O2 ........
Author
Discussion

mondeoman

Original Poster:

11,430 posts

293 months

Thursday 12th December 2002
quotequote all
........ anyone use them? Are they any good?

They seem to be the only ones doing good deals on txt messages at the mo (500 a month for £20) and I'm thinking of getting a phone and contract for me girlfriend, but a mate of hers had a contract and (allegedly) got scammed because she couldn't access her account on-line.

Any comments?

Podie

46,649 posts

302 months

Thursday 12th December 2002
quotequote all
You can buy "text message bundles" from Orange... the more you buy, the bigger the discounted rate.

No experience of O2... sorry!

raceboy

13,828 posts

307 months

Thursday 12th December 2002
quotequote all
Been with O2 since they were BT/Cellnet, no real problems, always been on a paided up front contract which are no longer available to new customers. Just renewed for another year for £80 with 600 off peek minutes a month, I'd say go with the supplier that most of the people you will be ringing are on, or hunt out a cross network deal.

gtir

24,741 posts

293 months

Thursday 12th December 2002
quotequote all
What ever you do dont go with one2one, or T Mobile as they are now called.
Crap customer service, crap coverage, crap expensive call plans, owned by a crap german company.

I am with Orange and save myself 50% a month.

Fatboy

8,267 posts

299 months

Thursday 12th December 2002
quotequote all
They're the most useless bunch of muppets I've ever encountered. When I left the lady on the phone said 'Why are you leaving O2'. To which I replied 'Because of your appaling customer service'.

I wouldn't trust them to get anything right, ever. They never managed it consistently with my pay and Go mobile...

IPAddis

2,509 posts

311 months

Thursday 12th December 2002
quotequote all

raceboy said: Been with O2 since they were BT/Cellnet, no real problems, always been on a paided up front contract which are no longer available to new customers. Just renewed for another year for £80 with 600 off peek minutes a month, I'd say go with the supplier that most of the people you will be ringing are on, or hunt out a cross network deal.


I was on BT Cellnet Up Front (Line Advance) for 5 years. This year, they were going to give me 50 minutes of O2 only calls, no text messages and wanted to charge £150 quid. Plus, they've added an additional payment to upgrade your phone. I obviously spoke to a different moron than Raceboy.

Added to this, I was constantly getting Network Busy messages, their Genie web site is a complete joke, their email notification via SMS never worked, they broke SMS delivery reports and couldn't be bothered to fix them, Email over WAP was in Beta testing at best, SMS messages sometimes took 48 hours to arrive, I got a beeping noise on the line every 2 minutes, Customer Services always blamed the Service Provider who blamed the Billing Company who blamed Customer Services, ad infinitum. Not only that, they were rude and couldn't give a toss.

I have recently swapped to Orange and whilst it is more expensive, they provide a much, MUCH better service. I have now realised why all my mates are on Orange.

O2 -

My two penneth.

Ian A.

P*Ting

5,618 posts

285 months

Thursday 12th December 2002
quotequote all
My mate got charged double the agreed monthly rate for 8 months. When he found out they offered him a 20 pound voucher. The phone call to get the voucher cost £10 as it was a premium rate number.

I think it's going to court...

apache

39,731 posts

311 months

Thursday 12th December 2002
quotequote all
had Orange and O2.........Orange is much higher quality in all aspects

raceboy

13,828 posts

307 months

Thursday 12th December 2002
quotequote all

IPAddis said:[/i I obviously spoke to a different moron than Raceboy.

Always phone them at least twice, you will never get the same answer or quote,
Phone upgrade was an extra £50 but not a bad deal as you can shift them on ebay for £150

nigelbasson

533 posts

293 months

Thursday 12th December 2002
quotequote all
Although I'm with O2 I would suggest you look into getting a mobile through Sainsbury's. I don't know if they are still doing the offer but they were bombarding me with e-mails a little while ago.

Their service basically says that you aren't tied to any network and instead they will calculate at the end of each month which network and which tariff would be the cheapest for you that month and charge you that. The next month your calls may have altered and they charge you on a different tariff.

Sounded good to me but I didn't want a nokia phone so didn't change to them.

tycho

12,247 posts

300 months

Thursday 12th December 2002
quotequote all
I use Vodafone at the moment as their text services are brilliant. Might just be saying this though as my department provides them to Vodafone and we need more sales

Marcos Maniac

3,148 posts

288 months

Thursday 12th December 2002
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We switched to them last year from vodaphone - what a nightmare.

Constantly NO SERVICE - drove me nuts

Told them to stick the contract where the sun didnt shine we had 15 phones with them.

