Hi Oxonian,
Better late than never. Finally getting back to you after constant communication between ourselves, O2 and the communications ombudsman over the last month. Cannot praise the staff with the ombudsman enough.
Long story short (I hope), I logged my complaint with the ombudsman, O2 was then given the opportunity to resolve, they came back advising again that we take out a new contract with a temp number to port our number once created as well as £80 compensation. I cited various issues with this, including the difference made between my account and my wife's, the fact that I did not need to do this for mine and also how my wife would effectively be paying for 2 contracts until this was resolved. I refused their offer to resolve and allowed the ombudsman to do their thing. They investigated, looked at all the evidence I provided, screenshots of call logs, O2 messages, social media team messages, etc. They stated that we had been treated very poorly and directed O2 to resolve the porting issue, pay £150 compensation instead of £80 and deliver a letter of apology. O2 then had the opportunity to appeal this, but agreed to it in full. As predicted, the issues continued re creating the new account with a temp number and porting across from EE. Ended up paying for 2 accounts for 1 month, but a further £20 compensation was given by 2 separate O2 advisors, but thankfully as of yesterday 30th May my wife's number successfully ported to the new account and we are finally as we were before all these issues started on 9th Feb, plus £170 up. No letter of apology though, which is no surprise, even though the ombudsman directed it. Again, cannot recommend the ombudsman enough, but as for O2, if there was another provider with the same level of signal in our area, we would be gone. This has been one of the most stressful and challenging experiences we have encountered customer service wise.
