Unethical o2 practise

Catwatch5

My mum has been informed that her bill for her phone is £120 plus VAT for this month. Usually she pays £10.50 but has gone over her minutes by about 4 hours. Now i understand you pay for going over your minutes but when she went into the o2 shop to query they say they dont send informative texts about minutes (like they do for data) and only inform customers when they have spent over £100!
Shop staff commented this is a regular occurance and they get regular complaints about this happening so why cant they let customers know sooner instead of allowing big debts to be racked up.
My mum knew she had gone over but not to the extent of the minutes and certainly not aware of the cost! She has never gone over before and only reason she has this month is due to my grandad being ill and keeping family members updated of how he is.
Just seems like a really cynical, money focussed way of doing business. O2 text me all the time about new gigs etc so why cant they inform people about their bills?
Anyone had similar experience?

Ian011

Their published tariff shows that if you exceed your allowance calling landline numbers starting 01 and 02, non-geographic numbers starting 03 and mobile numbers starting 071-075 or 077-079 any further calls are charged at 55p per minute - £33 per hour.

That is why it is important to be aware of your allowance and how much you have used. There are numerous apps for this. More importantly, excluding handset costs, most mobile providers offer unlimited calls for little more than £10 per month such that the situation never arises.

pmduk

Catwatch5 wrote: »

...why cant they let customers know sooner instead of allowing big debts to be racked up.
My mum knew she had gone over but not to the extent of the minutes ...

We don't live in a Nanny state, your Mum's contract's in an adult's name, they will assume that she knows what she is doing and is happy to do so.

I'm sure o2, like all networks, have the facility to check the status of your account between statements

DCFC79

Maybe she needs to move networks and maybe one where you can put a cap on it so you don't go spending alot eg like Tesco.

Frozen_up_north

The Digital Economy Bill was supposed to put a stop to this unscrupulous practice of bill shock.

Ditch O2 and move to a proper provider. Several offer over spending caps on calls, equally some only mention over spending limits on data.

Buzby

Does her phone not record the time she!!!8217;s on a call cumulatively? Reset it each month and your!!!8217;es sorted. Expecting the network to tell you is a lost cause, even those that do explain it is a courtesy, and they are not liable if for some reason, they do not.

PHK

It's easy to check how much you've used. You can use the My O2 app, request by text, log into the O2 website or call the automated service. If all of that fails, the phone has a call counter or log.

I think knowing that she had used more minutes and gone over her allowance it would have been sensible to check how much it was costing , rather than keep using.

esuhl

I pay £9 a month and get unlimited UK minutes and texts, and 4GB/mo data. Why doesn't your mum get a cheaper all-inclusive deal?

If you know you're going to exceed your inclusive airtime then you need to look up the cost BEFORE you make the calls.

dazzaofdagenham

Going over by 4 hours is a fair bit !!!

Maybe a lesson learnt and time to look for a better tariff...

10 pounds a month now gains unlimited calls and texts quite easily per month ..

[Deleted User]

Read the terms of the contract.

No misbehaving or otherwise from O2 has happened here

d123

Catwatch5 wrote: »

My mum knew she had gone over but not to the extent of the minutes and certainly not aware of the cost!

So you think it’s unethical that o2 allowed your mother to make over 4 hours of phone calls?

I would have thought making phone calls was one of the main reasons for being a phone network so if they prevented customers from making calls they’d have failed at one of their primary functions.

I’m also not sure it’s unethical of o2 that your mother couldn’t be bothered to figure out what her charges outside of allowance were...