How to Complain?

[David190975]

My wife is having an ongoing dispute with a member of the O2 complaints team.

The particular person that she is dealing with just does not seem to be listening and as a result, its all going round in circles.

Is there a way to complain about the complaints department or can you ask for a member of the  complaints team to take it over?

[MI5 · Accepted solution]

@David190975 

If it's going nowhere you need to ask for a letter of deadlock, you can then pass the case over to the Ombudsman.

https://www.o2.co.uk/documents/456036/4246828/Customer+Complaints+code+250523.pdf

[DonT]

Good luck getting a deadlock letter. Just go direct to the Ombudsman, they will take the case without one, assuming you've given O2 the time and opportunity to respond.
One thing that I noticed when I did this, the evidence supplied by O2 to justify their position was dreadfully thin. Keep a log of every contact you have with them, that will weigh in your favour.

[Oxonian]

Welcome @DonT to this O2 customer to customer community. Your observations about O2 evidence - or lack of it - is notable. 

You mention the Ombudsman accepting the case without a letter of deadlock ".....assuming you've given O2 the time and opportunity to respond". In the Customer Complaints code to which @MI5 has provided a link above, this is set at 56 days :-

What happens next?
If you’re not happy after we’ve responded to your complaint, or if your complaint isn’t resolved after eight weeks, you may wish to refer your complaint to an Ombudsman. The Ombudsman is a free service, which will independently review your complaint. They investigate complaints fairly by listening to both sides of the story and looking at the facts. Their decision is binding on O2, but not on you as a customer. 

[Dougal]

I have been within your complaints service on and off since mid March last year. 

You have been bouncing things to various teams and everytime you pass it to a team our close the that complaint.  I must have raised nearly 10 complaints since as they getting closed. Some just to say you were sending this to a team and I should hear from them within 5 days, where more than two weeks later I still haven't had a reply.  

All that happens is you accept there is something broken with the EMEI connection and your network but you can't correct it.  

In other calls you have said that if I was within contract or where the phone was supplied from them they could resolve this matter, but as I bought my phone unlocked from apple they won't do anything.  

I have raised this with Off Comm and they say that because they still have it within their system they can't yet get involved.  I'm now at the point where I want to get someone like Watchdog to publish this appalling length of time and include the responses from you.  This should absolutely not be needed, but I'm getting fed up of banging my head against a brick wall.  

I have remained throughout this with out a service that can be used on the O2 network.  I would love to have told you where to go, but I am tied to using O2 as you are the only provider with signal where I live.

[Enlli]

@Dougal This is a Customer to Customer Community so nobody from O2 will see your post.

Seems you have contacted all you can. However, at the end of the day O2 are not obliged to supply a mobile signal everywhere all the time and that is in their Terms and Conditions 

You may need to speak to legal advisors

[Dougal]

Thank you, the problem itself isn't that they aren't providing signal as I am able to use my sim in any other phone just not the one that was being used with them for the 18 months before that.  I will now look further into getting additional help.

[Enlli]

@Dougal If your IMEI has been blocked you need to find out by who and for what reason. It can only be unblocked by the same person / company

Try this site

https://www.checkmend.com/uk

[Dougal]

Thanks again for pointing me in a direction to hopefully getting this solved.