My account was hacked in early December 2012. I'm on a sim only deal. I no longer had any signal (it was a Wednesday evening), so thought I'd check the 02 website for any reported issues.
When I logged in to my 02 account (Thursday morning), the first thing I noticed was that my account had been upgraded to a £57 a month, 24 month contract. Alarm bells started ringing, and when I checked my emails, I'd received 2 emails confirming that my order had been completed (so the upgrade as well as an iphone 5). The rest of my account details remained unchanged, although I changed my online password there and then. The iphone was delivered to a different address on the other side of London (I resisted the temptation to pop round and claim the phone!).
I called 02 immediately, and they stated that the Fraud department would be in touch with me shortly (think the operator said within 3 working days). Meanwhile, I still had no signal.
When I got home late on Friday evening, I'd received 2 emails telling me that I'd spent much more than my usual bill. As my bill was £2,888(!), I called 02 immediately to report it, and it was only at that point that my sim was blocked. I was actually put through to the Broadband team, but fortunately they were able to block the sim (I’d selected all the options to report a lost/stolen phone – I know technically it wasn’t, but it seemed like the best option at that time, given it was after midnight). In total, the fraudster racked up £4,500 of calls (mainly conference calls to West Africa).
I called 02 back on the Saturday morning, and was told that the Fraud team would call me first thing on Monday before 10am. I didn't receive any calls from them (as I still had no signal, I'd given them my work number). I called 02 again later that day, and asked to be put through to the Fraud team. I got no response, but the initial operator I spoke to was really helpful and was able to tell me about some of the notes that had been placed on my file. Apparently, the fraudster had called up customer services and upgraded the account and placed the iphone 5 order that way. The security question was my mother's maidenname - I won't be using that again, given what some of you have said about websites like Ancestry/Genes Reunited, etc. - although I haven't been able to find those details on those websites. It's possible that they didn't know the answer to that question, but 02 then ask you other questions if you don't know the answer (e.g. address, etc.)
I managed to get through to the Fraud team on Tuesday morning, and they said they would clear the block on my sim (would take 24-48 hours to be processed).
It took more than 3 weeks (including 2 reminder phone calls to the Fraud team) for my sim to be reactivated. Even though they told me it would take 24-48 hours to be processed. I asked them what to do if I received any reminder emails about my bill, and was told that the Fraud team would sort it out as the system would take a while to refresh/update pending their investigations.
Now, my account has been locked because I haven't paid my bill. So now I have to wait until Monday to speak to the Fraud team yet again.
I'm really disappointed with the complete lack of customer service I've received. They've never called when they said they would, said they'd do things and didn't. In fact, I've not received one single call from them. The whole things smacks of incompetence (e.g. why did they not block the phone/sim as soon as I reported the fraud – the fraudster racked up thousands of pounds of charges!).
I very much doubt I’ll stay with 02 after this.
) today i have now received 2 emails with differing bill amounts to the previous ones.
