Trouble with mobile broadband bill help!!

[Anonymous]

Hi,
I bought mobile broardband for my daughter approx 8 months ago on a 24 month contract. The first bill came in at over £300!!! as they said she had gone over her limit. They did cancel that bill and since then all has been ok until this month. My daughter phoned me to say she had been disconnected so I called o2 CS to be told she had gone over by £459.00 !! I nearly had heart failure. Still I accepted my responsibilities and made arrangements to pay them under the debt management scheme and was told my credit rating would be affected.. 5 times I was assured the connection would not be re set until the bill was cleared.Last night my daughter called me to say she could connect to the internet. I went round and physically saw that she can. I also saw a message sent the day they disconnected her saying she had gone over her data allowence by £50 so they were disconecting her in order to stop her running up a higher bill. o2 cant give me a reason why she can access the internet I was told by CS that as far as they are concerned she is barred. More worrying is that it is clear from the O2 message that she was disconnected at £50 over yet they are insissting I owe £450 and my credit rating has been affected. Please help me. This whole thing has caused enormous family arguments, my daughter is barely speaking to me and I am not sleeping at the thought of owing this money. Further more as her billing date is the 17th of each month how could she have possibly gone through her limit AND £450 on top in 19 days.I need to sort this and I want to leave o2 as I no longer trust them.

[adamtemp64]

Have a look through this pdf and contact the complaint review service with all the relevant facts and what you want them to do to resolve the issue. http://www.o2.co.uk/assets/O2HybridNav/ ... actice.pdf

[Anonymous]

Thank you I will. I am so disheartened by all of this. Could you tell me if O2 have the ability to wipe the notification from my daughters message screen as I dont want them doing this and then saying they didnt send the £50 disconnection notice.As this is the only proof I have. regards
Andrea

[adamtemp64]

sorry unable to help there

[Anonymous]

First of all ask your daughter what she is doing on the internet. If she is downloading movies, watching movies online, i-player for BBC programmes or similar for other channels then this will eat the allowance and should stop this immediately.

Is there someone else who has access to her system? Sadly a common factor of a "friend" abusing access rights.

If, as you say, you/she is on a monthly contract (maybe 3GB or 10GB a month), then connection mangager provides a useage statement so you can see if you are going to go over your allowance. If a "friend" is using the dongle on another machine then her machine will not record this. You go over the allowance at your own peril of potentially horrendous charges.

If in your contact with O2 you are getting responses from Indian named gentlemen then I can assure you, from personal experience, that these guys haven't got a clue. Talk to the UK help centre and get a detailed statement of the internet activity and work it out from there.

On the aspect of she can connect but shouldn't be able to then this does not surprise me. I closed an O2 mobile broadband account and returned the dongle; with an acknowledgement from O2 two weeks later. Nevertheless the Openzone aspect of the closed account continued to give me access. Being an honest guy I stopped using it but as far as I know my O2 credentials would still let me access; speaks volumes of O2's poor account control and access management.

One other point: does she use P2P telephone systems (eg Skype) and leave the connection on for long periods of time? It's a longshot, and unlikely, but if this is the case then there is the remote possibilty her system has being identified as suitable as a supernode within the P2P environment and is being used as such; this too will eat the allowance

Easy way to copy the screen you want to save(if you don't have screen save programmes):

See screen: press ALT and print screen key together. Open up a blank word document; paste (you will see the screen in the word doc) and then save.

[Anonymous]

Thank you so much for your reply. My daughter doesnt download, I dont think she even knows how to do this. She uses it most on Facebook, surfing the web,and C.Beebies sites for my grandaughter.No one else has access. After the first bill she only uses it on average 3 hours a day. When I bought the contract I was very carefull to expalin what she needed and was assured this was the one.(How foolish am I!!!)
I am just so frustrated that the only message she has said she had gone over by £50 and they are insisting it is £450. I will get her to copy the notice to a word document, thats a very good idea. Thank you once again for your help. I wonder if anyone else had had a similar problem.

[perksie]

If in your contact with O2 you are getting responses from Indian named gentlemen then I can assure you, from personal experience, that these guys haven't got a clue. Talk to the UK help centre and get a detailed statement of the internet activity and work it out from there.

O2 only have UK based call centres. 😐

[jonsie]

If in your contact with O2 you are getting responses from Indian named gentlemen then I can assure you, from personal experience, that these guys haven't got a clue. Talk to the UK help centre and get a detailed statement of the internet activity and work it out from there.

Why do people assume if they are speaking to someone with an accent, they must be speaking to an overseas call centre?

O2 are a multi ethnic-employer as per the Statutory Regulations of the Employment Act and it's quite possible to speak to someone with a Russian or German accent but they work in a UK based call centre. They go through the same training and product knowledge as all O2 staff and I find those remarks quite offensive, to be honest.

Please don't think anyone is any less knowledgeable because they have an accent.

[Anonymous]

Stevy; can I also add:

You have posted elsewhere re credit cards:
This would also include regular payments or payments classed as subscription**, where payments are made on a weekly, monthly or quarterly basis. Chasing up to cancel these payments can be fraught, time consuming and very stressful. Cancelling the credit card from which the payments are taken does not always stop these payments if you have get a replacement card as the payments can roll over to the new card.

So true; the stress, angst and anger, coupled with the "you must pay us (O2) because we say so" when you get a huge bill that you know is wrong and O2 don't seem to want to know is unbelievable.

I tried to stop my payment but found this impossible to do so and O2 took it regardless. The least O2 could do is put the payment in suspense whilst it is being properly investigated. Anyway it is probably sorted out now and I should get all my money back following a more detailed and thorough investigation of my complaint than was carried out by the aforementioned support personnel, my communication with the CEO's office and the promise of https://www.moneyclaim.gov.uk/csmco2/index.jsp action.

I can only speak as I find: my communications (several of them) to complaintreviewservice@o2.com are met with an autoresponder saying they will contact within 24hours. I have NEVER been contacted and they appear to be as useful as a chocolate fireguard. And I will further add that O2 should wise up, read, and comply with Distance Selling Regulations

[Anonymous]

Wow. I didnt mean to cause a racial war !! I have to say that Customer service have been polite but dont appear to be able to do anything. I feel I f they dont sort it out I will have no option but to cancel my direct debit, through the bank and just pay them the monthly contract fee plus the £50 it says I owe in the message centre until it is sorted out. They have trashed my credit rating anyway. I will complain after I have spoken to them once more.What appalling customer service though. Customer service is part of my job and if I behaved like this Id be sacked. Maybe they should rename their call centers customer no service. I will never deal wit o2 again and will warn everyone I know not to go near them. Maybe the o in o2 stands for zero. Will let the forum know how I get on tomorrow,