To our Managers and Social Media teams

[Cleoriff]

@Marjo @Martin-O2 @Chris_K 

An open post to you all.

Those of us who are on this forum day after day, 24/7, know that we are having many issues reported

from hundreds of customers.

The one which concerns me most is the major problem reported by a fair few people on here.

Apparently the system is failing to take monthly Direct Debits from customers who have money in their banks to pay. Then they have their accounts suspended through no fault of their own.

This is beyond belief actually.

Add to that, these customers are unable to get through to O2...

1) Due to their phones being cut off (even using Skype)

2) Also as there are not enough O2 staff to take the calls.

This will have an impact on their credit rating.

Something needs to done and quickly to rectify this matter.

My bill is due on the 23rd of this month. If this happens to me I will be more than angry!

I hope you read this and give a response. More than that, I hope you get this issue sorted out without delay.

Thanks.

[Martin-O2]

Thanks for reporting these examples everyone. We're not aware of any widespread issues with direct debits or payments but just in case we'll escalate some of these examples so we can take a closer look to see what could be causing the issues. 

[Mi-Amigo]

Sorry to hear of the possible problem your husband may have @Cleoriff 

I hope this gets sorted when everyone is back tomorrow - Tuesday.

Incidentally, I might be in the same situation. My billing date is tomorrow for O2 account with payment normally taken around 28th of the month via direct debit. If it is not taken from my bank account and I have service cut-off, I will have no way of contacting O2 as I have no-one to call on to borrow phone. Even if I ask one of my carers there would not be available to call at 8am or to sit and keep trying for hours trying to get through.

So, if that happens - that`s it - no more me posting on the Community...

[mind you, with me having complained about the problems with this, the auto cut off and the platform provider, there may be some who might consider that a blessing  ] 

[Mi-Amigo]

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@Martin-O2 wrote:

Thanks for reporting these examples everyone. We're not aware of any widespread issues with direct debits or payments but just in case we'll escalate some of these examples so we can take a closer look to see what could be causing the issues. 

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With respect, have you checked my previous post in reply to @Chris_K , who gave the same response to an earlier post - 
https://community.o2.co.uk/t5/Discussions-and-Feedback/To-our-Managers-and-Social-Media-teams/m-p/13...?

since that was posted, there have been customers also raising the issue.

This is not an few isolated examples which "we can take a closer look at" but a serious issue which needs addressing NOW - not in days or weeks to come.

And equally immediate action needs to be taken to stop the automated cut-off for alleged non-payment of bills - which in many cases is directly related to the direct debit issue.

[Martin-O2]

Hi @Mi-Amigo , 

Thanks for your reply on this. We've not seen widespread reports of direct debit issues from customer services or our social media channels and the number of posts on the community is not high enough to indicate an issue affecting a large number of customers. That said, it certainly warrant's a deeper look and the first step of that is to look at the individual accounts of those who have reported problems.

It might be something as simple as the Friday bank holiday affecting how direct debits are shown on customers' banks but the only way to confirm this is to look individually at those experiencing issues. 

For your suggestion that automatic account restrictions are removed or turned off this is not something that will be happening. One of the primary reasons for account restrictions is to protect customers. If someone is unable to pay a bill then allowing them to run up an even higher bill would not be helpful and if they have not contacted O2 to discuss a payment plan by that point it's the safest course of action.

Accounts are not restricted for at least 23 days following the bill being issued, they are then diverted to the payment lines when trying to make a call. Reminders are sent before then requesting payment so it should not come as a massive shock when services are finally restricted.

Obviously there will be cases where something goes wrong, either at O2's end, the bank or somewhere in between and we will always rectify those as quickly as possible but this would be a one to one interaction between the customer and O2. 

I hope this post gives you a bit more information about how things work but if you have any questions please let me know.