Billing nightmare!

[RyanK1992]

Needing a little rant guys.... (Sorry!)

Today my 2nd bill was generated. I was promised at the point of sale that I would get the 2nd, 3rd and 4th month airtime free of charge. Imagine my surprise to see that I've been charged for this month.

The advisor on the live chat (I'm going to phone in future) told me that this was the first bill. When I redirected them back to my account, they confirmed this was the 2nd bill indeed and that I would need to wait to month 3 before I'd get my airtime discount (So effectively 3rd, 4th and 5th.)

Given I work in Customer Service myself, I'm probably a bit less forgiving with instances like this especially when there is no empathy shown. I did say that I had budgeted my wage for the month and hadn't taken this into account and I was then transferred to a manager who advised to not make the payment this month and just pay it next month..... the implications that could have on my credit file if I took that advice.

I have had some signal issues but that's a story for another day that is hopefully close to being resolved but I just cannot believe the advice from the live chat service.

Is it normally like that!?

[MI5]

Yep, chat is pointless - always call!

[jonsie]

It makes you wonder just what understanding of life these chat advisers have. Maybe things work differently in South Africa...

[RyanK1992]

To be fair, the phone advisor wasn't much better 😞

I've been having signal problems and I'm working with the Network team to get a resolution. I used less than 400mb last month from my 40gb allowance ; they could see I was having issues but understandably, the bill still stood. The advisor I originally had spoken with put in a cancellation request for me as I was within my cooling off period when I originally called. She said at least this would give us time to get it fixed and if by the end of the cancellation, it still wasn't fixed, I could go (Which I don't want anyway)

So, fast forward to yesterday with the billing nightmare, to then be told I had a cancellation request in that was going to incur hundreds of pounds. When I asked why I wasn't told this, the response was and I quote ;

"Because the request was put in under your cooling off period, we wouldn't have discussed early termination charges with you. You've missed that period now because you should have sent the phone back straight away."

Just feeling a bit miffed.

The level of service you get from you guys on here (being just customers) and the community staff are night and day to some of the CS I've had to endure. Surely it can only be onwards and upwards from here.

[jonsie]

You would hope so but a phone is just a paperweight without coverage. Hope things improve for you.

[RyanK1992]

Still having some issues sadly, The mast appears to be working fine, but the results from the My Network app show a different story.

4G Signal Strength - 1 bar
Download speed - TEST FAILED
Upload Speed - 3Mbps
Response Speed = 42ms

The mast at my work and the local town centre are all experiencing problems too.

Sigh 😞

[pgn]

Just a thought, @RyanK1992 - does a colleague on O2 get the same dismal report from My Network as you?

Ditto for local town centre?

Possible you may have SIM or phone antenna issue, but you need a comparison point. 

And btw have you set your phone SIM from 4G auto to 3G/2G only? This helps me at work as all the iPhone dweebs battle for bandwidth on the 4G signal, but little old me happily works away on the 3G signal by setting this (I am at home now so on 4G..., but at work at lunchtime, I use the lower 2G/3G setting) :

[RyanK1992]

Thanks for the tips @pgn!
I received a replacement sim today and the speed has slightly improved at 6mpbs which is most definitely going in the right direction.

When I've spoken with o2, they say everything is fine in my area, but have acknowledged the issues in the town centre and at my work.

[jonsie]

Much better to use speedtest.net rather than the app.

[RyanK1992]

SpeedTest.net is showing 2.1Mb/s so massive difference.

I'm also using the My Network on the website ;
There is now a kown issue at my home address, my work address, the main street in my area and the next town up. Virtually unusable now.

The biggest concern I have now is I have been complaining of this since I got the contract and have effectively been told there is nothing wrong with the area. Now the fault has finally been recognised!

Will keep you all updated on how I get on