I am in the process of buying a house and getting a mortgage, but I am now having huge issues because of O2 applying bad credit to my name.
To give context to the story, I had an account with O2 for a couple of years, but closed the account in 2017 with a balance of zero. At this point I had moved on and set up a new contract with another provider, and also moved address, ceasing contact with my family, who I lived with until I needed to cut ties for personal (physical and emotional) reasons. I stopped receiving letters from my old address at this point, due to the cutting of contact. I had updated other addresses at this point to reflect my new address, but there was little point in doing so for closed accounts and I moved forward with my life.
However, I started to notice that I was starting to get some missed payments show on my credit score in 2018, and decided to contact O2 because I found this very strange, as I had closed my account (my balance was zero when I closed the account - I was on a pay monthly contract so it automatically got paid off by direct debit every month, and I had never missed a payment in the past).
When I phoned O2, they told me that the account had gone to a debt collection agency, but that if I paid my debts with them, my credit history would be rectified and the payments removed. The customer service advisor told me that everything was going to be fine - and I thought that this was incredibly reassuring and much easier a process than I thought.
I naively waited quite some time for this to show on my account, but it did not. Because of all the difficulty contacting O2, I left it, and did not re-contact them until I wanted to make a mortgage application in 2020. I was rejected for my application, so I contacted O2 to explain. The customer services this time around instructed me to get in touch with their Amendments team (AmendmentTeam@o2.com), and said nothing could be done over the phone (which I had never been told in the past, but perhaps their processes had changed). I contacted the team via email, and never received a response.
Because of the pandemic, and a couple of tough years, I left it where it was. The times were trying enough, without having to deal with mortgage applications. I am now re-trying for a mortgage application, and again finding the same problem. It's causing me so much stress and headache because I am finding the same problems with O2. I have called and not received any support, apart from to contact the Amendments team over email. I am now 30 years old, with a generally good credit history, with no other missed payments to my name!
I finally want to make a step forward in life; O2 is just not giving me the ability to do that or even talk to them about it. I don't even have access to any O2 records on their online portal when I sign in, because the contract was a significant amount of time ago.
I'm not entirely sure where to turn at this point. I am having sleepless nights, my anxiety is increasing, and I am feeling incredibly depressed about this situation. In the best case scenario, O2 would be able to remove these defaults from my account and let me move on with my life, but I just can't manage to speak to anyone properly about it to explain the situation - an email doesn't seem to justify it enough!
I am really saddened by this as O2 was a good provider until this - and for something not of my own making.
Can any managers on this site please escalate this for me or members give me advice on how to proceed. I am going to go financial Ombudsman Service with my case unless it is resolved in a more timely fashion.
