How to merge two MyO2 accounts

[Stimatic]

Hi all,

I've been an O2 PAYG customer for many years, and have had a MyO2 account throughout.  Connected to the account I've had my own phone, plus others I bought and manage for my mum and my daughter.

Today, I upgraded my PAYG tariff to a 12 month pay monthly.  The guy in the O2 store didn't ask if I have a MyO2 account, and when I got home I got texts saying my phone had been automatically registered to a new MyO2 account.  The problem is I'd prefer to keep my original account, and I can't connect my email to this new account because it's already connected to my original account.

I've seen some posts on here saying you can merge accounts by choosing the "bring in other devices" option, but that doesn't seem to work for me, the only option there is to bring in other devices that aren't already registered to a MyO2 account.

How can I either merge the two accounts into one, or deregister my phone from the new MyO2 account and reregister it to my original account?

[Stimatic]

@MI5 

Hi, thought I'd update you on progress for the sake of sharing information...

I popped into the O2 shop that set up my contract today. They claimed they hadn't been aware I already had a MyO2 account, and hadn't asked at the time because it's apparently incredibly rare (almost unheard of) for a PAYG customer to have a MyO2 account.  I admit I found that rather surprising.

Anyway, apparently it is impossible to have a contract phone and a PAYG phone on the same MyO2 account (I still have some other PAYG phones registered to my original account that are still in use).  O2 have not set up their system to run that way.  When I asked how, if O2 demand separate MyO2 accounts for different devices, people are expected to manage that when their system also bans registering the same email address to multiple MyO2 accounts, I got the "I don't know, this is the first time I've ever come across this scenario" answer.

He said he'd try "using a background O2 service that might solve it, but would take a few days to come through".  I noted what he did and looked it up afterwards, he's trying to register my contract and PAYG phones on the multisave plan.  I suspect it won't work given it states it's for multiple contracts only, but we shall see.

If that doesn't work, I'm thinking I might try this:

Remove the PAYG phones from my old account.

Delete my old account.

Register my (now freed up) email address with the new account.

Try to add the PAYG phones to the new account.

I'll post an update to let you know how it goes.

(I was also curious to note that somebody else marked your previous response on this thread as the solution.  The response was helpful, but it wasn't a solution, so I wonder why they chose to do that. Believe me, I'm hoping an actual solution will be posted soon!!).

[MI5]

@Stimatic 

Not sure why you were told it was impossible, but here is my MyO2 login screen.

[Stimatic]

@MI5 

This is becoming laughable.  I found last night that the guy in the shop (who is the manager by the way), made another mistake.  He tried changing the e-mail address on the new MyO2 account to my e-mail address (even though I told him it wouldn't work), but he mis-spelt it.  So, he's associated the new account with an e-mail address that isn't mine, and didn't have the courage to admit that to me.
I spent 45 mins on the phone to O2 customer services this morning to try to get them to fix it.  The problem was made so much harder by the fact that the support team for pay monthly apparently can't even see accounts associated with PAYG, so she couldn't wrap her head around the fact I already have a MyO2 account that's currently not linked to the pay monthly phone.  In the end I asked her to remove my pay monthly number from the new MyO2 account, and delete that MyO2 account.  That should free up my number, so I can add it myself to my original account (I hope).  She's said it will take 24-48 hours to process, and started talking about 14 day cease periods, which made me worry she was cancelling the whole contract.  I directly stated that at the end of the 48 hours I want to still have a contract, my number, and a working connection, I just don't want the new MyO2 account, and asked if that's what will happen.  She said yes.

We shall see. 😐

[MI5]

Hmmmm, good luck !

[Stimatic]

@MI5 

Lo and behold, it looks like they've just cancelled my contract completely.  The new MyO2 account is still there, but with no products attached to it, and my phone is now reporting "SIM not provisioned".  I'll try going to a different O2 shop this afternoon to see if I can get someone who actually knows what they're doing, but I get the feeling that after something like 20 years with O2, I'll be departing for somewhere new.

[MI5]

Had a feeling that was going to happen 😞

[Stimatic]

Hopefully penultimate update:

Went to a different O2 shop, they confirmed it is entirely possible to have multiple phones of different tariffs on one MyO2 account, although they did think that the pay monthly one needs to be the primary, and then add in the PAYG ones (they didn't think it would work to add a pay monthly phone to an account with PAYG already on).

What they couldn't do was reinstate my connection, shop staff have no access to connections or billing info.

I tried calling the helpline again, and this time got through to a very helpful and knowledgeable guy in Glasgow (ironically in exactly the same department as the lady that cancelled my contract this morning).  He was able to reinstate my connection, has given me a case reference number, and is waiting for me to call back on Monday so he can sort out the MyO2 accounts to give me exactly what I wanted in the first place (there has to be a delay to allow the connection time to actually restart).  In his words, nothing is impossible, and what I'm asking for is maybe rarer, but not overly complicated, at least for him.

