Hi all,
Don’t want to bore you with all the details but to cut it short I was due a mobile phone upgrade this month and I quite fancied the new n95, the 8 GB jobbie. So I had a search online to find the best possible deal as in the past o2 have tried to pull the wool over my eyes with offering "unbeatable deals", and a quick search generally always finds a much better deal with other service providers etc.
So I explain my situation to the guy and tell him I want the n95 as an upgrade, immediately he informs me that I would have to pay £120 to be entitled to this phone due to me wanting to stay on a 12 month contract. For me 18months is far too long to keep a phone as I don’t seem to look after them very well and besides I like to have a new phone each year. So he explains that 18month contracts are the new 12month contract and that 24 month contract are going to become more popular! WTF 2 years that’s crazy. Having done my homework earlier I found I could get the n95 8 GB from dial a phone on a 12 month contract for £35 a month plus get the phone for free, good deal gives 400mins and 500texts. So I explain this to the guy and he says they are unable to help me out, immediately I say I want to cancel my contract and I am transferred to another person who asks the reasons why I want to cancel etc etc. He tells me hold for a short while and comes back to offer me the phone for free but at £40 a month and that’s the best they can do, apparently dial a phone must be losing money of the deal, yeah right! He actually advises me to take the dial a phone contract and we set the date for disconnection of the current contract.
Having had confirmation that the contract is cancelled and my final bill will be with me at the end of the month I go and order the phone from dial-a-phone. Really simple and straight forward and the phone will be here the next day, great delivery times I’m impressed. About 3 hours later O2 phone me and are very apologetic that they couldn’t help me out earlier and as a good will gesture would like to offer me a better deal. Amazingly they can now match the deal that dial a phone are offering and even reduce the tariff down by £5 a month and even throw in 18months turn by turn navigation subscription. Great news and they advise me that I can cancel the contract with dial a phone due to distance selling regulations or something or other. So both phones arrive the next day and I leave the dial a phone still packaged as it going straight back.
Here the problem begins apparently I should of received a returns authorisation form with the dial a phone package however its no where to be found, without it they wont accept the phone!. I try and find the contact number but can only find one on the website, upon phoning it I am told that it is a completely automated phone call. The computer introduces its self as Rachel lol WTF as if it makes more believable. Anyway this service is a complete waste of time and my problem is not even listed in the options . I can find any other contact number on the website or the details sent to me and the only other option is an email query. Its says they try to answer every query within 48 hours!, not great when I only have 7 days to return the phone. I am not worried that I’m going to end up with two contract phones . I sent an email query yesterday and still no response from them, i just feel that the whole thing is a big con and the 7 day return policy is just to entice you in and commit to a contract.
Has anyone had any similar dealings with dial a phone or and even better got a contact number so I can actually speak to a real human being. Why can’t anything be simply and straight forward in life, to much bureaucracy. The most annoying thing is that O2 try and offer you a crap deal when they can obviously offer much better ones. Anyone upgrading it seems playing one company off against another can be quite beneficial.
Sorry this is rather long but I just wanted to let people know, as from reading reviews on the net I am not the first with this problem.
Thanks for your time
Chris
