I am still in a state of shock (well ok thats a bit dramatic I know).
My wife was with Virgin/Vodafone and got a couple of emails recently telling her the switch to O2 was about to be undertaken. All went well, we thought, until on Monday she received a text saying there was an outstanding balance of £13.10. I looked on our account and noticed that there had been a payment for the phone side but none for the SIM side. So I said it will be because you ar egetting transferred across, dont worry.
36 hours later her phone had been fully blocked, she couldnt send or receive. Which meant we couldnt ring the 'ring this number if you want to discuss things' that the text said to do. Also we couldnt get in to her O2 account (although her Virging account showed zero balance). So I ring on my phone, whch of course is made harder because I am ringing and not her:
(1) 8 minute wait to get through to the operator, go through all security check only to be told 'oh this is not my area, wil have to put you through to another department'
(2) 38 minute wait gets through to the 'other' department. Once again had to go through full security only to be told 'this is the business section, we cant help, let me put you through to someone'
(3) 6 minute wait to a new person. This time its Virgin media and she flatly refused to help us saying the numbe rhad been migrated across correctly, nothing she could do.
(4) 10 minute wait to new person. Back to O2 but this was just an operator and they woud put me through to someone who would be able to help.
(5) 14 minute wait until got put through. Could hear the call centre in the background but the person would not speak and then they put the phone down on me
So after wasting over an hour of my life I tried to log on to the onloine O2 account again. This time the text message actually came through to verify the account and I was able to log on and see the overdue payment of £13.10. Paid it straight away. Ot says the payment can take upto 30 minutes to clear. The bank account shows it has been paid.
Checked again this morning (12 hours after payment) and the account still shows 'overdue payment' yet the balance shows £0. Oh and the phone is still blocked for sending/receiving calls. Looks like thats a call to their wonderful service centre to unlock it.
I also checked the account to see why the overdue payment had arisen as we were on a direct debit with Virgin. It now shows that we pay by cheque. Really!
The other issue here is what is happening regarding the other payment for the phone. Will that still be billed to Virgin?
At the end of the day she received no notification that her phone was to be blocked. What if she had run into difficulties and needed the phone service.
I am on O2 as well through the Virgin Media broadband package. I think I shall be cancelling that as well as cancelling her O2 contract.
