Poor service

[Anonymous]

I would like to share my poor service with you all. I will keep this brief.

My "24 month contract" is not actually a 24 month contract, its "we will keep charging you until 30 days after you cancel" contract. I expect a 24 month contract to ... end after 24 month perhaps?
Customer service is poor, the first agent "Jeremy" could barely string two sentances together, and did not understand the concept of a happy customer, and it had to be escalated to "John." Despite being a "supervisor" John could not solve my issue or provide me an explanation, yet came up with the same patronising comments time after time, and so here we are. Perhaps the Ombudsman, Facebook or other social media will attract O2's attention.

Extract:

richard: at 20:59:43
so, please refund this months bill, and cease charging me
richard: at 20:59:50
the contract has expired
Jeremy: at 21:01:13
It was lovely chatting with you <-- ?????
Jeremy: at 21:01:13
Is there anything else I can help you with? <-- ?????
richard: at 21:01:29
please let me speak to your supervisor

I will not be recommending my friends or colleagues to use O2 in the future and I will actively seek reimbursment for the months charged after my contract ended which I did not verbally or in writing, agree to.

[Bambino]

Your complaint is totally without merit. The Terms & Conditions have been spelled out for you. No one is patronising you. You are just wrong in your assessment of what O2's responsibility, and your responsibility is. When you find Terms & Conditions from another mobile phone provider that is different from what you have on O2 concerning a minimum term contract, come back and show us.

[Anonymous]

I will summarise my issues for you to be clear;

- I (as a customer) wanted a traditional contract of 24 months that ended after 24 months
- It is reasonable to expect the customer may forget when this expiry is "due"
- After using 0 minutes after the end of contract I would not expect a reasonable request refused on an honest mistake and to retain my custom
- It is inconvenient for the customer to contact O2 to "end the contract
- I understand the terms and conditions, but unfortunately overlooked the "minimum term
- Customer support is slow, patronising and unempathetic and did not resolve my issue

I understand I am partially at fault, but the way this was handled ultimately led me to a complaint.

[perksie]

Bambino is right, this applies to all the networks and has done since mobile contracts started.

There would be total chaos if O2 were to cut everyone's phones off after the minimum period expired.

If you didn't understand the contract why did you agree to it?

[Anonymous]

I am not the first person who overlooked the terms and conditions and I wont be the last. I also wont be the last person to expect a 24 month contract to end after 24 months. For the majority of customers this is convenient. For the minority (still a large volume) this is inconvenient.

Im my line of business we offer customers 12,24 and 36 month contracts and they end after 12,24, or 36 months, unless they request a renewal, or we offer it to them, and we have practically 99% satisfaction rate as far as sales are concerned. We also offer customers renewal reminders in various mediums.

Minimum term lengths are abused by many businesses to gain extra profit of those who forget to cancel, or overlook/forget T&Cs. You should be able to opt in to have your contract auto renewed (as we do) then its very clear cut.

[perksie]

If you're in business you should understand why they do it like this, I don't think you can be!

We took the trouble to find all this out and you didn't, so you have to learn by your mistakes.

I'm going to leave you to it as I suspect we're wasting our time explaining this to you.

[Bambino]

You're completely missing the point. The contract you think you should have for a mobile phone does not exist, and never has. Not for O2 or any other provider. Just because your business offers that kind of contract doesn't mean that O2 should.

[Anonymous]

I am clearly wasting my time explaining my views also. Our customer retention rate surely exceeds that of O2, and quite frankly I now understand why after this experience.

It also proves that people are unwilling to listen and digest the views of the consumer.

I am not disputing the terms and conditions, I am disputing the nature of this process, in conjunction with the customer support, which is proven to be exceptionally poor.

[Anonymous]

I am not missing the point because I am expressing my opinion, which is valid, and one with which I have put forward to O2. I am suggesting that companies should make it clearer on the website and when they purchase that they offer minimum contracts, not buried in small print.

[perksie]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

Our customer retention rate surely exceeds that of O2, and quite frankly I now understand why after this experience.

---

You seem to know very little about O2 or how it works, they signed up 200,000 contract customers last quarter and this is increasing on a regular basis.

They are also the mobile company with the least number of complaints in the UK.

Please don't quote facts at us unless you can justify them.

[Anonymous]

Taking a cross section of my friends, family and colleagues who have been with various providers I can say only one out of 30 has stuck with O2, and my point is that in my line of business we aim to please the customer, not turn a quick profit.

As I stated previously I would have offered the customer an apology and refund, considering no minutes had been used and the end of contract not made clear, and that an honest mistake was made, in a polite and efficient manor. I am also sure I would have retained the customers business at any cost.

Now O2 have lost me as a customer for life and other friends/family/colleagues who I can steer away from them.