O2 – still ***** (I’ll get this to the top of Google yet)

Another ridiculous reply:

Good afternoon Iain,

Thank you for your email.

I’m sorry that you’re unhappy with our earlier email about the call you received while you were in France.

I can understand that you wanted your phone with you so you could keep in contact with your friends and family. I appreciate that you would answer all calls when your phone rang, it wasn’t our intention to say that you shouldn’t have answered this particular call.

I’m afraid that as you’re not an O2 customer it’s not possible for us to refund you the cost of this call. Unfortunately, I’m also unable to refund you for the use of cyber cafes in France as this charge is out of our control.

I am sorry for the inconvenience this may have caused you Iain. I hope I’ve explained everything clearly.

And another reply to them:

Re: O2 – Sales call (KMM241462142V17790L0KM)
On 03/09/07, mycarewebform wrote:
> I’m sorry that you’re unhappy with our earlier email about the call you received while you were in France.

It seems not sorry enough.

> when your phone rang, it wasn’t our intention to say that you shouldn’t have
> answered this particular call.

So why did you say that I had the opportunity to refuse the call, then? Your two emails have just contradicted one another. Of course, this is the usual experience when dealing with a large organisation where one hand doesn’t know what the other is doing. Or you’re just trying to clear up a mess made by a colleague who should have known better than to insinuate the the problem was of my own making.

> I’m afraid that as you’re not an O2 customer it’s not possible for us to refund you

This is, if I may say so, utter cobblers. What you’re saying is that you *refuse* to refund the money as I am not an O2 customer. I appreciate that if I had an account with you, you would credit it to that. This would be easy for you. What I’m asking you to do is dust the cobwebs off the corporate cheque book and make good an error which inconvenienced someone who in no way fills up your coffers. As such, I understand that I rank incredibly far down in your list of importance. After all, it’s not like you need to keep me happy is it? I’m not going to change to another provider as I’m already with one.

> the cost of this call. Unfortunately, I’m also unable to refund you for the use of
> cyber cafes in France as this charge is out of our control.

And again I put it to you that you aren’t unable, but are refusing. The charge was certainly not out of your control. If your staff had not called me – which they should not have done as they do not have permission – I would not have had to detour via somewhere I could email at short notice to get credit on my phone. And let’s not even mention the inconvenience of being unable to receive any calls for two days. After all, there’s no point in mentioning it when you obviously don’t care.

> I am sorry for the inconvenience this may have caused you Iain. I hope I’ve explained everything clearly.

You have explained in pretty clear tones that you don’t care about inconveniencing people, costing them money, backtracking over stupid remarks, and being a completely awful company to deal with. Frankly I’m glad I stuck with Vodafone when I considered changing a couple of years ago. They’re awful, but at least they don’t try and wheedle out of refunding money when they screw up.

As I said, repeatedly, your company cost me money and caused me great inconvenience through actions which are actually potentially illegal. Calling me on a telephone number which I have not given you permission to call – and which is in fact listed on the Telephone Preference List – is against the law, as far as I’m aware. To then say that it’s my problem and you’re “unable” to refund me is complete and utter rubbish.

You admit that you should not have called, claim to appreciate the cost and inconvenience, and yet refuse to make reasonable recompense. I find it impossible to believe that in a company the size of O2 you have no means of refunding money to non-clients. This means that as well as making unsolicited phone calls, having awful support, hiring rude staff who hang up on you, providing an unusable comments form on your web page and simply not caring about the problems you cause people… you are also liars.

Nice advert for your company. Have you thought of entering the building trade?

Mosh