Are we trapped in contracts?

BeBetter

Hi folks, I just wanted to ask a question and get some advice on a problem I'm having..... a lot of problems I've been having this year!

I all started back in August when I lost my phone, I'm with O2 and I had an insurance policy with Phonecover which was sold to me by O2 when I upgraded my phone. I lost the phone on a Sunday and I rang Phonecover on Monday twice to find out how to claim. They told me to go online to their website and fill out the form. I filled out the form and contacted the Gardai and got them to sign the form. My claim was rejected because I hadn't notified O2 customer care within 24 hours. Despite me ringing phonecover themselves twice within 24 hours to ask how to claim and there was no mention of calling O2 and despite having notified the Gardai within 24 hours. I appealed the decision and the appeal was denied. So I had to go and pay €600 to replace the phone. I then cancelled the insurance obviously as it was costing me €15 a month and turned out to be worthless.

So then I had the new phone just a couple of months and I plugged it in to upgrade to ios 8, when I plugged it out again it wasn't picking up any phone signal. I took it into an O2 shop the next day and they sent it off for repair. They didn't have a replacement phone to give me so I bought a phone for €70 so that I'd have access to e-mail etc while the repair was being carried out. A few days later I got an e-mail saying that my phone had liquid damage and that it would cost me €250 to repair it as the damage wasn't covered by warranty. This was despite the fact that the day I bought the phone I bought a cover for it and it had never been out of the cover or so much as taken out of my pocket during a rain shower so I don't know how there could be liquid damage. So I told them I wasn't spending any more money, I was looking at nearly €1000 just to maintain my phone service with the same phone, not even an upgrade in there, and I asked them to return the phone unrepaired. In the meantime I contacted O2 on their chat facility and I asked them if there was anything they could do to help me and they said no. I asked them what would it cost me to cancel my contract and they told me €450. I then e-mailed their main O2 Customer Care e-mail address outlining all the problems above and I got no reply.

So do I just keep accepting this and keep paying out money on top of money or at what point are we entitled to say that they're not providing the service and that they have broken contract? Do we have any real rights in that instance or do they have all their bases covered????

A small bit frustrated as you can tell

Paulw

BeBetter wrote: »

I all started back in August when I lost my phone,

So then I had the new phone just a couple of months and I plugged it in to upgrade to ios 8, when I plugged it out again it wasn't picking up any phone signal.

So do I just keep accepting this and keep paying out money on top of money or at what point are we entitled to say that they're not providing the service and that they have broken contract?

How are either of those issues the fault of O2? You lost your phone.

You updated to iOS8.

Both caused you not to be able to access the services provided by O2.

I agree that phone insurance is a mess, and they obviously will do everything they can to get out of paying. But, my first call after losing a phone would be to the mobile operator to have them block the phone, so that whoever has it can't run up a massive bill. My next call would be to report it lost/stolen to the Gardai. My final call would be to check about insurance.

With software updates, especially Apple, there are usually a few bugs that come up. Now, the fact that the repair centre said there was water damage is a separate issue. I never believe their claim of water damage. But, you would have to prove that they are incorrect.

With a software fault though, could you not do a factory reset and then reload a recent backup?

But, again, none of these issues are the fault of O2.

nava

Do you know if O2 sent the phone to Apple to fix or some other repair service? If they sent to a repair centre other than apple maybe you could try contacting apple directly they are quite good to deal with.

ted1

BeBetter wrote: »

Hi folks, I just wanted to ask a question and get some advice on a problem I'm having..... a lot of problems I've been having this year!

I all started back in August when I lost my phone, I'm with O2 and I had an insurance policy with Phonecover which was sold to me by O2 when I upgraded my phone. I lost the phone on a Sunday and I rang Phonecover on Monday twice to find out how to claim. They told me to go online to their website and fill out the form. I filled out the form and contacted the Gardai and got them to sign the form. My claim was rejected because I hadn't notified O2 customer care within 24 hours. Despite me ringing phonecover themselves twice within 24 hours to ask how to claim and there was no mention of calling O2 and despite having notified the Gardai within 24 hours. I appealed the decision and the appeal was denied. So I had to go and pay €600 to replace the phone. I then cancelled the insurance obviously as it was costing me €15 a month and turned out to be worthless.

So then I had the new phone just a couple of months and I plugged it in to upgrade to ios 8, when I plugged it out again it wasn't picking up any phone signal. I took it into an O2 shop the next day and they sent it off for repair. They didn't have a replacement phone to give me so I bought a phone for €70 so that I'd have access to e-mail etc while the repair was being carried out. A few days later I got an e-mail saying that my phone had liquid damage and that it would cost me €250 to repair it as the damage wasn't covered by warranty. This was despite the fact that the day I bought the phone I bought a cover for it and it had never been out of the cover or so much as taken out of my pocket during a rain shower so I don't know how there could be liquid damage. So I told them I wasn't spending any more money, I was looking at nearly €1000 just to maintain my phone service with the same phone, not even an upgrade in there, and I asked them to return the phone unrepaired. In the meantime I contacted O2 on their chat facility and I asked them if there was anything they could do to help me and they said no. I asked them what would it cost me to cancel my contract and they told me €450. I then e-mailed their main O2 Customer Care e-mail address outlining all the problems above and I got no reply.

So do I just keep accepting this and keep paying out money on top of money or at what point are we entitled to say that they're not providing the service and that they have broken contract? Do we have any real rights in that instance or do they have all their bases covered????

A small bit frustrated as you can tell

What service are they not prividing ?
If I was you I would take the insurance company to the small claims court, you shouldn't have to contact O2 at all. The phobe is independant of the and the only need for them to be invved is if a bill was clocked up by a third party and you trued to claim that.


As an FYI, your insurance was costing you 180 a year, as a percentage of cost that's 30% of cost.
That's like paying 180,000 annual insurance on a 600k house. How does that sound ?

BeBetter

When I lost my phone I dropped it into a lake so there was no risk of anyone using the phone obviously. Now that phone was definitely liquid damaged. It's still at the bottom of Lough Derg. For the new phone after the update I tried restoring to previous backup, doing a full factory restore, nothing worked.

As for the role that O2 play in all this...

O2 sold me the insurance policy, when I was let down by the insurance company I asked O2 if they could help and they washed their hands of it, which I expected. They did however take the €600 off me for the new phone. When the new phone then developed a problem they sent it off to their approved repair centre, but they couldn't give me a replacement phone, they could however take €70 off me for me to buy a replacement. Then they were able to send me a quote for €250 to repair the phone, despite my claim that there was no way that there was any liquid damage to the phone as I had only used it under normal circumstances and it had been in a protective case 100% of the time. I hadn't been near any lakes. Again customer service washed their hands of it. I asked them if there was an escalation process that I could appeal to and I was told to e-mail the main customer service account. I did that explaining the full situation and two weeks later I haven't had a reply.

Maybe you're happy with that level of service, I'm certainly not. But they did manage to take €80 out of my account every month for the past 4 years or more, always on time, never a delay.

BostonB

Get an independent report done on the phone and take it to the small claims.

TBH this who weakness of phones to moisture damage and the lack of protection from insurance and poor service, means I switched to cheap PAYG phones. The phone and the network are pretty much disposable now for me.