o2 Rip Off Customers By Taking Higher Payments from Bank Account.

[Anonymous]

Has anyone else found this to be the case: I recently had a tariff of just over £37 per month. Not using all of my allowance I have just changed to a 'simplicity' tariff of just £11 per month. I changed contracts on the 15th March- this being the same day as my bill was produced. My bill was for £41.05 (there was some phone usage that was mine and I have no issues with) I contacted o2 via live chat and after not far short of 2 hours was told that my bill was now £18.05 and this was the amount that would be taken from my account. Initially I was told that the amount could not be altered as the bills are 'automated' - therefore there is nothing they can do. A totally idiotic stance from a company managing global technologies. Well with no surprose to most, the amount taken from my account was - you guessed it- £41.05.

This is totally unacceptable and o2 have now taken funds from my account that they know they are not entitled to. They have retained the funds. They have made no attempt to return the funds to my account.  Therefore in law they have committed an offence of accepting a wrongful credit.

I plan on making a formal complaint against o2 and contacting the ombudsman and intend to try all I can to prevent mobile phone companies from undertaking this corrupt practice. By holding £23 of my money for over a month- they have applied a credit to my bill- which at £11 per month will take over two months to hit a nil balance- they have had the opportunity to bank this money / invest this money and earn from this money- my money- all at nil cost to themselves.

You may say it is only £23, but multiply this by say 10 customers, 100 customers, a 1000 customers and look at the amount of money that o2 is getting each month-free of charge- to the pure detriment of their customers.

Please let me know if you have suffered similar problems / issues and I will try to collate and take as many examples as I can to the ombudsman. This is a corrupt practice for which there is no excuse. They should not and must not be allowed to continue this.

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Have you spoken to cs on 202 to ask them to return any funds owing to you ?

I believe you would be expected to go through o2's complaint procedures before an ombudsman would get involved.

http://service.o2.co.uk/IQ/SRVS/CGI-BIN/WEBCGI.EXE?New,Kb=Companion,question=ref(User):str(Mobile),C...

[MI5]

Any credit on your account can be refunded to source by simply applying for it

[jonsie]

O2 will always credit the account unless specifically requested to return the money to the originating account.

https://www.o2.co.uk/apps/help/help?qid=1&q1=34

[Anonymous]

Thanks for you replies thus far. In summary to your points:

I have not asked for a refund as yet- as they originally stated that they would only collect the lower amount, and I have only just found out they have taken the wrong amount.

 Re the issue of raising a complaint- below is my latest attempt to do so via live chat- a service that appears to be a total waste of time. I have deleted my phone number and letters of my password for obvious reasons:

O2 : Ken, I'm sorry that you're not happy with our services.
O2 : I'll check your account details and do my best to help you out.
O2 : Can I please get your full name?
Ken: Can I ask how long this is likely to take? As you can see I have already spent a lot of time on live chat on this subject and got nowhere. I now wish it to be formally lodged as a complaint and a full review undertaken. I would rather you give me a complaint ref number, have the matter reviewed and e-mail your proposed resolution to this matter. I can then decided to either accept your proposals or take this further.
O2 : I would suggest you to please help me with your details so that I can verify your account and help you in a better way.
O2 : Can I please get your full name?
Ken: ??????????? (name was supplied)
O2 : Thank you.
O2 : Is ??????????? your concerned mobile number?
Ken: yes
O2 : Many thanks for confirming your number to me. I just need to verify your account details.
O2 : Please can you tell me the 3rd & 5th character of your security answer?
Ken: ? and ?
O2 : Perfect!
O2 : I can see that you're getting charged as per your usage and we've already applied a credit of £23.00 on your account as goodwill gesture and we'll not be able to offer you more.
O2 : If you wish to escalate this issue further, I can transfer you to my supervisor and the wait time is less than a minute?
Ken: Sorry, what do you mean a goodwill gesture. There is nothing goodwill about this at all. That is the money you have paid back to my account after incorrectly taking the wrong amount from my account. You should have taken only 18.05 and took 41.05. You haven't understood this at all.
O2 : I'm sorry however, we'll not be able to offer you more as we've already given you a credit. I would suggest you to please take this further to me supervisor. You don't need to repeat yourself as he'll check our chat.
O2 : Shall I transfer you to him?
Ken: As stated before, please lodge as a formal complaint, provide me with a complaint ref number and have someone review this properly and fully. Don't just have a half hearted guess at what the issues are, and then make ridiculous statements about my money being returned to me being a goodwill gesture.
O2 : Shall I transfer you to him?
O2 : You don't need to repeat yourself as he'll check our chat.
Ken: yes, because clearly you are unable to understand the basics of my complaint or just don't care.
O2 : Please stay connected.
info: Hold on. You're being put through to O2 : Ralphie.
info: You're through to 'O2 : Ralphie'
O2 : Hello Ken. I'm Ralphie. Please give me few minutes to discuss your case with Subu.
Ken: okay
O2 : Thanks for waiting. I've discussed your case with Subu and can see that we have already applied credit of £23 on your account for incorrect charges. And you can see the same in recent charges section of your bill. I'm sorry for the trouble you've faced. However, we have given correct information regarding the charges and we would not be able to apply more credit.
Ken: I'm not asking for more credit, just someone to lodge my complaint, provide me with a ref number and then have the matter reviewed in full.
O2 : I'm sorry from our end we have reviewed the complete details. If you want you can send your details to our email team as well so that they can also check if any alternate resolution can be given.
O2 : Email: ComplaintReviewService@o2.com
O2 : Please make sure to include full details of your complaint, along with your mobile/account numbers and a day time contact telephone number if different.
Ken: so are you going to lodge this as a complaint and provide me with a ref number or not?
O2 : Yes. You can note down chat reference number as ?????????????. This has details regarding the case which we discussed on above chat.
Ken: Thanks. Goodbye.
O2 : Goodbye and take care

Not really a good experience as a customer.

[Anonymous]

Live chat are non uk outsourced call centres that are fine for general low level enquiries but not a service I suggest to contact for account enquiries.

[Anonymous]

I'm quickly learning that the live chat sessions are of very limited value. Such a shame as the concept is sound, its just the actual process where it appears to go wrong, especially when the o2 staff are listed as complaint advisors, or similar.

[Anonymous]

Yes a subject discussed in previous threads.

The service does have its limited uses.