Going from pay and go to montly, big mistake

[Anonymous]

Hi guys i went from pay as you go to monthly and as soon as the switch had taken place i got all sorts of charges from premium services i didnt sign up too, about ten different ones and the only help 02 could offer was more or less none, saying it would have to contact all ten premium services and cancel each one separately. Why should i when i didnt sign up for them. Im expected to pay all the charges to. So now i cancelled my monthly and went back to pay as you go until i get another contract with a better network.

[Bambino]

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@PhoneDoc wrote:
Sorry to hear you haven't had a good experience on contract James 😞 If you do decide to give it another shot in the future, customer services will be more than happy to put a premium bar on the account. This won't stop charges from subscriptions the number's already registered against, but should stop new subscriptions from starting. As others have suggested PhonepayPlus can provide good support after the fact. Hope this helps.

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@PhoneDoc just out of curiosity, why can't O2 unregister the subscriptions that are against that number and reissue it as a clean number before giving it to another unsuspecting customer? Why would O2 give a new customer a new number knowing there may be subscriptions already attached to it?

[PhoneDoc]

Hmm this is something I don't think I could answer unfortantely. These would be backoffice processes that would only be common knowledge to relatively select team (I imagine) and I wouldn't want to bluff my way through them.

On the flip side I can't confirm the premise either - O2 may very well have a process for 'cleansing' recycled numbers. In 3 years I've encountered many customers querying mysterious premium charges - in all instances they eventually remembered that it was from "voting for your man on the x factor" or signing up to "that christmas charity appeal", occasionally they find out its from the kids using their phone. 

Have there been any other instances reported here of premium subscriptions on new connections?

[jonsie]

As far as I'm aware, a premium bar stops you calling premium numbers. It won't stop you getting premium texts from these spammers.

[PhoneDoc]

That's correct - it bars premium numbers. It should also bar outgoing texts to the shortcodes assigned to premium subscriptions though - preventing customers from signing up to many of these services in the first instance.

Edit: but yes, it won't necessarily prevent messages coming through after the fact. It's more of a preventative measure than a cure.

[jonsie]

More often than not though, these subscriptions are activated by clicking inadvertently on links such as those found on social media, gaming sites etc. Nothing to do with premium texts being sent.

[PhoneDoc]

You're right, that is an instance where the premium bar won't prevent a new subscription - for example, if the customer unwittingly enters their number on a popup on their computer.

What the bar does do is prevent using the services O2 provides (such as phone calls and text) from being used to access premium content. It does this by preventing dialing out to 09 numbers or texting 5, 6, 7 or 8 numbers. In fairness, this is the most common bill query we deal with when it comes to premium charges, especially relating to competitions and charity appeals.

[jonsie]

Thanks for confirming @PhoneDoc and for your clarification of exactly what a premium bar does actually do for the customer.

[PhoneDoc]

No problem  

[Curr946]

.... So the bar in useless in this scenario. Surely O2 could bar even those incoming ones.

[PhoneDoc]

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@Curr946 wrote:
.... So the bar in useless in this scenario. Surely O2 could bar even those incoming ones.

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The premium bar is to provide a degree of peace of mind - to the likes of parents for example, who have maybe been stung by their kids getting hold of their phone in the past and subscribing to these services. It's by no means a cast iron guarantee against any premium charges and I wouldn't infer that it is. I think O2 meet their responsibilities well here - it'd be pretty Orwellian for the company to unilaterally decide what numbers can and cannot get through to you, or to monitor what websites/apps you enter your mobile number into.