taking o2 to court

[cyrillicguy]

Hi

Back in August O2 has mis-sold me a Nexus7 tablet contract. Tried to sort it out with their complaints team with no luck, and now seem to be hitting a brick wall with the Ombudsman Services as well. However, still do believe O2 were in the wrong and they did mis-sell, therefore planning of taking them to court should that be my last resort.

As this would be my very first court case of this kind, I'd appreciate any help in terms of directing me the right way. I mean as basic as how do I start and where do I go etc :). I'm guessing that certain things and procedures could depend on where I stay, so just to let you know that I stay in Scotland.

Thanks in advance for any help at all.

Cheers

Eric

[cyrillicguy]

bambino,

Thnx for that link!

[jonsie]

I truly wish you well!

[Bambino]

No problem. Good luck.

[Anonymous]

Hi and welcome Eric

Having taken o2 to the Ombudsman before I can share some of the process with you. Please note though that I am not legally trained.

Ok so you went into store, was offered a tablet deal with a discount but the discount was not honoured. Have I understood that correctly?

If I have, firstly any discount should have been noted on your paperwork from o2. If it is then you will win your case.

So your went through complaints. Did you just call o2 and complain or did you email the Complaints resolution service complaintreviewservice@o2.com ? I am assuming you have otherwise the Ombudsman would not take up your case. So in doing so have o2 given you what is called their FINAL RESPONSE? You would need this to go to the Ombudsman (unless you had complained and not had a response in 8 weeks). Note though that if you have not gone through CRS then o2 should still sort this out for you and I would recommend you email them. Responses take up to 28 days although 14 is the norm.

If you have gone to the Ombudsman abs they do not find on your favour you will almost certainly lose you case in court. You will have to pay your own legal costs and o2 could ask the court for you to pay theirs. You must think wisely because you could end up losing a lot more than the contract value.

Basically unless you have something in writing or screen shots showing the discount as part of the deal then I would expect the Ombudsman to find against you in which case walk away.

Personally if you haven't already go through CRS. They will normally try to do what they can to resolve.

[jonsie]

Good advice which is why I asked in my first post if the Op had followed the complaints procedure.

[Anonymous]

Awesome advice Piperdog123

One reason why I asked if the Op had this in writing. (Hoping as it was all done instore)

[cyrillicguy]

thanks for that piperdog123.

I'll show you what I had in mind:

This was the deal I took:

Now, O2's argument is that £15/5GB is the price with the discount baked into it. Knowing that to take 5GB with a tablet would cost you £20/5GB on the Airtime part of your plan, one could agree, but.....

If I was to take any "regular" tablet (i.e. the one not being promoted as on any special offer) on the same day that I took my Nexus7, let's say an iPad Air, I would pay:

So, imagine me looking for a new contract. I'm looking at two devices here. The "save £5 on your Airtime plan" Nexus 7 one, and the "regular" with no special offers attached to it iPad Air one. Regardless of which one I select, I see that I would pay the £15/5GB price for the Airtime part.

What does one assume then? Perhaps this is just a regular price and £5 discount will be applied afterwards bringing my Airtime plan bill to £10/5GB? That's what I thought, that's what the O2 store rep (I mean the actual physical store) who helped me to complete the deal told me, that's what the O2 customer service rep confirmed over the phone once I phoned to double check.

Yet, now O2 argues that £15/5GB was a discounted price already. Ok, it is up to £20/5GB now, but....

Does that mean that if I took a "regular" (without the special offer) tablet on that day, O2 would write to me advising my Airtime plan is going up by £5 now? No, of course not, they're only allowed to increase their prices once a year along with the RPI lines (done in April if I'm correct).

Which leaves me with the question again:

If I took a tablet with a £5 discount offer, and someone took another tablet with no offer attached to it, yet we both will be paying the same price for the same Airtime plan, then.... where is the actual discount?

[Anonymous]

What does it state on your contract? Did you read the terms and conditions you were sent via email.You would have been given details about what plan and how much it would cost ...

As for the store,if the advisor gave you the wrong information,you should have asked for a manager, have you tried that?

[cyrillicguy]

rosadosc:

There are a couple of things which I would like to point out here. Firstly, the store manager on duty was present there as well, but that's even beside the point. 

How would I know at that point whether the advisor was giving me a wrong information or not?

The second advisor later on gave me exactly the same information (over the phone).

The info on the O2 website did imply (I do insist on that) that my discounted Airtime tariff should be £10/5GB. I tried my best to explain why in my previous post.

Now, regardless of what the contract states, any information either given by an advisor or presented on the company's website / advertising materials should not contradict any of the contract clauses. The company is bound to give out the correct information about their products be it on their site or via other means of communicaton which occur between the company and its customers (i.e. email, postal letters, verbally etc.).

Providing incorrect information, based on which a customer would assume that he/she is getting a more beneficial deal than it actually is, is in my opinion mis-selling.

[viridis]

From a legal point of view, if you don't have it in writing, the words and information given by any advisor, manager or not, is hearsay.
It's not what you know, it's what you can prove.
Sadly that's probably why the ombudsman is being coy about it.