So hopefully early next week I'll be able to post a final update on here to confirm it is all doable, you just need to find someone with the right knowledge and understanding.

[Stimatic]

Unfortunately, here's the latest update to the saga, and it's not the final chapter...

Due to work I didn't get a chance to call customer services until today.  I got through to someone in a call centre, who (to summarise a long call) told me, a) they have no capability to transfer calls to other departments so couldn't transfer me to the guy I spoke to at the weekend, b) they don't have MS Teams or any other form of email, so cannot contact the guy to ask him to call me (they claimed he was incorrect to tell me he could be contacted that way), c) it's impossible to merge two MyO2 accounts, and anyone who'd told me it was possible was wrong, and d) although Saturday's customer service guy had told me he'd leave detailed notes on my account explaining how to fix it, the only notes he left explained the problem, not the solution.

I pointed out that I've been told by staff in the 2nd O2 store, Saturday's customer services guy, and people in this very forum that it is possible.  I also cannot comprehend how a huge telecommunications company apparently can't set up any means for its various staff/departments to speak to each other.

Considering I've now been told it can't be done, then it can be, in alternating cycles several times, I asked for my issue to be made a formal complaint, and asked for the complaints procedure.

I was told it's now been escalated, and will be reviewed by "another department".  I asked if they'd be contacting me, he said he had no idea if anyone would want to contact me or not!!

As a last resort I asked if he could at least help with the problem of the incorrect email on the new account, he said he couldn't, they can't touch MyO2 because it's "customer details", so I'd need to go to an O2 store.

I drove to the 2nd O2 store and asked for help, and was told the girl I spoke to on Saturday no longer worked there (Saturday was her last day), and neither the new guy there or the manager knew how to solve my problem.  Thankfully they do have Teams, so found the email details of the guy that helped me Saturday and emailed him asking him to call me Friday/Saturday (I'm not available tomorrow).  I'll see if I get a call and will update this thread with any news.  I'm equally curious to see if O2 takes formal complaints seriously or not.

My major grumble at this point is that every person I speak to just tells me the previous person was wrong, the various departments/call centres/countries seem to all be utterly disconnected from each other and have varying access to useful systems, and it's impossible for anyone to take any ownership of an issue.  I really hope I get a final answer one way or another so I can spare anyone else having to go through all this.

[Stimattic]

Ok, here's the final update, and you'll notice I'm giving it from a different account...

I never got any return calls from the customer services guy that claimed to know how to fix it all, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, so I decided to try to fix it myself using the following steps:

Lesson learned #1: you can add PAYG phones to a MyO2 account already containing a pay monthly phone, you can't add a pay monthly phone to a MyO2 account that already has PAYG phones.

I removed both PAYG numbers from my old account.

I added them both to my new account.

I created a throwaway email address and attempted to change the user name of my old account to this.  Lesson learned #2, if you remove all devices from the account, it leaves the account with no contact number and so won't let you back in until you add one.  I tried to add my pay monthly number but it wouldn't accept it (already contact number for new account), so I added one of the PAYG numbers as the contact number

I was then able to change the user name to the throw away email address.

I could then sign into the new account, and change the user name on it to my original email address.

So, I now have all three phones (1 x pay monthly & 2 x PAYG) on the new account, proving all those O2 people who told me this is impossible wrong.  I also have my email address linked to it.

I'd hoped to then go back into the old account and delete it (this can be done from within the MyO2 app but not the web version as far as I can tell), but for some reason it won't let me back in on either the app or web.  Not sure why, but considering I no longer need the account I don't really care.

Of course I then had to create a new user ID on this forum to link to the new account.

So after several weeks of O2 staff making things worse or contradicting each other, I've managed to get to a reasonable solution by myself.

Lesson learned #3# for anyone who ever suffers this: if you talk to O2 customer support, be very careful that they understand what accounts you mean.  I learned during all this that there are MyO2 accounts that we use to manage our interactions with O2, but we also have O2 accounts, which are what O2 staff can access and use to manage us.  They are separate things (all of your O2 details like billing, rewards, etc. are kept in your O2 account, hence why they're remembered when moving between different MyO2 accounts).  Two different customer support people mistakenly thought I was talking about two different O2 accounts, and tried to take actions on them, when I was only ever talking about the MyO2 accounts.

Oh and lesson learned #4, if you upgrade from PAYG to pay monthly, and then change your mind within the 14 day limit, you are not put "back to where you came from", on PAYG, you are simply disconnected.  Make sure pay monthly is definitely what you want before you change!

Hopefully someone finds this helpful.

[MI5]

Good work mate 👍