Anyone else have bad experiences with o2?

Andy!!

About a month ago, I got badly mugged somewhere in the Lower Gardiner Street area in Dublin. I came round two days later in the Mater Hospital. My wallet was stolen, with about €50 and all my cards in it. Thankfully I had put my phone in some obscure pocket in my jacket and the culprits never found it (I don't even remember the attack to be honest). I had an o2 money card in the wallet at the time, so about a week later I went in to an o2 store to try and get it replaced. I told a sales assistant that my wallet had been stolen, and asked for a new o2 card. He understood this to be a new SIM card, but I'm still not sure to this day why he thought I would keep my SIM card in my wallet. I only noticed the error when I took off the shrink wrapping after leaving the store (I did not need the card immediately). At this point however the SIM in my phone had been de-activated, and I was only able to make emergency telephone calls. So I went to put the new SIM in to my phone just to save hassle, but accidentally took the microSIM out instead of the SIM.
So I took it back to the store, and asked for a new SIM. The same clerk said that they actually had adaptors for that, so I said that would be fine and he went and got one, and put the microSIM in, and 'fitted' it into my phone. At the time I thought I had heard a noise like those copper connector pins bending and breaking but thought nothing of it, as I thought surely the adaptor was the right size and shape for the phone.

Apparently this was not the case. I noticed later after leaving the store that I could still only make emergency calls. Turns out the SIM card slot was too narrow for the plastic adaptor that they fitted, and the connector pins snapped or something. I went back to the same store, and tried to politely notify them that a sales assistant had damaged my phone by jamming this thing into it (it took a lot of effort for them to even remove the adaptor and MicroSIM) and that maybe because of that fact I should just be issued a replacement. But no, it has had to be sent away, roughly for 10 days. So I reluctantly accept this, then get an automated text message a day or two later saying the damage is worse than originally anticipated, and that I can expect a further delay. It has been almost a month now, and I am still without a phone.

Now my question is, if a sales assistant damaged my phone IN THE ACTUAL STORE, why was I not just issued a new phone? The original was bought with o2, online, was bought for me as a christmas present, and I had been trying to fix it before the person I got it from noticed. It was the same clerk that issued me a new SIM instead of a new money card (and therefore deactivating my working one) in the first place that damaged my phone, so at this point I'm rather annoyed. I was told a basic replacement would require a deposit of €50 (probably €20 more than the phone was worth). Getting mugged so bad I woke up in the hospital two days later was bad enough, but this experience with o2 has not made things easier to put it mildly. Surely o2 has insurance if a clerk damages the phone? What if a clerk drops someone's iphone and the screen shatters? Do they get told 'oh sorry that's going to be 15 days' or 'well moore street is around the corner one of the chinese places will replace the screen'? I mean it's not an iPhone or anything, it's a €200 phone. It's not going to bankrupt o2 is it. Maybe if o2 were less concerned with keeping Brian O'Driscoll and crew in chinos and more concerned with helping their customers I would have a phone right now.

I would switch providers, but I've done that before and that ended in months of harrasing phone calls from call centre people in N.Ireland trying to get me to switch back, no matter how many times I told them not to call me, or whether I was in work or not (I was invariably in work). So I switched back out of frustration. I assume this was happening because I had an 086 number but was not on the o2 network. But really I'm sick to the teeth of o2 at this point, and they have made worse what has already been a pretty challenging month for me at this point.

Anyone else been shafted by o2 in the past?

Honey-ec

I have no idea why you're posting this in AH.

Nothingbetter2d

never liked o2... they not much better then three tbh.

Andy!!

Well, 'Honey-ec', because I posted it in the 02 forum and it was largely ignored. Certainly it isnt resolved. So, I am asking others if this is typical behaviour from o2.

Obvious now?

Kiera

You've already posted this in the o2 forum. Why do it again here a week later?

D

Breathing, can't beat it.

Andy!!

Kiera wrote: »

You've already posted this in the o2 forum. Why do it again here a week later?

Read my above post. Much larger traffic in this forum, so I can get a better impression of whether this terrible customer service is the norm with this company.

Seachmall

I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's not the norm.

The people who feel hard done by tend to be the minority in most situations, albeit the vocal minority (not criticising their vocality, just what I believe).

dr.bollocko

Andy!! wrote: »

Read my above post. Much larger traffic in this forum, so I can get a better impression of whether this terrible customer service is the norm with this company.

Please do not use AH simply to reach a larger audience.
If there's a more appropriate forum then I would suggest using it.