They told me that they were going to take me to court to make me pay the years contract for all the phones - YEAH RIGHT!

my reply; "please take me to court, so that I can then launch a counter claim against you for breach of contract and loss of business"

never heard from them again

>> Edited by Marcos Maniac on Thursday 12th December 16:36

Podie

46,649 posts

302 months

Thursday 12th December 2002
quotequote all
I've been with Orange for 4 years... service is excellent, very few calls dropped - even in areas of poor reception, and other facilities (e-mail, WAP etc) all work well. I'm happy, so haven't looked elsewhere...

schueymcfee

1,577 posts

292 months

Thursday 12th December 2002
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When I left O2 after paying 15 quid a month for two years they asked me why I was leaving and I said 'cos I is moving abroad, to which they replied well we can lower your monthly charge to 6.99 if that will make you stay?? So they were basically admitting they were ripping me off for two years!

viperman

956 posts

292 months

Thursday 12th December 2002
quotequote all
i have nothing but good things to say about o2, great network andgod coverage, when i was on BT cellne about 3 years, there customer service was shite, but the new company o2 are much beter

mdh

809 posts

291 months

Thursday 12th December 2002
quotequote all
I've been on Bt Cellent and O2 for years.

The coverage is good. Wherever I am I can always get a signal, even when my mates on other networks cant.
( Especially in Cornwall )

However - I hate O2 themselves - probably for reasons that all mobile phone companies are guilty of.

1) They have the nerve to call me on my phone
2) They send their own advertising text messages to my phone
3) They keep switching on an answering service for my number . I have to keep phoning them up and telling them that I don't bloody want an answering service and that I have never asked for it to be switched on. You then get different stories as to why it became switched on. ( None of them being 'well we wanted to make a bit of extra cash of everyone who will most likely retrieve at least one message before having it turned off again' to pay for the arseload of money we spent on 3G licenses ).

4) I have found their customer service to be appalling.

I am intending to change to Vodaphone very soon - I expect they'll do the same crap but it will give me a bit of satisfaction.



>> Edited by mdh on Thursday 12th December 16:59

pete_w

646 posts

290 months

Thursday 12th December 2002
quotequote all
Been with O2 for a few months...swapped from Orange contract because of lack of cross network talk bundles (Oftel are investigating apparently)and over-priced, out-dated phones

Orange has plus points, so does O2, swings and roundabouts really. Never had any of the complaints mentioned above about O2

s2ooz

3,005 posts

311 months

Thursday 12th December 2002
quotequote all
just ditched orange for o2, mostly for the competative price, but also orange customer service is definatly getting worse.
coverage was bad in buildings, they use a much higher frequency range to othere co's.

o2 were HOPELESS and transferring my number to the new phone, but now its done ( 1 month later ) as a phone its fine., just hope I dont get any more reason to spend hours on hold to there call centre.

the BIG ISSUE I have is that o2 SELL there contracts to 3rd party suppliers. so whereas some people say its OK, others not, its because in reality your not phoning O2 but whoever it is they sold your contract to. my nightmare originally, was that o2 sales didnt know which supplier I was with and I was passed round and round. however they did give me back a months line rental while I had no phone.. not much compensation, but orange wouldnt offer me any help in the past with issues.
orange CHARGE for free texts, ie you bulk buy them. no free offers.
orange dropped there equity points scheme. whereas O2 offer 10% off or 10% more airtime after 6 months service..
they also tell you which scheme suits you dependant on usage.
O2 charge for itemised lists

dont get the samsung twin screen flip thing, the battery lasts one day...

NB orange now french owned and the french co. is bieng bailed out by government for billions, I suspect in the long term the orange arm may be sold off or shutdown.

>> Edited by s2ooz on Thursday 12th December 17:43

alan_driver

1,281 posts

284 months

Thursday 12th December 2002
quotequote all
o2 are quite good. i get 500 texs for free on a special promotion thing. Their all charges are high though. depends if you text or phone the most, and when. Tmobile is quite good, but if you use it a lot, its actually cheaper to use pay as you go.
Borrow a phone on the network your thinking of getting and make sure you can get a signal in the places you will need to, ie in your house, work place. I couldnt get a T-mobile signal in my house so had to get 02.

Edited to add:
O2 customer care is sh!te. really slow, and they charge you for customer care, whereas Tmobile doesnt, dont know about the others.

>> Edited by alan_driver on Thursday 12th December 18:58

pies

13,116 posts

283 months

Thursday 12th December 2002
quotequote all
Can only speak about reception as company pays all my bills,The company phone was O2 reception was cr*p just switched to voderfone better but still not as good as me orange (company supplied as well)