O2 'fair usage' EU roaming

MPescatore

Hello all

I'm in dispute with O2 over what appears to be a belated deployment of their 2017 T&Cs regarding EU roaming fees. So far they have been reimbursing them (from July) but that is to stop now, apparently, and I have many months still to run on my contract. I spend quite a lot of time outside of the UK, so this is potentially very expensive. And, key, not what I was sold when moving over from EE in late 2018.

Curiously, I also received a similar warning message wrt 'fair usage' to those rolled out officially in October, back in June/July/sometime but, when calling O2 to query it, I was told that 'it was an internal administrative error, don't worry about it'... only for it to then manifest as policy a couple of months later.Turns out this was my first interaction with what has now become a depressingly familiar experience of misinformation and just a general incompetence and/or culture of 'well we have their money now, who cares' attitude at the company.

Cue a series of increasingly frustrating calls to their complaints team, resulting in a sequence of misinformation; eg. 'You only need to touch down in the UK for the 63 days to reset', assurances of call-backs that never happened and more minutiae I won't get into here.

Today, I was finally herded towards some 'higher' complaints team for a possible termination of contract only to have the customer service rep repeat the 'this is policy, sorry' mantra. Oh, and prior to which had a CSR use the very words 'yes we have been misinforming customers due to poor training'.. !?!? (Along with a slightly surreal discussion of the semantic differences between 'misinforming' and 'misleading'...)

So... what would appear to amount to an admission of wrongdoing, but... apparently they're not in breach of contract. While I am. There's more but it's frankly too much to get into. Suffice to say more or less every call has had some piece of misinformation that's been corrected/contradicted in the next.

What. A. Mess.

So my query, finally - has anyone had any success pursuing a complaint with O2 about these 'new' T&Cs? (I'm aware they have been around since 2017, just not deployed until this year...) Or with the ombudsman?

I guess, technically - and as ever with these companies - we've little to go on as it's all there in the 2017 T&Cs, but is there another avenue wrt enforcement/misinformation (I was also advised when taking out the contract that 'no there are absolutely no limits on roaming...' which was the initial basis of my complaint...)

Next step, ombudsman, obviously, but I suspect this is going nowhere...

Apologies for the length, but any help certainly appreciated.

Thanks
M

dialdfordave

I find your message a little bit confusing as I can't tell whether O2 has been charging you for EU roaming and has until now been reimbursing you but intends to stop doing so, or whether this is in relation to roaming usage in excess of that allowed by their fair use policy.

If they have been charging for EU roaming (inside the fair use policy) then that is simply wrong and not allowed.

If they have been charging you for EU roaming (outside of the allowed fair use policy) and have so far been reimbursing you, then you should understand that the roaming regulations allow them to charge certain amounts in excess of certain limits. Reimbursing you thus far would have been voluntary and they have no obligation to keep it up.

Finally, a clause existing in the T&C's but not being enforced does not mean they can't choose to start enforcing it at a time that they deem it to be necessary and/or technically possible.

To summarise, unless they have been charging you roaming fees in a scenario which is against regulations, it's unlikely you have a leg to stand on regardless of what T&C's say.

MPescatore

dialdfordave wrote: »

I find your message a little bit confusing as I can't tell whether O2 has been charging you for EU roaming and has until now been reimbursing you but intends to stop doing so, or whether this is in relation to roaming usage in excess of that allowed by their fair use policy.

Apologies, yes, the latter. Although this appears to have only come into effect as of July (which was confirmed by a staff member during a telephone conversation today).

Contract was purchased in 2018, where I'm informed the T&Cs would have been identical, just unenforced.

Sticking point for me is that I explicitly asked, when switching from EE, if there were limits to EU usage without incurring charges and was, equally explicitly, told that there weren't. My EE contract allowed this, though I believe they've also recently amended their T&Cs.

I was then told all these conversations are recorded but, since six months have elapsed, it would have been deleted. Then, by someone else, 'there is a department that will have this recording'. Then, 'every conversation you have is recorded'... then, 'not all conversations are recorded'.

'So is this conversation being recorded or not?'
'There is no way of guaranteeing that it is.'

Which is not the thrust of my complaint, but it's been my experience that too often their staff readily give out conflicting information. See also the previous, demonstrably false, example of the 'touching down in the UK resets the 63 day roaming period' - I received a link from the same employee telling me this that took me to a page containing information that directly contradicted what she'd told me.

Whole process has been a total mess, before even getting to the actual complaint itself.

mobilejunkie

MPescatore wrote: »

Apologies, yes, the latter. Although this appears to have only come into effect as of July (which was confirmed by a staff member during a telephone conversation today).

Contract was purchased in 2018, where I'm informed the T&Cs would have been identical, just unenforced.

Sticking point for me is that I explicitly asked, when switching from EE, if there were limits to EU usage without incurring charges and was, equally explicitly, told that there weren't. My EE contract allowed this, though I believe they've also recently amended their T&Cs.

I was then told all these conversations are recorded but, since six months have elapsed, it would have been deleted. Then, by someone else, 'there is a department that will have this recording'. Then, 'every conversation you have is recorded'... then, 'not all conversations are recorded'.

'So is this conversation being recorded or not?'
'There is no way of guaranteeing that it is.'

Which is not the thrust of my complaint, but it's been my experience that too often their staff readily give out conflicting information. See also the previous, demonstrably false, example of the 'touching down in the UK resets the 63 day roaming period' - I received a link from the same employee telling me this that took me to a page containing information that directly contradicted what she'd told me.

Whole process has been a total mess, before even getting to the actual complaint itself.

You're unlikely to get anywhere when you've accepted the t&c were the same but weren't enforced until a later point. Who said what and when is pretty irrelevant.

MPescatore

mobilejunkie wrote: »

You're unlikely to get anywhere when you've accepted the t&c were the same but weren't enforced until a later point. Who said what and when is pretty irrelevant.

Yeah, this is ultimately my expectation, unfortunately.

I don't think it's right or fair, and it's definitely deceptive and incompetent (the official letter I've received today is also full of spelling mistakes and grammatical errors... I mean if you're going to be sh*ts, come on, at least be professional sh*ts...) but, ultimately, they're a big company and I'm just me. Plus ça change...

mobilejunkie

You're fishing for justification. I've taken legal action against the likes of CPW a few times and always won. This is a question of contract law, not the size of the organisation. If you want to moan about what is fair, unfair and deceptive I could write a book about the professionals on that subject - successive governments and their civil service departments.

Frozen_up_north

MPescatore wrote: »

I don't think it's right or fair

Regarless of whether you think it's right or fair, roaming agreements are based on EU regulations, in a nutshell this is what the regs state:

---

As part of their fair use policy, your operator can monitor and check your roaming use over a 4 month period. If, during this period, you have spent more time abroad than at home AND your roaming use exceeds your domestic use, your operator may contact you and ask you to clarify your situation. You will have 14 days to do so.
If you continue to spend more time abroad than you do at home and your roaming consumption continues to exceed your domestic usage your operator may start charging you extra for your roaming use. The surcharges (excluding VAT) are capped at:

• €0.032 per minute of voice calls made
• €0.01 per SMS
• €3.50 per GB of data (cap in 2020)

MPescatore

Yep, fair enough everyone.

They haven't asked me 'to clarify [my] situation' at any point and it seems the charges are higher than those you quote @Frozen_up_north but, tbh, I can't see much point pursuing anything, as has been pointed out elsewhere.

I do have issue with the sheer volume of misinformation I've been given while querying all this but, ultimately, is it worth the effort..? Suspect the answer is no...

Thanks everyone for the responses.