topic pay up front for life cancelled by o2!! in Discussions & Feedback

pay up front for life cancelled by o2!!

Anonymous — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 18:21:14 GMT

I have had a "pay up front for life" contract for many years. Without notice or regret, O2 have changed it to a £35 per month contract. The reason given is a change to a new computer system causing it to "lose" some or all of the Pay up front contracts!!
Can they legally breach the contract?
Has anyone else suffered this?

pay up front for life cancelled by o2!!

jonsie — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 18:49:32 GMT

I remember this but didn't know that it still existed (but from what you say it now doesn't) I think you had to pay upfront £200 and you got a Nokia 3110 (?) and a choice 50 anytime minutes, 200 off peak minutes (minutes were to o2 or land line only), 50 texts or a mix of texts and minutes (20 texts and 100 off peak mins I think).Don't know anything about the terms & conditions of this tariff. Do you have a copy? There might be a clause in the present T&C that covers this tariff.

puffl

Anonymous — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 22:56:22 GMT

I have not spoken to O2 yet but noticed that my monthly tariff has changed to £30 a month and now on net 100. I have been on the net 50 (pay upfront for life) for years. I will be phoning them tomorrow but I can't see how they can do this as they have breached the contract and I didn't sign a new contract.

pay up front for life cancelled by o2!!

Anonymous — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 17:52:02 GMT

Steve
Re the original paperwork....
No, I have had it so long that the paperwork has disappeared. I don't believe I will need the originals as "up front for life" speaks for itself.
I await a reply from my local O2 shop regarding changing it back to what I had. They have blocked the £35 direct debit for April until a decision is made.

pay up front for life cancelled by o2!!

Anonymous — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 12:01:49 GMT

I googled 'O2 PUFFL 2009' to find Mr Heath's post as I too am affected. There must be many thousands in the same situation. It is important not to just accept whatever they offer you as it could weaken everyone else's bargaining power. We need to force them to accept the status quo and reinstate everyone back to pre Feb 2008. It is not a billing system problem but simply an attempt by Telfonica to terminate all BT Cellnet's PUFFL contracts!

02 puffl cancellation

Anonymous — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 15:42:02 GMT

I too have had my taffiff changed without any notification
I contacted o2 who have refused to reinstate my "Pay upfront for life" which I find strange as my 2nd account is still Net 50 upfront for life?
I have contacted Ofcom and will be updating them with the news of 02's refusal
Has anyone contacted "Watchdog" yet as I am sure they would be interested

pay up front for life cancelled by o2!!

Anonymous — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 16:26:45 GMT

t&c's paragrapgh 9.1 & 9.2

Pay up front for life- is for life!!!

Anonymous — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 20:51:49 GMT

This happened a few years ago to some O2 puffl customers. When they complained they were offered £50 compensation. This was not acceptable and they protested. Oftel I beleive were involved and they kept their puffl contracts.
So please dont give in. O2 are really desperate to loose this contract and will try to put you on another. If you do, you can never go back. Watchdog would seem a good option.

pay up front for life cancelled by o2!!

Anonymous — Wed, 06 May 2009 11:41:36 GMT

If you contact O2 it is best to write to their Complaints Review Service Dept who are based in Leeds but have a correspondence address in Dunstable. Send the letter recorded delivery and keep a copy of everything in a safe place including your bills. Among the thousands of people out there who are affected, there must be someone with access to free legal advice e.g. an aggrieved former PUFFL contract holder with a relative or friend who is an expert in contract law?
Please continue to post to this forum otherwise it will lose its momentum.

pay up front for life cancelled by o2!!

Anonymous — Wed, 06 May 2009 17:42:51 GMT

Possibly related, but Orange did a similar thing on Pay As You Go once. It was called Orange Out Here, where you paid £19.99 for a topup voucher, and it entitled you to 5 free texts a day for life.

A couple of years back, they tried reducing it to 3 texts a day. People kicked off. Orange reinstated 5.

Then, they tried telling people the benefit would end at the end of the year. People kicked off again. Orange went back on it.

It shows that persistence in complaining can work.

system migration

Anonymous — Fri, 08 May 2009 23:06:15 GMT

i can understand where people come from with this as i was dealing with outbound calling and complaints regarding this change but i guess this is the bottom line when it comes to t&c's:

9 Changes to the Agreement
9.1 We may change this Agreement and the Charges at any time.Changes will be posted on our website www.o2.co.uk.Please check this regularly for
updates.
9.2 If we increase the Charges for the elements of the Service you are using or change the terms and conditions of this Agreement to your significant
disadvantage (in our reasonable opinion)we will give you 30 days'notice in writing before the changes take place.We will notify you as detailed in
paragraph 7 above or we may notify you by text (SMS)to your Mobile Phone number and/or by email where you have supplied your email address to us
for this purpose.

+

4.2 From time to time we may have to migrate your Account from one billing platform to another.In these circumstances we will notify you if migration of
your Account will affect the Service in any way.

So i guess once its signed you may not be happy with it but in the end you have signed a contract in whcih you have agreed to these terms

pay up front for life cancelled by o2!!

jonsie — Fri, 08 May 2009 23:25:55 GMT

For full terms and conditions click link below :

Terms & Conditions

pay up front for life cancelled by o2!!

Anonymous — Mon, 11 May 2009 14:11:55 GMT

Update ...
My local O2 shop has managed to return my tarrif to "All upfront for life 50". It was acheived by them contacting their own help desk, who completed a form. Within 7 days the tarrif was changed. The £35 bill has been blocked and will be credited on the next bill. All sorted.
THEY CAN CHANGE IT BACK!!

pay up front for life cancelled by o2!!

