Hello, I am looking for some advice on how best to proceed.
Recently when applying for a mortgage in principal, I've been made aware that I have a default from O2 on my credit file. This came as a surprise as I was not an O2 customer.
After some digging I found out that when I signed up for Virgin media broadband in 2021 I received a virgin mobile SIM card as part of the package I purchased. Never used the SIM, it's still in its packaging. This was automatically moved onto O2 sometime in 2023 without me knowing. However it seems my virgin media email address and my billing details did not copy over and when O2 tried and failed to charge me for this SIM eventually they marked the account as defaulted. No letters to my billing address or emails to my virgin media email.
I called O2 multiple times and after countless hours they managed to find the account and advised me the below via email after talking about it on the phone:
"Thank you for your call today. This email is confirm the following actions that have been taken as per your phone call with us. First of
all a credit amount of -£20.01 has been added to the account [Account Number].This will be added within 24 hours and will then allow us to complete a write of reversal. O2 will no longer class the amount as a debt or outstanding balance and the credit will clear all charges associated with the account. Once reversed we will then send a request for Credit
File Amendment with the following agencies; Equifax, Experian & Transunion. Typically a credit file will be updated within 30 to 60
days. Files viewed with other agencies may take longer to update.
If you need to contact us regarding this matter you can contact our O2 Payment Management team on 03442480058 or email CreditFileReferrals@o2.com."
Now reading the above I assumed everything was sorted and it's just a matter of waiting. However when I chased credit file referrals for an update I eventually received the below:
"Account [Account Number] had an outstanding balance of £20.01 written off for internal purposes on 12/12/2023. There has then been an adjustment added onto the account of £20.01 on 14/04/2024 which, instead of being used to reverse the write off balance, has incorrectly been paid to yourself on 25/04/2024 leaving the account in arrears with an active write off balance.
As the money was incorrectly paid to yourself then this is owed back to o2, as such please contact payment management on 0800 588 4213 to discuss this. No amendments can be made until the incorrect funds have been returned"
Turns out they accidentally sent me a cheque for £20.01 (haven't cashed it). Since receiving the above I went into an O2 store where I was given a number to call the "purple team" (turns out I had a legacy account so they couldn't access it) and eventually managed to pay the £20.01 into the account, although they couldn't actually get INTO the account as the email address is a random @o2.co.uk address (auto generated I assume) that I have no access to, therefore can't pass security. But they accept payments without having to pass security and since I knew the exact amount, I thought I might as well pay it to move this along.
I've replied to credit file referrals on their secure email platform letting them know I now returned the money. I also sent them a regular email. No reply. Tried again a week later, a new email and a reply to what they sent, still no reply.
What Im looking for is advice on what to do next. The gentleman in the O2 store just told me to raise this with the ombudsman as "O2 won't take it seriously if you don't."Is this really the best thing to do? Or should I keep sending in emails for an update to credit file referrals? Can I do anything Experian or Equifax side to get things moving?
