URGENT: No service in NR2 Norwich area!

[BBoyUK1492]

Hi All,

Has anyone else been unable to receive or make phone calls via their O2 mobile phones this afternoon/evening - Sunday 29th April 2018?!

I've discovered there's an issue with a mast, and O2 have told me they're waiting for it to be repaired, but are refusing to give me any more information! (Absolutely typical of O2!)

Their Live Chat staff are useless, and are just regurgitating parrot-fashion from their scripts, which is exacerbating the problem, and they won't put me through to a manager or supervisor.  They DID say I should call O2 Customer Services, but clearly, the staff doing Live Chat don't grasp what "being unable to make or receive any phone calls" actually means - the idiots!

Anyone else who can offer any assistance today, would be hugely appreciated!

[MI5]

Hi @BBoyUK1492 the only updates you will get are here http://status.o2.co.uk/
O2 never state or give repair estimates but if a fault is showing it means they are aware and working on it.

[Bambino]

@BBoyUK1492 If O2 are aware of the issue, it will be repaired. It's not in their interest to see customers without service, but there are a myriad of reasons as to how long it might take, and you will not get any more information from O2 as to the length of time. I doubt any provider would be able to give that information. 

[BBoyUK1492]

Hi,

They must have some kind of idea of what's going on, surely?! We're talking about a telephone service company here - one of the biggest in the world - and all their Live Chat staff can do, is tell me to call O2 - which is laughable, when I can't make/receive any phone calls.

What kind of idiots do they employ, that has a customer who tells them that no telephone calls can be made or received, and their idea of helping the customer, is to tell them to call Customer Services from their mobile phone?!

How stupid is that?!

I need more information from O2 than "We're working on it" or "We're aware of the problem"!  I've got a family member in hospital, dying, and I need to be contactable 24/7 in case the worst happens.  I can't have O2 just telling me to be patient.

[MI5]

I'm afraid that's all you'll get and even if you could call, you wouldn't get an honest answer.

[MI5]

If you have a single contract on your account you can make wifi calls with the new O2 Ask app https://www.o2.co.uk/help/apps/o2-ask
Review and discussion here https://community.o2.co.uk/t5/O2-Apps/O2-Ask-mini-review/td-p/1110941

[Bambino]

@BBoyUK1492 I'm sorry to hear of your situation, but you won't get any more out of O2 than you've already had. We are all customers here, and can't help. There could be a hundred reasons as to the problem with your local mast. It may be on private land and they need permission to access it. If they gave you a time frame and didn't keep to it, you could sue them, and they're not about to go that route. I'm sorry, but you're just going to have to wait like everyone else in your area until it's repaired.

[BBoyUK1492]

I cannot believe this!  In 2018, and the only response from a communications company about a fault is "We're working on it", with no idea of if/how/when the problem is going to be fixed!

We may as well all communicate by tin-cans and string!  Talk about Backwards Britain!  We can barely do 2G coverage, let alone 3G or 4G!

Great! Now the geniuses who work on the Live Chat services, have failed connections too.

I despair! 😞

[Anonymous]

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@BBoyUK1492 wrote:

Hi,

They must have some kind of idea of what's going on, surely?

What kind of idiots do they employ,?

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Nope they are in Jo'burg earning around £10 a day. And chatting to lot of people at the same time. They don't work for O2 and have as much information as we do looking at the status checker. The people repairing the mast don't work for O2 either. They will be communicating to O2 network management ( who are probably also contracted out) and network management will update the status checker.

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@BBoyUK1492 wrote:

I've got a family member in hospital, dying, and I need to be contactable 24/7 in case the worst happens.  I can't have O2 just telling me to be patient.

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I'D go and buy a payg sim from whomever else has the strongest signal in your area. Then find somewhere you can get a signal and forward your O2 number to the new SIM till the mast is repaired. 

You can do  this under call settings > forward all calls - on the handset 

NB Customer Services are in Jo'burg too probably sitting in another part of the same large shed the chat people are in, so calling them from a landline or someone else's phone or your new PAYG sim wouldn't achieve much either.

[Anonymous]

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@Bambino wrote:

@BBoyUK1492

.f they gave you a time frame and didn't keep to it, you could sue them, and they're not about to go that route.

You wouldn't get very far even then, the T&C's (basically) say O2 don't have to provide a phone service just try to provide one, and this notwithstanding, as the phone would connect mostly everywhere else they are providing one. You'd have to have 90% network failure before they'd pay out for this type of service interruption.

The reason they don't give fixed times for repairs is that it prevents a lot of unnecessary contacts when the time frame is not met so arguably saves money. Also as above if the rest of the network is largely fine as far as O2 is concerned they are providing the service as contracted.  Virgin Media whose network falls over a lot do give estimated fix times  but they are wildly pessimistic for the same reason, to save money on cs contacts.