Disgusted with O2

[Anonymous]

Today I was horrified and embarrassed to receive a letter from a debt collection agency saying that O2 had instructed them to recover an outstanding amount of £10 (yes, £10!) from me.  I have never been involved with debt collection agencies in my life and always pay my bills by direct debit.  I have had NO letter or other communication from O2 saying that I owe anything.

I called O2 customer service, who looked through my accounts and confirmed that in all my time with O2 I had NEVER had a missed or late payment.  They could not explain why the debt collection agency had been called in, and all they could suggest was to call someone else on Monday.  Hardly satisfactory 'customer service'.

I asked them for an e-mail address to which I could send a complaint, and they gave me one.  I wrote a mail to that address and it promptly bounced, saying that I had to complain via the website.  I repeated the message, and got a reply saying I had to contact the debt collection agency to resolve the problem.  Why should I have to wait on a premium rate number to fix a problem of O2's making?  Is their refusal to accept responsibility laziness, arrogance, incompetence or a mixture of all three?

I'm disgusted by their attitude and have written direct to the managing director.  Unless he can fix this I'l be leaving O2 next week, and taking all my family's phones and iPads with me.

[Anonymous]

I totally understand.
I transferred my O2 to my friend more than one year ago and recently I keep receiving letters saying my account is overdue. I wish I cancelled it and did not recommended to my friend!

[Anonymous]

My wife has just been refused a contract for £ 15 a month by o2 after a credit check. I tried on her behalf and it asked for additional information (apparently my driving licence is a wealth of information about my ability to pay a bill?). After studying the details on my driving licence the computer still said no. I have written to creditfilereferrals@o2.com, but have not even received an acknowledgement. Is this normal? My step-son is using one of my credit cards and has been late with a couple of payments, could that be the problem? i used to be with o2 and had a monthly bill averaging £80, I don't think £ 15 is going to prove a problem. Can they override the computer?

[MI5]

The credit referrals team can override the computer, that's part of their job, but those missed payments will be why the contract was automatically refused.
Hopefully a human will be able to see sense and authorise it for you.

[jonsie]

BUT you need to check your own credit file. Check online, either direct with Experian or one of the free ones. The Experian in my opinion is best, it used to cost £2.00 but you won't have the problem of your email address being passed on or sold on.