£££! That's all o2 think about! (O2)

Member Name: chooflafla

Product:	O2
Date:	09/08/04 (1087 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good signal strength in most areas, Free texts, calls and WAP... unless they overcharge you

Disadvantages: Poor customer service, Extortionate, Paying £12.20 to speak to someone for about 70 seconds

What do most people think of when someone mentions ?o2?? Some of you may think, BT Cellnet, or That Phone Company. Whereas I think of a bunch of evil, money hungry, conglomerate, heinous fat cats sitting atop a huge pile of money whilst providing crap customer service and expecting to get away with it!

I?ve have a contract with o2 for 18 months now and at first, I was pleased with their service, forking out £15 per month for 500 free texts, 500 free WAP minutes, 500 free off peak land line and o2 calls, and 50 free off peak calls to other networks was a dream come true for a poor student. After I got my new phone with them (as I initially opted for a SIM only contract), it went up to £20 per month, which still wasn?t bad.

However, what IS bad is the way they treat their loyal customers and how they essentially steal from us for one month, gaining interest on OUR money before giving it back, and even then, at one point, it took them two months to sort it out when they overcharged me. By ?stealing?, I mean they charge people for text messages and off peak calls that are covered by the line rental and thus free, but that?s not the way they see it. It seems that o2?s definition of the term ?free? means, uh, to charge you.

Now, onto my biggest complaint about the money hungry bastards. When I tried to phone the sales line last week, I was kept in a queue for a combined time of over 40 minutes, spread over five phone calls, yet was charged at the equivalent of 30p per minute. This means that I had to fork out £12 (that?s about CAD$29 for my favourite Canadian out there) to talk to an o2 operator for a little over a minute as I was kept in a queue for so long.

When I e-mailed o2, I sent the following to them:

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To Whom It May &
#67;oncern,

I would like to lodge a formal complaint as you see that it is justified to charge me over £10 for the "privilege" of being kept in a queue when I phoned your sales line, and never got through, for a combined total of over 40 minutes, when your website states that I will not be charged until my call is answered. I find that this is unacceptable, especially since you regularly get my monthly bills incorrect in the first place, and now I am faced with this.

It took me at least five attempts to finally get through to a representative, and even then, I don't see why the customer should have to pay for a phone call to buy more products from you anyway since you'll be making more of a profit.

I am disgusted that you think it is fit to treat a customer who has been loyal to you for 18 months like this, especially since I have convinced friends and family to join o2, and would like you to look into this matter further before I get in touch with Trading Standards and Watchdog.

I look forward to hearing from you in regards to this matter. If I do not receive a reply within 10 working days, I will be taking this matter further.

Sincerely,

Y J Wong

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To which they replied after two days:

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Dear Yeu,

Thank you for contacting O2 Customer Service.

I am very sorry to learn of the poor service you have received from O2. It is clear we have not provided you with the usual high level of service to which we aspire. I appreciate the continued patience you have shown us whilst dealing with this matter.

Let me assure you that whatever happened in your case is not indicative of O2's level of customer service. We continue to be committed to providing you and all of our customers with the hig
hest standards of service in the industry.

Please accept my apologies for the difficulties and delays you may have encountered recently whilst trying to call O2 Sales line. O2 Online is primarily an Internet based company and we encourage customers to use facilities on the O2 website wherever possible; including emailing us should you need to contact us. The telephone line is provided as a backup to our online services, though calls to our centre are usually answered very quickly and I apologise that in this instance you have not found this to be the case.

Unfortunately, we do not give any compensation but thank you for taking the time to inform us of your experience, your comments are treated seriously and improvements will be made from them to prevent anything like this happening again.

I would once again like to apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused.

If you need further information regarding this matter, please reply to this email.

For further details about O2, please visit our online Help Centre at:

http://www.o2.co.uk/help

Kind regards,

Abhishek Saxena
O2 Customer Service.

O2 (UK) Limited, Registered Office: 260 Bath Road, Slough, Berkshire SL1 4DX. Registered in England No 1743099.

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Well, this is getting beyond ridiculous now, so I sent the following to their head office(!):

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Customer Services Manager
0219 HQ/Bury
O2 Online
Dummers Lane
BL9 9QL

9 August 2004

Dear Sir/Madam

RE: o2 Online OffPeak 500 tariff For Mobile Number: 07#########. Account number: #######-##

I am writing with reference
to the above account for which I would like to lodge an official complaint as I have been billed incorrectly at one point, five months in a row. And at a closer inspection of my bill for this month, you have billed me incorrectly, again. I can honestly say I am not surprised in the least that you have charged me £3.57 for text messages that I am entitled to for free in my contract. If you expect your customers to stick to their contracts and pay when necessary, then it is up to you to provide the type of service that people are willing to pay for.

My monthly tariff has an inclusive allowance of 500 free text messages, 500 free WAP minutes, 500 free off peak calls to other o2 mobiles and landlines, and 50 free off peak calls to other networks. The monthly ?anniversary? begins on the 22nd of each calendar day each month.

I have frequently been billed for off peak calls and text messages, which were inclusive of my contract.

On emailing you through your website, it takes in excess of 7 days to receive an automated reply stating that you will contact me within the next 7 days. After a further 7 days, I generally receive yet another automated reply stating that ?you hope I have resolved my query or have contacted yourselves by telephone.? I am not sure how you expect me to ?resolve my query? when no one bothers to respond to my emails. Additionally, I am not willing to telephone you when you see fit to charge ME 50p per minute to rectify YOUR errors.

When I finally received a personal email reply, I was informed that you were unable to rectify my account until after I had been billed. I feel most aggrieved that you feel it is acceptable to debit money from my bank account and hold it until the following month, thereby earning interest from funds, which are rightfully mine. This is akin to theft by default. r>
Furthermore, on trying to phone your sales help line, I was charged £12.20 for the so-called ?privilege? of being kept in a queue for a total of over 40 minutes. The exact dates and times can be found below, and I would also like to point out that each time I tried to call, I never got through to one of your representatives and in the end, I gave up because your company is poorly staffed.

27/07/04 ? 14:01:51 ? 11m 48s IN A QUEUE £3.013
27/07/04 ? 14:13:52 ? 10m 39s IN A QUEUE £2.574
28/07/04 ? 15:41:12 ? 9m 03s IN A QUEUE £2.311
29/07/04 ? 14:06:56 ? 10m 39s IN A QUEUE £2.719
29/07/04 ? 16:22:27 ? 6m 13s IN A QUEUE for about five minutes, then my call was finally answered - £1.587

So this means that I was charged about £12 to speak to one of your representatives for a little over a minute.

I find the above catalogue of persistent errors highly unacceptable. The attitudes of your customer services staff that are the forefront of your company are unhelpful and appalling. I am shocked that this is the manner in which you see fit to treat your loyal customers, especially since I have encouraged numerous members of my family and friends to digress to O2 from other networks.

I look forward to hearing your comments on this matter, by return.

Yours faithfully



Mr Y J Wong

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I sent that about half an hour ago via 1st Class Recorded Delivery so they have no excuse!

When (or should I say IF) I receive any reply off them, I?ll post it up on here.

Thanks for reading.