02 Pay Upfront For Life PUFFL contract

millie

Does anyone else still have this old contract with o2. I have had it for over 20 years and paid £99.99   upfront  for the contract in 2001 and still have the paperwork. I was a contract for life including 200 off peak minutes to o2 and landline numbers.

The yearly CPI increase has been zero as it was a percentage figure. I have had an email informing me it will be increasing by £1.80 a month.

It as been changed over the years and now says it incudes unlimited minutes and texts and 500mb of data. I have never asked for an upgrade as I rarely use it and is no good as my main phone because the lack of data.

I have replied to the email saying it is not in my terms and condition and will see what they say.

sdp74

Similar situation here. I have contacted O2 customer service for an explanation and was initially informed that the terms have changed such that the £1.80 will be applied in April. I then brought up the O2 terms (for the recently updated contract to the original PUFL contract), which states (in section 1.2) that airtime tariff will increase by the rate of RPI. Since the airtime tariff is zero, the new price should remain the same.
The customer service agent said she would phone back in an hour as she had issues with her computer.

sdp74

Comparing section 1.2 in the latest T&Cs available on the O2 web site, there has indeed been a change.
The new terms state "Each year, your Monthly Subscription Charge will be subject to an annual increase by a fixed amount, this will be shown from your April bill onwards."
Clearly this is not consistent with the terms of the original PUFL contract and materially differ from the replacement contract (which happened in 2022, I think).

millie

had an email back telling me that I needed to phone them as that department does not deal with that type of issue. I have not phoned yet. 

millie

I phoned o2 today and was told the charge was being applied to all contracts. I said that I was not willing to accept that and that I wanted to open a dispute. I was then transferred to someone else, after going through it again with him I was told that I would not be charged for it. I asked for a confirmation of that to be emailed to me but apparently that was not possible. He then put me on hold and came back saying that he will phone me on 25th February. I will wait to see the outcome of that but am not hopeful 

millie

Update
I phoned them again today as they failed to phone me as promised. They suggested that I wait until the next bill is generated as the increase may not be on it. They asked me if I still wanted to raise a dispute and I agreed to wait. I now wish I had gone ahead with it as I am sure the increase will be applied.

Pathpink

I did have a puffl50, but last year O2 just cut it off completely without warning.
I've been trying to get it reinstated since June 2024 and even gone through communications ombudsman with no joy.
Thinking of going to trading standards now as it is a distinct breach of contract. 

sdp74

I received an email from O2 tonight in response to a compliant that I opened over a month ago. In the response, O2 confirmed "... that your "Pay Upfront for Life" contract is still active. The annual increase does not affect your account. If you review your next bill, you will see that your monthly price remains unchanged at £0".
So, that is what I shall do.

millie

sdp74 said:

I received an email from O2 tonight in response to a compliant that I opened over a month ago. In the response, O2 confirmed "... that your "Pay Upfront for Life" contract is still active. The annual increase does not affect your account. If you review your next bill, you will see that your monthly price remains unchanged at £0".
So, that is what I shall do.

Sounds positive. Mine shows total extra charges added to next bill £0.00 but I’m not sure the £1.80 would be classed as extra charges. It still shows at the bottom of the page it will increase by £1.80, I will open a dispute with them if it does increase .🤞🤞

sdp74

This month's statement, which has just been issued, does not included the £1.80 charge. I will keep on eye on future statements but looks like the warning of an extra charge was spurious in this case.

millie

Yes had mine today and it was the same as usual, nothing to pay