O2 stole money from my bank account

[Anonymous]

I received a text from my bank today to say they were putting me on an informal overdraft as I am overdrawn in my account. Looked at my bank account and O2 have taken £157.81 from it, which now means I can't draw any money out of my account until either a) O2 returns my money to me or b) my salary goes into my account on 26th Feb. After a live chat with customer services, then a call to customer services and speaking with a supervisor I am still no further forward with getting my money back and to make things worse, the person on live chat told me I was £200 in credit!! try telling that to my bank. They have advised me that it will be returned in 5 to 10 working days, shame on you O2!!!!!! How can you get away with taking money unlawfully from peoples accounts and then leave them with an empty bank account until you decide to return it. I will be charged a lot of money by my bank to be overdrawn and this bill will fall on O2's doorstep. Your company should be fined for this sort of practice, I used to rave about the good service from O2 and had been a customer for many years but I will NEVER use your company again after this. 

[Anonymous]

@Bremar

Welcome to the Community. As stated we are customers on here.

Re your initial post. O2 offer a 14 day returns policy which is in line with the Distance Selling Regulations. O2 extend this to customers buying in their stores. They are under no obligation to do the latter. It is hardly o2's fault for want of a better word that you were out of the country. That is a matter for you to deal with. So you have no grounds on this issue. Further this is the same with ALL UK networks so had you been with another company you would have had the sane response.

[Anonymous]

@Bremar

Re the issue of passing ships (which has been put forward as a possible reason, not confirmed). When you go from a UK signal to a roaming one you should have received a text from the new network you were latched on to welcoming you. At that point you would have had two choices, accept or manually select a different network.

What action did you take?