It's a ranty blog I'm afraid but I'm standing up for the little people and all those who have been lied to by O2 Mobile.
At the beginning of the month, the teen's contract on his Blackberry was due to run out. Now we're talking a young man who uses an extraordinary amount of data in a month so he knew he had to be very careful about the next deal he got himself into.
After endless calls to their 'advisers' and 'Gurus'- trust me, I am now using both terms VERY lightly - he was told in a black and white transcript on 'chat', later confirmed in an email, that he'd be allowed unlimited data but his speed would be slowed down to 15 kb/s, but not stopped, once he reached his allowance. He also wouldn't have to pay any extra for this. Their website also states (at time of writing):
If you don’t purchase additional data and continue to use the O2 network, your service will be slowed down.
So we weren't best pleased to find, two weeks into the new phone contract, that this was an out and out lie. On reaching his limit today, his data allowance was stopped altogether.
I was not a happy Misfit when I found that, due to the fact that my son's phone is in my name, I had to spend the best part of an hour on the phone to be talked over, talked down to and eventually told by 'Matthew-I'm-Sorry-I-Can't-Give-You-My-Surname' that there was 'no one above him' (Oh, perlease!) and we had clearly been 'misadvised'.
So that means that we had entered into a contract based on false information. Fact. So if I go and buy a car and the salesman tells me the brakes are fine but the first time I drive it, I find myself wrapped around a tree due to brake failure, my family would just have to console themselves with the fact that I'd been 'misadvised' would they?
By my reckoning, 'misadvising' is telling porky-pies - unless the 'adviser' hasn't been given up-to-date information - in which case they should at least check their facts when asked to clarify a specific point. In any event, the company should stand by what clients are told by their representatives.
I was then offered the option of buying a 'bolt-on' to resolve the situation. Excuse me? My sausages and cauliflower cheese are burning in the oven while I try to sort the mess you've created and you expect me to pay extra for the privilege? I don't think so.
At no point could I get 'Poor-Matthew-With-No-Surname' to admit that we were at a deadlock ('I'm not at liberty to answer that question') and that my only option would be to take our complaint to OFCOM - the one bit of training these so called 'Gurus' must have received is to just keep talking over people until they roll over and die.
But I am The Misfit so I carried on regardless until I eventually spoke to someone above 'Poor-Matthew' - yes, such individuals do exist, you poor deluded man! This gentleman was so helpful and so polite, he was even able to give me his surname - funny, that! But he could still only admit that we had indeed been given false information and was actually surprised when I quoted his company's website info back at him.
'No. That shouldn't still be on our webpage.'
More lies, I told him.
I was met with what I can only imagine was a panicked silence. Eventually the deal that was put on the table to me was a fair one and one that I was prepared to accept. But we can't be the only people having the wool pulled over our eyes by tricky words and back-tracking on deals, so I won't leave it at that - I once won a case for my mother over a £500 gas bill because they'd stopped sending her bills even though she'd alerted them to the fact!
Anyone that knows me will know that I won't be unfairly treated, lied to or 'misadvised' - that's a surefire way to get The Misfit's feathers ruffled. And you don't want that!
