OK, can we then tell him the last 3 numbers called from the phone? We know my OH was one of them because our lad called her on it before it went in the canal but otherwise he doesn't call out on it so that's a no-go. We suggested his Dad's number, my number, a couple of his friends numbers but he'd not called any of them because, like I said, he tends not to call out.

O2 chap then says if we can't tell him any numbers then we can tell him how much credit is on the phone. How can we tell that? That's right, we can apparently tell by looking at the phone that's in the canal.
My OH suggests she could give him the information from the card she used to add the credit on earlier in the week but that's not an option we're told.
At this point he tells us he can't help us and we should just forget about the credit on the phone. My OH asks to speak to his manager which he says is impossible.

So, by not having the phone we can't answer any security queries to prove we own the phone but, had we stolen the phone, we could answer every query he put forward to prove we owned it.

Great system you have there O2. My OH has been with you for almost 20 years and I've told her repeatedly I can get her a better deal with my network but she felt some kind of loyalty to you, but not any more. I'll be moving the whole family over to my network as of next week.

ETA: We also offered to send a scan of the original receipt and a photo of the IMEI from the side of the box but apparently that doesn't prove we own the phone either.

Pound

If you look into O2's complaint procedure they have a separate team that will investigate your complaint.

O2 charged me £20 for an unlocking code and then wouldn't give me the code but insisted on keeping the £20. An email to them got me a refund cheque in the post.