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Discussions about O2 and age verification

Anonymous
Not applicable
Just received a text from TPTB saying I need to confirm I'm over 18 to view adult material. Until then, it'll remain blocked on my phone. I don't have a credit card so I'll need to do this in store. Just wondering, I have no particular desire to view pornographic material or register to flirt websites on my phone but if I don't have this ban lifted, will it affect my general day-to-day browsing in any way? Otherwise, I won't bother.
Secondly, when did this come about? Never needed to confirm my age in the past. And why couldn't they have sorted this in store when I bought the phone?
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Anonymous
Not applicable
To be fair one of the mods did actually say why he had modded one of the other threads about this at the bottom of the post. 'Anti o2 post' or something similar, whenever I mod a post that is exactly how I do it so looks like their board is the same.
I would much prefer this than some email that does not even tell you which post they have modded of yours or why!
Brendan

true, it just made me laugh that they removed the word monkey from my post, what a fantastically random word to censor.
But you're right, I'd rather know why I was being censored.

After we have been asking for more open moderating I guess we have to give credit where it is due. I hope it continues as although we might not like the fact we have been modded but at least they are being open about it. Lets see how it goes and if the other mods follow suit!
Brendan
Message 81 of 240
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Anonymous
Not applicable
I have been with o2 for about 6 years now and i am a little surprised they require me to prove my age, I have been an iPhone fan for a couple of years and love the internet browsing experience, being able to use the phone just like a PC.
However yesterday i got this age verification pop up, I called o2 to confirm it was genuine as i had not been told about it, i was happy that i would pay a £1 and that would be the end of the process, even though i was a little surprised they give you £2.50 back?
Anyway i paid my money and thought i would check a couple of sites out, these are regular perfectly legal sites that you can use without any problems as long as you are over 18. well i was not very happy to find this Bango has basically hijacked my browser and i can only look at the content they give me at a cost of course.
That's outrageous, we don’t live in a nanny state, this is England and i want to be free to look at what i want without any interference, so i shall be following the path of many other o2 customers and leaving as im on a sim only rolling deal....
Message 82 of 240
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jonsie
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Message 83 of 240
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Anonymous
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I just had this age verification page come up when trying to browse a football news site. Found my way to bango.net from there, then did some Googling and ended up here.
O2 is taking the utter **ss out of its customers! I am 36 years old, a long standing customer who actually felt, until now, some brand loyalty to O2. I didn't ask for age verification to be switched on my phone. A PHONE I WAS CREDIT CHECKED FOR!
I will be calling O2 in morning and will be demanding this is switched off. No, I will not be paying O2 any money even if they repay me £2.50. Furthermore I do not wish to be monitored for marketing purposes by Bango. This company's website looks like it was built in a bedroom! At first I thought the site I had tried to access had been hacked as part of a phishing scam. Top this off with Bango's boasts on its site of sharing the data it collects from users (despite O2's denials to the contrary) and I am astounded!
Nevermind trying to charge me for access to sites that are provided free and interupting my online access (that I already pay you for)... THE REAL WTF, O2, is you expect me to send my credit card data via a form on a domain I had never heard of, to a company I have never heard of, on an unencrypted connection with no SSL certificate, via a mobile browser whose data is being monitored against my wishes!!
You don't even know how to protect my privacy, my identity or my transactions and you expect me to trust you to protect my kids!
Whichever O2 "bright spark" that thought this was a good idea should be sacked for being incompetent!


P.S Please remove justarsenalblogs.com from your "protected" list - you do actually have advertising deals with Arsenal and just because they link to gambling sites O2 does not endorse does not mean I should be blocked from accessing it.

Best comment ever.
Message 84 of 240
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Anonymous
Not applicable
Is this a goverment initiative, because it's been thought through like one.
I'm off here > http://giffgaff.com/index/us
bye o2.
Message 85 of 240
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Anonymous
Not applicable

I'm off here > http://giffgaff.com/index/us
bye o2.

No, actually it's "Hello again O2, I'm back"

But for those who are interested in where we have come from, we are a fully independent company but we are part of the overall Telefonica O2 family, and we run our service on the O2 network.
Message 86 of 240
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Anonymous
Not applicable
Call O2 like a mature adult and politely ask one of the customer service advisors to remove the restriction on your account.
They're not required to apologise for protecting your interests however they will acknowledge that you have had to take a minute or two of your busy schedules to have the restriction removed.
I personally fail to see what all the fuss is about... Do you really thing O2 would allow your details to be insecurely passed from pillow to post and still be allowed to do business?
While I admit O2 may not be perfect... I am confident they are only asking us to validate our age to protect our interests.
Many people give their phone contract to their kids.
How many of you would like your kids to access gambling websites or adult content through their mobile phone?
What if they unwittingly subscribe to premium rate services charging you £5.00 per message and running up a nice phone bill?

:womanindifferent:
Message 87 of 240
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Anonymous
Not applicable
I don't think many people would be annoyed about this if handled correctly.
If O2 allowed for a simple opt in option on your My O2 account or even gave warning that they were bringing it in then I am sure the fuss would be minimal.
As it is, they created an issue which has been going for two days now and are refusing to budge on any form of statement.
I mean, what reaction did they expect when thousands upon thousands of mobile users were asked to pay a £1 to view their usual sites, etc?
"O2 Customers: We're better, respected."
http://o2hell.com/age.htm
Message 88 of 240
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Anonymous
Not applicable
I've been using 02 Mobile Broadband for more than 2 years, and had been using Google Translate with no problem till last night, when I was suddenly led to a page that says:
'We need to check your age. This is to protect children from websites for over 18s.
You’ll need a Visa card or Mastercard.
To check your age we’ll charge £1 to your credit card. This will show up as 'O2 18+ age check' on your statement.
If this is the first time we’ve checked your age, we’ll credit your mobile bill with £2.50 to refund the charge.
O2 won't share your credit card details with anyone.'
It was indeed a bango.net page.
I've tried the link https://ageverification.o2.co.uk/ that perksie has posted above, but got an error message saying 'not a valid mobile number' ... well, it's a mobile 'broadband' number indeed...
Could someone please tell me how I can restart using Google Translate?
I'm too afraid to give my credit card information on the bango.net page.
Thank you...
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adamtemp64
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Just call customer services and ask for it to be lifted
iPhone 11 Pro 256gb on unlimited data
iPad Pro 12.9” 2020 256gb refresh o2 family discount
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My first mobile was in 1995 a CM-R111 from sony on Cellnet.
Wincanton South Somerset (Full 4g 3G 2g indoor coverage) Remember we are all customers here not customer services

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