International Calling Service

[Anonymous]

Hi

On Friday (17th) I received a message from O2 saying that I've been invited to test their new International Calling Service with a link. The attached link was https://www.o2.co.uk/intertrial 

I was excited for this as I used to use the World Chat quite often and my last month's bill was quite a hefty one due to international calls. 

The text message I received is below:

The message says that it has been already added into my account and that I did not have to do anything else. So I made a short call (to India) to test out if it was indeed active, but I was charged my usually rate of £2 per minute. instead of 2p per minute which the O2 webpage claimed. 

I called up 202 to confirm what was happening and if my rate was still infact the standard rate, and they were completely useless and they said they are not aware of any trial running at the moment, even though I asked them to specifically have a look at the webpage I linked above. 

I was wondering if anyone received a similar message and if there are anyone from O2 who's aware of this to clarify. 

Thank you

[Cleoriff]

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@Martin-O2 wrote:

Hey guys I'll see if I can find out any info about this trial and who to contact if you have any issues. 

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That would be some help at least @Martin-O2

[MI5]

Yes, would be very useful .....

[jonsie]

For anyone interested, after phoning O2 I didn't use the normal calling feature to speak with my son in Berlin. 

Instead I used the Dial123 app and with the 40p free trial I got 36 minutes calling time. I was told by a voice over when I had 2 minutes left and then when I had 40 seconds left. The voice over wasn't heard by my son. The call quality was much on a par with World Chat as the call was routed through a London number. 

The added bonus is that like World Chat I just top up when needed as I don't like extras on my phone bill. As for the International Calling Bolt On, I will leave that for others to try or wait for O2 to explain better how we use it. 

[Martin-O2]

@Anonymous I've had an update about this and due to the fact it's a trial the call costs will initially show as the old price. After a short while the charges should show the new International Calling price in your My O2.

Please let me know if this doesn't happen and I'll look into it for you.  

[jtuk]

@Martin-O2 Could you please explain to us common mortals the thinking behind this terrible move by o2? Do they think people are just going to sign up for the new service and happily pay 10 times more for the calls they got for£10 a month before? I imagine most International Favorites customers are shocked and disgusted by this move. I certainly will not be paying 5p a minutes for calls that were so reasonable before. Skype has a great unlimited calls to landlines add on and I will have to sign up for that instead of using o2. But o2 signal is so bad in London that Skype rarely works. Yesterday took over five minutes to load a webpage which was all text! Barely get 3G in central London. If you take away or reasonably priced calls the least you could do is give us 4g signal!

[jonsie]

I couldn't agree more @jtuk it's now all about money and taking away apps and bolt ons that were great value but too many people using them and O2 not getting enough money. Customer care is dead now. EE here I come...... 

[jtuk]

They did it again! They switched off International Favourites this morning despite several texts confirming it will end 30th November! So we lose 6 days of use they promised us black on white in several texts. I called them and they are making no sense. Nobody seems to take responsibility. They just try and push you to the new international calls which are hugely expensive in comparison. Noone in management was "available". Vague talk of compensation but nothing clear. Vague promises of a new International Favourites possibly in the new year but they can't tell us. You cannot trust this company any longer. I don't know what is going on behind the scenes at o2 but this is a company which no longer is interested in giving its customers a good, decent service. Maybe they want to go bust?? 

They switched it off at the beginning of the month but reinstated it after several phonecalls. Now they did it again and say they can't reinstate it again! 

After this experience in the past month i will have to tell everyone iknow to never sign up with this deceitful company. As a consumer you make an agreement with a company and you trust what they tell you (in writing!) - they then go and break this trust and think a token compensation will make up to having been lied to!

Disgraceful.

[jonsie]

I can understand your anger @jtuk and you just wonder what's next. I'm hoping TU won' b swswitched off before the end of the month as I want to delete the account and all my info before it disappears into the ether.

All this just before Christmas too.! That's  two widely used  apps and an essential  bolt on for those with family and business needs overseas. Christmas will now be more expensive for thousands of customers. 

Very well done O2. Great timing! 

Stay with this company in decline for exactly what? 

[Anonymous]

I've not used the new bolt on but did receive a message similar to the one you received. I have checked my account and the new, international bolt on has been added to my account but I am reluctant to test the service. O2 did say initial billing would use the old rates but these charges would be replaced with the new bolt on rates. They just didn't say when those adjustments might be made.

There is a significant difference between old rates and new bolt on rates, something like £1.20 per minute versus £0.02 per minute for calls to Canada. The question is, how much do you trust O2 to do what they say they'll do? Are you willing to gamble that you'll be charged new rates instead of old rates. I had hoped to chat with O2 about thr concerns but that service seems to be out of order today.

From your comments it looks like O2 can't be trusted overly much.

[Anonymous]

It sounds like everyone is having issues or concerns about the mysterious new bolt on. Clarification from O2 is critical before anyone is going to gamble on the rates.