Hard sell

[Anonymous]

I ordered a new payg sim free from o2 website yesterday as my fathers old sim had stopped working... he hardly ever uses phone but for occasions that he does... Then today lo and behold I get call from my mother saying that someone from O2 had phoned and EVEN THOUGH SHE SAID HER HUSBAND HARDLY EVER USED PHONE got her to sign up for a £10 a month contract and took her debit card details.. to add insult to injury as they couldn't speak to my father as he was asleep they made it out in her name (and she already has a tesco contract!!)... tried to unravel this but customer services said they had no record of the order on her system even though the confirmation email clearly states an order number .. so theres no way to cancel this order till paperwork/sim arrives apparently with the stress that this entails for my mother... there better be a cooling off period to cancel as I need a cooling off period for the O2 sales techniques... the reason i ordered a payg sim with MY email contact details is i didn't want them bothered with something they didn't understand and now they've taken advantage of an old lady... my mother tells me they were gabbling so fast didn't know what they were talking about so gave them her debit card details... I am disgusted with 02

[Bambino]

Sounds very odd. If you ordered the sim with your email contact details, how did they wind up calling your mother? How did they get the number? If this new contract is now in her name, she will have to cancel it. There will definitely be a cooling off period, so she should cancel asap.

[jonsie · Accepted solution]

Just send the sim back when it arrives. Make sure the contract is cancelled by calling customer service. Bear in mind it could take a week for them to receive and action it. Really bad sales technique praying on older people.

I would also send in a complaint to the email address in the link below.

http://www.o2.co.uk/how-to-complain

[Beenherebefore]

I smell the odour of a "trusted" partner

[jonsie]

Hope to god it isn't otherwise there are all sorts of complications especially if it's Aerial and a business account.

[MI5]

Tell her to just hang up in future. Surely she knows not to give details like that to cold callers?
It could have been anyone on the other end of the phone!

[Bambino]

There are many elderly people who don't know how to handle cold callers and hard sells. 

[MI5]

I'm sure but it's our responsibility to educate them. I have with my parents.

[Bambino]

I would agree, but it's difficult to know whether the OP's mother had ever come across this kind of selling over the phone before. I would also like to see the cold callers educated and these practices stopped.

[MI5]

A miracle then?