O2 have ruined my credit score !

[Beckyelizabeth]

I am in the process of buying a house and am now having massive issues because of o2 applying bad credit to my name.
The account was opened in error by one of your stores in street, UK. They opened the wrong tariff in June for my phone , and assured me they had cancelled this first account. I therefore went on to open the account with the correct tariff with them and this is the phone I have now. A month later (July 2018) I got charged for 2 phones! At first no one believed me and thought I was lying, and thought I was trying to get away with not paying for a phone!! Eventually after many hours on the phone and live chat, it was agreed that I would be compensated by o2 and to put in an indemnity claim for £34 for the phone cost that I was incorrectly charged.
Just when I thought the nightmare was over, 3 months later I am applying for a mortgage - everything was almost finalised - and now I have had huge trouble due to ‘bad credit’. Turns out, the account that was opened in error was never properly closed and due to the indemnity claim of £34 (which I was told to do by an advisor) was now showing as a debt.
I never received anything from o2 about being in debt to them- probably because this account has been like a needle in a haystack to even find!
After numerous phone calls again, someone has put the account to £0 and closed it. However the matter of taking this £34 ‘late payment’ off of my credit score to get a mortgage has been tricky. I have emailed the credit file referrals team however without explaining over the phone they are never going to understand this complicated story. It is ridiculous that these people can’t be phoned, and I have since been told it will take 10 working days to get a reply , then 30-60 working days for the credit to be taken off my name!!!!
This has ruined my chances of getting on the property ladder as the developer is never going to wait 3 months for me to get a mortgage - If the credit even does get wiped eventually !

I am appalled at the system. I have never had late payments in my life and to find out my credit score is ‘poor’ because of £34 is beyond a joke.
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.

[jonsie]

Good luck @Beckyelizabeth

[MI5]

Great result and another win for the community

[Martin-O2]

Good to hear @Beckyelizabeth! The other credit rating agencies will update in the time scales mentioned in my message. 

Thanks to everyone for your contributions to this thread. 

[Marcijan]

Appreciate this post is quite old but I’ve got a near identical issue and my mortgage application is also being refused!

I signed up back in February and had a contract sim only which o2 couldn’t get my account to port over to so I was told it was easier to cancel and open a new one which successfully worked.

I then received a bill for the other number in March for £180 which I rang to dispute and was told this was an error, and would be resolved

My credit report shows I’ve paid this £180 bill in feb and March and then defaulted on the payment in April, I have however never made any payments for this as my sim only deal is around £20 a month which I’ve paid on time via direct debit since March!

Trying to get a response from the credit referral team is like getting blood from a stone and I need this sorting really quickly!

Please help!

[MI5]

@O2Lisa 

Would you be able to help @Marcijan ?

[O2Lisa]

Thanks for the tag @MI5. I will private message you now @Marcijan 

[Marcijan]

Thanks for tagging someone who can help and thanks for the swift message Lisa, I've replied with the details you asked for

[MI5]

You're most welcome @Marcijan 

[Marcijan]

Hi all just to update I’ve had an email today which I had to access via all sorts of encrypted channels to say the error is now rectified and the note will be removed from my credit file but this may take up to 30 days to show! Hopefully it will be quicker as happened in this initial post!

Many thanks again especially to @o2-Lisa

If you could check your private messages too that would be great !

[MaxS]

Hi Martin, I'm having a similar problem to the one that you helped Becky with. I've emailed O2 twice but with no response over the past couple weeks. Please could you help me escalate this? I'd be happy to provide you with any information on the issue that you need.