False advertising and branding of loyalty

[Anonymous]

Hello everyone,

I am making a complaint about my recent upgrade and the way it has been advertised and  handled in an extremely misleading manner.

O2 are currently advertising a sim only promotion of 5GB data and unlimited minutes/texts for £16/month (https://www.o2.co.uk/shop/sim-cards/sim-only-deals/#deviceType=phone&contractLength=P12M), so I thought brilliant, time to upgrade, and went through with the purchase.  Got my confirmation through and all was in order.  Got a text the next day saying the upgrade was successful so I checked my tariff only to find that price was at £24/month (the non-promotional price).

Long story short I contacted O2 multiple times and spoken to four different people, all saying that a loyalty discount has been applied to my account so the price is definitely £16/month.  But hang on, I think surely if a loyalty discount is applicable then that should be taken off the pruchase price of £16.  Upon much pressing I was told there was apparently an error on the system at purchase so I would be charged £24, but this was flagged up so they used a loyalty discount to bring it down to £16.  Now I don't think I am being obtuse when I say that this error is surely a seperate situation and a loyalty discount should be applied separately.  Probing a manager further I then got told that the loyalty discount is the type of discount used in this promotion and that everyone receives it whether a new or old customer.  

This boggles my mind as to how it can be called a loyalty discount when even new customers are given it, and what annoys me further is that this so called loyalty discount is not advertised in any single situation, even on my order confirmation ( http://imgur.com/wVYjn9r ).

Am I just being stupid here or is it just O2 that cannot comprehend how non-sensical this is?

[Anonymous]

But then if it is nothing to do with loyalty then how can they be allowed to label it as a loyalty discount?

[adamtemp64]

@Anonymous Agreed but should be called promotional discount but that is just the poor state of affairs within o2 at the moment 

[jonsie]

It was definitely labelled as loyalty. Presumably to stop you looking at other networks but whoever decided it was a loyalty discount needs to get a grasp of the English language. Perhaps loyalty has a different interpretation at head office in Spain. 

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Hi all,

So I got contacted by the complaints service who went through the whole sitution with me and explained everything as best as they could.  So the loyalty discount is the only discount that is available to them and is used as the promotional discount, so I stated how I thought this was misleading and asked whether they could review this.  The advisor also apologised for the lack of good advice when I intially contacted them over this situation and have credited my account with a small amount as gesture of good will.

I feel like the situation has quite been resolved yet, but hopefully this miswording of the discounts etc gets resolved before my contract ends next year!

Thanks for all your help everyone!!

[adamtemp64]

@Anonymous thanks for the update and glad you got some compensation

[Anonymous]

I also got a "Loyalty Bonus" but it has stopped after twelve months. Be careful, check your bill.

Frank

[MI5]

As it's applied as a bolt on it will show if it has an expiry date so you can check in advance.

[jonsie]

Loyalty discounts and bonuses are usually only ever for the length of the contract. It is always beneficial to renegotiate