80% tariff hike: Have 02 now breached the terms & conditions of my contract?

Run_to_da_hills

O2 to raise call charges by up to 80%

"Mobile phone company O2 is set to raise call and text charges for its pre-paid and pay-monthly customers from Monday week. The cost of initiating a call for pre-paid customers is to rise 80% from 5c to 9c. Pay-monthly users who exceed their bundled minutes will see the costs of making a call rise 35%. Text message charges outside text bundles will rise from 10c to 11c".

http://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/o2-to-raise-call-charges-by-up-to-80-464084.html

This move is an obvious fingers up at the recent EU directive on data roaming charges. O2 have now decided to take it out on their customers.

I took out an 18 month contract with 02 in November which included a "free" Sony Ericsson W995 as a part of the deal. They have now breached the T&C of the original contract I signed with them thus making it very expensive if I exceed the minutes and text message limits of my current agreed plan.

Can I just walk away from 02 now without being penalised?

Whats the story with the phone will they chase after it?

Do I keep it or am I supposed to hand it back?

coreman101

I read that you are entitled to walk away on a national newpaper this week, and O2 have claimed that they have received very few customers requesting to break out.
Give them a ring its free to do so and tell them what options are available to you, and they might offer you a better deal like with me, i have free texts to all networks.
good luck and you can always leave and sign up with another network but they might do the same later, of get a better new phone on a 12 month contract

Run_to_da_hills

coreman101 wrote: »

I read that you are entitled to walk away on a national newpaper this week, and O2 have claimed that they have received very few customers requesting to break out.
Give them a ring its free to do so and tell them what options are available to you, and they might offer you a better deal like with me, i have free texts to all networks.
good luck and you can always leave and sign up with another network but they might do the same later, of get a better new phone on a 12 month contract

Will call into them Monday cheers.

I remember with Sky (in the analogue days, not sure about now) they used to keep you on the old pricing until your contract expired. If O2 don't do this then I'd imagine it would be a breach of contract, in which case you could terminate it without penalty.

I'd also suggest getting on to them.

skywalker_208

yea id get on to the. Ill probably call them myself on Monday.
Probably move networks over this crap. O2 is sh1te in my area anyway and anytime I contact them they come out with the same nonsense of 99% coverage blah blah (population of course not geographically)

tallaghtoutlaws

I know about 10 people who broke their contract due to it. It was in the papers there last week. A lot of the people I know got Iphones on the €60 tariff the one O2 make you sign to and most called O2 to have it changed because of these hikes and O2 change it to a smaller tariff.

Ste.phen

Yep, this was announced almost a month ago, need to cancel before monday to get out of the contract with no penalty.
They might let you do it ON monday if you're persistent.

[EDIT] I was wrong about the date, sorry! [/EDIT]

krudler

You have until the 12th, and what they said about "very few" customers leaving is utter nonsense, they even had a team dedicated to handling the volume of calls from people doing it in customer care.

AARRRRGH

krudler wrote: »

You have until the 12th, and what they said about "very few" customers leaving is utter nonsense, they even had a team dedicated to handling the volume of calls from people doing it in customer care.

I was going to upgrade to the iPhone 4 with them.
The between the reports of reception issues and this i decided not to bother.
If the demo reports (the ones that actually measure speed and reception as opposed to just counting bars) give the iPhone 4 the all clear i'll buy somewhere else and move network.

Its a recession. Prices should be going down and not up. Anyone putting them up is asking for an exodus. The other networks should jump on this and offer switcher deals.

whiterebel

More than a few, I'd warrant....

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055941844

Another thread on the Mobiles & PDA forum about it as well.....

dudara

Lots of posters have managed to leave their iPhone contracts due to this change in the contract terms.

Ring Customer Service first thing on Monday.

declan_8

I just called 1909 and they claim to no longer deal with this and have a dedicated team setup to handle these requests and they aparently will give me a call back tomorrow or Wednesday to arrange the cancellation. She would'nt give me the direct line access claimed to not have it but I can imagine I will be getting a call trying to persuade me to remain in contract, as if! Well unless they give me a healthy upgrade

wayne0308

declan_8 wrote: »

I just called 1909 and they claim to no longer deal with this and have a dedicated team setup to handle these requests and they aparently will give me a call back tomorrow or Wednesday to arrange the cancellation. She would'nt give me the direct line access claimed to not have it but I can imagine I will be getting a call trying to persuade me to remain in contract, as if! Well unless they give me a healthy upgrade

I rang up to do the same today and she gave me the same story, that there was a special group dealing with this. She did actually try to patch me over to them but I was on hold for about 5 mins so she just took me off hold and said that they had a queue as long as your arm and that they ring me back tomorrow or wednesday at the latest.

This doesn't actually come into effect until the 12th she said, so we have until then to get off our contracts. Continued usage after this date would indicate our acceptance of the change apparently. But I suppose as long as you've rang them it wont matter as they'll have record of it.

disco girl

Hey lads,

Am with 02 and was thinking of jumping ship with the increase in the tariffs, when I signed up I got a phone, so would I be entitled to get the phone unlocked because they are the ones in breach of the contract?

wayne0308

disco girl wrote: »

Hey lads,

Am with 02 and was thinking of jumping ship with the increase in the tariffs, when I signed up I got a phone, so would I be entitled to get the phone unlocked because they are the ones in breach of the contract?

As far as I know when your taken off contract you will actually still be a bill pay customer of o2. It just means that now you'll be free to change to another provider or to pay as you go if you want without any penalty for jumping ship before your contract is up.

The phone will still be yours and you can call them up to get unlocking codes for your phone or they can do it over the network. This can take some time I heard.

Run_to_da_hills

Just got notified by 02 about my release in a text message: "Thank you for contacting 02 you have been removed from your contract as per request. Your services continue as normal Thank you from 02."

I will more than likely stick with them until such time as my phone either gets lost or stolen.

Bosshogg

Full thread on this over here...

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055941844