Where to start? This is a long one - sorry.
I have been a loyal customer with O2 for 10 years. I have a number of phone contracts with O2.
On April 27th I decided my son was old enough to pay his own phone bill and decided to contact O2 through the chat system to cancel his SIMPLICITY contract. This was quite an ordeal, as I was passed around 4 operators who didn't seem to be capable of cancelling a simplicity contract. Eventually I got put through to the retentions team who, after the usual drawn out procedure agreed to cancel the contract effective 27th June.
(I have the transcript of this chat)
On 27th May (a Sunday), my business phone which I have had for nearly 10 years stops working. Eventually, the penny dropped and I realised that O2 had turned off the wrong phone. After a call to O2 CS I was told that the phone would be back on within 48hrs, which is ridiculous as this is my business number. I was fuming, but as it turned out, the phone came back on around lunchtime the following day.
23rd June my bill arrives - £188.18 (usually £35.00 - £38.00) including a charge of £126.85 for line rental up to the date when my contract ends in October. I call O2 CS and after explaining the situation, I was told that the bill would be stopped immediately and nothing would come out of my bank. They said that it would take a while to sort out and it probably wouldn't be sorted before the bill was due, so I agreed that they could take the correct amount for my June bill along with my July bill when it became due.
9th July O2 debited the full £188.18 from my bank. ANOTHER call to O2 CS today (10th July) to be told that he had a record of everything that had gone on before and didn't understand what had gone wrong. He later said that the previous CS operator had correctly put the stop on the bill, but the direct debit had gone through anyway.
As for getting my money back, I have two options 1. Contact my bank to stop the DD and get the money credited back to my account which, as it is a business account can take up to 28 days or 2. Wait for O2 to pay the money back into my bank in 21 days. Either way I'm out of pocket.
I have used O2's services for nearly 10 years and can honestly say that their customer service has steadily got worse to the point of being laughable.