Anonymous — Mon, 11 May 2009 19:33:44 GMT

In March O2 started charging me line rental on my PUFL contract. when i contacted them they said that the contract had been ended and i had to migrate to another - they told me i had been informed of this in Feb 2008 - i was not informed.

I complained to the Complaints Review Service Dept and received the same reply. O2 then barred my phone as i refused to pay the line rental charges.

I have just phoned to complain again and they stuck to their guns. But i did pay them £8 for my call charges for the last 2 months and they have un barred my phone. I have now requested a 'deadlock' letter so i can refer the matter to Offcom.

I believe that O2/Cellnet have changed my service provider and 'they' want to get rid of these PUFL contracts. according to the Offtel website i should have been informed when O2 changed service provider - i wasn't so this is in breach of the terms & conditions.

Item 9 of the 'current' T&C says they can change the agreement - sure, but not to this extent. Item 5 from the original PUFL T&C reads:

5. "For Life" means that purchasers of a Pay Up Front for Life package will continue to enjoy all the benefits of this package, for as long as they remain connected to Pay UpFront for Life.

SO LETS ALL KEEP FIGHTING, AND ALL GET IN TOUCH WITH WATCHDOG - I HAVE.

DON'T GIVE IN AND CHANGE - ITS WHAT O2 WANT YOU TO DO!!

pay up front for life cancelled by o2!!

Anonymous — Tue, 12 May 2009 08:43:51 GMT

Good luck with the dead lock letter, mobile phone providers will do anything to get out of giving you one, and there is a long complaints process you have to follow before they will give in.

pay upfront for life cancelled by O2

Anonymous — Wed, 13 May 2009 12:42:51 GMT

I have just been told that the pufl actually refers to the life of the handset and not the life of the person!! I need to check my original contract which I have filed.

pay upfront for life cancelled by O2

Anonymous — Wed, 13 May 2009 18:52:07 GMT

The PUFL deal was in relation to line rental and not the handset otherwise they have miss-sold us the contract. Its worth checking out the Offcom website as they have just completed an investigation into miss-selling and slamming - the practice of selling on your contract to another service sub-provider without your knowledge. This may be what has happened with the PUFFL contracts.

Could you let me have a copy of your PUFFL contract terms and conditions as i have lost mine? Thanks.

pay up front for life cancelled by o2!!

Anonymous — Thu, 14 May 2009 09:09:00 GMT

Feeling compelled to post.
I have had this contract for nearly 7 years now and have remained on Weekend Talk & Text for all that time (it was only very recently that whilst clearing out some clutter I binned the original page from the Argos catalogue - I fear I no longer have the contract either) as I was blissfully unaware that I could swap between tarrifs.

After losing the sim (pin code protected) and the handset I phoned O2 last night fully expecting them to want to cancel the contract, but no they denied that there was any move for terminating the account and said they would send out a 3G enabled sim on the same contract with same number.

It may help that my contract is always about £5 in credit and I hardly ever use the phone. But as I say when I spoke to the yourng lady she denied there was any move to terminate these accounts. She did say thought that I had to replace the handset myself and there was no such thing as an upgrade for this contract.

Pay upfront for life cancelled by 02

Anonymous — Thu, 14 May 2009 11:25:42 GMT

I checked last night and I never received a contract. I do have my original bill for purchasing the puffl handset though, directly through BTCellnet (now O2). I have had this since July 2001 and was on the Pay Upfront For Life Net 50 deal. Sneakily, O2 wrote to me in Feb 2008 to say they were upgrading their billing system and that my bills will be improved but that EVERYTHING ELSE ABOUT MY ACCOUNT WILL STAY EXACTLY AS IT IS. Now turns out that they actually switched me then to a 12 month Net 50 contract which was free for 12 months - so I believed this was just my puffl carrying on as usual. Until, Feb 09 when I started to receive a charge of £15 plus VAT per month for Net 100. I asked them about this and they said that they have cancelled all puffl contracts and that they had written to me last year to advise me of this!! Apparently, they told me they were putting me on a 12 month contract for Net 50 (no charge) and then this automatically reverted to the Net 100 after the 12 months, but now they are charging me as I'm out of contract. I have never received any correspondence about any of this - I have been very cautious about their 'for life' claim and would have jumped on anything like this and phoned them immediately!! Does anyone have a contract?? I asked for a copy from 02 yesterday and they said they don't have one but I could probably find this online. I was told that the 'for life' was for the life of the handset only which is not what I was told when I took the contract out. They then told me that they could tell from the system that I hadn't been using this handset since 2003 (I used another handset given to me by a relative). So why were they happy to let me keep the puffl until now?! They are lying and making up excuses to get rid of puffl. They said that no other mobile company still provided this. Seems they are telling different things to different people.

Re: Pay upfront for life cancelled by 02

Anonymous — Thu, 14 May 2009 12:07:21 GMT

Result! Just phoned 02 again and was put through to line advance team and then upgrades. The person I spoke to yesterday was lying through his teeth! They confirmed I was still on a puffl contract but that my original tarrif of Net 50 no longer exists. However, they are now putting me on the All Time 75 tariff which should cost £117.44 for the year but that they will not charge this. They can only provide this for 12 months but have made a note on my account that, after 12 months, this should be renewed again for free. No doubt, I'll have to go through all this again next year but I have been advised that puffl contracts are still being honoured and they can't get out of them! I have made a note of th person I spoke to and she has logged the conversation and the fact that they will commit to this next year also. We'll see!