WARNING! o2 Default credit error stopping our mortgage!

[Anonymous]

O2 have placed a 'Default' mark on my now wife's credit history without us knowing anything about it. We have agreed to buy a new build home under the governments NewBuild scheme and have paid our initial deposit, however, when proceeding with the mortgage the lenders rejected us stating that it was "too much of a risk". It was only when we checked our rating and did some investigation that we found out it was because o2 have placed a default on her file. What makes it worse is she has just got a new job which is the reason for buying the house, she may now end up losing the house and her job!
 
This default is for a total of £10.69 and is looking like it will now stop us from buying a £250,000 house. The contract ended in 2011 and according to o2 "was fully paid off", however, there seems that there was actually £10 remaining on the account. O2 made absolutely no attempt to contact us to inform us of this and have instead just passed it off to a 3rd party debt collection agency. This agency also made no attempt to contact us and have subsequently marked it off as a default. This is obviously illegal as no notice of default was issued. Common sense would say that if they had contacted us for the remaining £10 charge, this would have been paid without even a second thought.
 
We have tried to contact o2 as we have only until the 8th August to exchange contracts on the house which it now looks as though we will lose. However, we are not able to make direct contact with anyone and we keep getting fobbed off with feeble excuses and email address' to contact and no one directly to speak to.
 
I thought you would all like to know about this as it is outrageous! O2 seem to be able to place defaults against peoples credit files without actually attempting to inform the customer of their intent. This can then wreck their lives!
 
We will be following up with legal action against them but I thought you would be interested to know on this o2 customer forum. We have also been in communication with a couple of national newspapers so you will no doubt read about it soon.

O2 your customer service is shocking and we need this rectified IMMEDIATELY! This could end up costing you way more than £10.69 unless you act!

[Anonymous]

So...

We were on the phone first thing Monday morning. Spoke to an extremely helpful person who got on the case and got through to the third party company that put the default on there on O2's behalf to tell them to remove it. We then spoke to them and they confirmed they had received instruction for removal and had sent this information on to all the credit reference agencies. Checked today and finally it has actually been removed and Lucy's credit rating has shot up to where it should be.

We just have enough time to put through the mortgage in order to exchange contracts on the 8th August providing everything goes smoothly from here on.

A sigh of relief and a stiff drink is required tonight. Thanks for the support everyone and if you have a similar issue then keep pestering!

[jonsie]

Great news, glad you have finally got this resolved. Hopefully the mortgage will proceed smoothly now. It's stressful enough without unwarranted complications. Good luck with everything:smileyhappy:

[sheepdog]

Just read through this but it occurs to me that the £10.69 seems to be a full month of a normal payment. That leads me to think that although the contract ended, the direct debit was cancelled immediately rather than waiting for a zero bill given that there needs to be 30 days notice.

[perksie]

I find it hard to believe that a single default of that amount would lead to a mortgage rejection.

[Anonymous]

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@perksie wrote:

I find it hard to believe that a single default of that amount would lead to a mortgage rejection.

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Yeah, thats what I thought, but hey it looks like it did! 

[jonsie]

Update on this thread in the Guardian :

http://www.theguardian.com/money/2013/aug/03/mobile-debt-wrecked-mortgage

Good to hear that their mortgage has now been approved

[perksie]

Well spotted jonsie, I'm glad it worked out ok for them in the end.

[Anonymous]

Yup, hope everything gets signed off okay on the 8th! 

Would have been nice to have had some recognition in the article for all those of us on the O2 Community that helped though! :smileywink:

[Anonymous]

The same thing has happened to me. I cancelled my Son's mobile phone at the end of the contrcat as he had lost it 6 months previously. Apparently i was told on the phone when canceleling that i would receive a final bill. On their own admission i was not sent a final bill. Surprisingly with 5 children and my own company to run i didn't give it much more thought. 3 years later, when applying to re-mortage which would shave 7 years off our mortgage, i got my credit report which showed a default form O2 of £14.00.

Of course i called starihght away and eventually got through to a manager who said i couldn't pay it over the phone as it had been passed to a collection agency. I then asked for their details and (after being put on hold for 30 minutes) he said he had 'managed to swing it' that i could pay him the debt. I asked for the agent's details as i wanted to contact them and voice my disappointment that they had not contacted me about his outstanding balance. the manager then told me that the debt hadn't actually been passed over, which is wehy i coud pay O2!! He then assured me once i had paid that if i contacted complaintreview@Oz they would remove the default. 

Easy. No! They have said point blank it is a valid debt and the 'cannot' remove it. Despite me saying all the above they still decline to remove it. I asked for all parework relating to the account and was given a link to 'subjectaccess' that doesn't work. 

My next step is to contact the CEO and the ombudsman this is arbitrary and is the worst customer service i have ever received. As a company owner myself of a law firm i am astounded that this is actually common practice!

I have just taken out another contract for my nan, if only i had known this then. I will make sure to overpay when the contract finishes! Thanks O2 

[Anonymous]

Hi @Anonymous

What a nightmare.

Would you let us know how you get on please ?