My recent horror story, hopefully will stop it happening to someone else. Policies i understand, terrible Customer Service I don't. So below are my recent Twitter DM's with O2 Customer Services.
I’ll try and keep this as brief as possible! Basically I had a conversation with one of your Customer Services representatives before the iPhone 7 was released who assured me that all iPhones shipped by Apple were unlocked and they lock to the Network of the first SIM that is inserted.
I am on the yearly upgrade program and unfortunately Apple released the iPhone 7, 2 weeks earlier than the 6s last year, which meant I wouldn’t be able to upgrade until 2 weeks after release. I was keen for the new Jet Black model and knew they would be in short supply, so I pre-ordered with Apple directly so I’d have the phone on release and 2 weeks later I could upgrade with you and sell the handset to pay back my credit card and continue to pay you for my device plan.
Because the £ is low I managed to recover nearly the full UK iPhone 7 price to a buyer in Spain as I’d advertised it as unlocked. Obviously when he tried to insert his SIM card it said “unsupported SIM”.
I rang your customer services department, (obviously you have these calls recorded for confirmation) and explained the situation. She assured me and checked with someone else that they are not locked to O2. My buyer rang Apple who told him it was locked to O2 in the UK, this was confirmed when I myself rang Apple.
I spoke to another O2 service agent who said she knew all phones were now locked and apologised for the misinformation I had been given and that she would send the request to have the phone unlocked. This was inconvenient to say the least but thankfully my buyer would have a working phone, or so I thought.
Whilst browsing your website for some info for my buyer to unlock the phone when the unlock code came through, I saw that iPhone 7’s cannot be unlocked without settling the device plan! This is a pretty big change that doesn’t seem to have been communicated very well. The O2 adviser in the shop when going through the T&C’s made no mention of this. He also knew my intention was to sell the phone as I was going to take out the insurance on my Tariff, but he advised me it would only be valid against the phone he just supplied me with, so he at least saved me some potential disappointment there.
I then had a call with a manager who said because of all the incorrect information I’d be given she would see what she could do and would call me back in the morning, which she did. However, we were disconnected from the call and she didn’t ring back. So I yet again phone Customer Services to be put through to her, only to be told she was from your South African call centre and they had no way of contacting her! So I again spoke to another manager in the UK call centre who said he would call me back after I had spoken to me. Next day he hadn’t called and was told that someone will get him to call me back. That was yesterday and I’ve still not heard anything.
Now I don’t think these issues have arisen due to staff incompetency, I suspect more around poor knowledge and training. 2 people told me iPhones aren’t locked and the other 2 didn’t know about the device plan needing to be paid off before unlocking. People make mistakes of course, but this seems to be a catastrophic course of events, for me at least! My buyer will claim I incorrectly described the item, which technically I did as I advertised it as unlocked and I will have to refund him, yet I don’t have the money to refund him as I used it to pay the credit card.
And I’m still waiting for one of 2 different managers to come back to me and my buyer is becoming impatient. Can you please advise my options as this is causing me no end of worry and sleepless nights.
Hi Paul. Thanks for taking the time to explain this to us. We're really sorry to hear you were incorrectly advised iPhone 7's would be unlocked. This is certainly not the case nor has it been in the past. As you're now aware the device plan would need to be settled in full before the phone in question could be unlocked. We can understand the stress and inconvenience this has caused you and will ensure feedback is given to the agents managers to help improve service in future.
Thanks, you can assure me that if I pay the plan off it will be unlocked? I know there has been some issues due to shortages and I can totally understand your reasons for wanting the phones to be on your network, but if I pay it off and have it unlocked, it will be the best solution and least disruption for me and my buyer.
As soon as the device plan is paid in full, you can then request for the phone to be unlocked Paul.
They now tell me after paying off the device plan that they can't without an O2 SIM card being in it to activate the phone, it's not like they didn't know the back story and that my buyer was in Spain.
