Has anyone else on O2 been told their iPhone data allowance is now limited to 500 MB?

jon86 · 25 Oct 2010 at 18:37

Hi.

I started a 24 month iPhone 3GS £45 /mo contract with O2 in June 2009. In early July 2010, I downgraded to £40 /mo and downgraded again to £35 /mo at the end of that month. I have since downgraded to £30 /mo.

Today, I received a text message from O2 stating that my contract's data allowance (which was 'unlimited' when I signed up) had been changed to 500 MB. Puzzled and confused, I called O2 iPhone Customer Services and a guy named Michael said that the contracts had changed since about the 10th July of this year and any contracts that have new upgrades/downgrades would also have the data allowance change applied this month. He said that I should have been told about the change when I called at the end of July. I told him that I couldn't recall being told that and asked for the details for contacting O2 Head Office. I said to him that I would send a letter to the Head Office to ask for my call to be pulled from the system and find out what I had actually been told. He asked to put me on hold and several minutes later he said that he would request the call be pulled (up to 5 working days) and would contact me to see if he could help me any further.

Has anyone else had this contract change applied? I am currently waiting for Michael to call me back and I will be also asking him if I can have a transcript of the call in case the O2 rep said something ambiguous.

Thanks,
Jon

GeX · 25 Oct 2010 at 19:55

yes, this happened shortly after the Vodafone kick off a few months back.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/rorycellanjones/2010/06/o2_an_end_to_unlimited.html

All new and upgrading customers will have their usage capped at between 500 Megabytes (MB) and one gigabyte (GB) depending on their monthly tariff.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10285910

Alpherah · 25 Oct 2010 at 21:04

Thought it wasn't supposed to be for existing customers?

Wicksta · 25 Oct 2010 at 21:17

Alpherah said:
Thought it wasn't supposed to be for existing customers?

He changed tariffs though twice since July after O2 changed them to be limited to 500mb, I guess that's why.

fowler002 · 25 Oct 2010 at 21:58

john86 I guess you haven't been looking at these forums much, there was a thread on here regarding the change. it's now 500mb, 750mb or 1gb depending on which price plan you're on.

along with the data change you have the txts changed to unlimited and mms are 20p each and don't come out of your txt allowance(was it 4 txts for each mms you sent?).

it's not just iphone contracts, it applies to all phones. I have a 12month £15/month simplicity contract that ends in febuary, not sure if it'll stay at unlimited or go down to 500mb if I leave it on a rolling contract and not upgrade.

paininlife · 26 Oct 2010 at 03:06

my brother is on Iphone 3gs contract with O2 £45/month 24months since april 2009, they never capped his data allowance

biron_w · 26 Oct 2010 at 07:06

jon86 said:
Hi.

I started a 24 month iPhone 3GS £45 /mo contract with O2 in June 2009. In early July 2010, I downgraded to £40 /mo and downgraded again to £35 /mo at the end of that month. I have since downgraded to £30 /mo.

Today, I received a text message from O2 stating that my contract's data allowance (which was 'unlimited' when I signed up) had been changed to 500 MB. Puzzled and confused, I called O2 iPhone Customer Services and a guy named Michael said that the contracts had changed since about the 10th July of this year and any contracts that have new upgrades/downgrades would also have the data allowance change applied this month. He said that I should have been told about the change when I called at the end of July. I told him that I couldn't recall being told that and asked for the details for contacting O2 Head Office. I said to him that I would send a letter to the Head Office to ask for my call to be pulled from the system and find out what I had actually been told. He asked to put me on hold and several minutes later he said that he would request the call be pulled (up to 5 working days) and would contact me to see if he could help me any further.

Has anyone else had this contract change applied? I am currently waiting for Michael to call me back and I will be also asking him if I can have a transcript of the call in case the O2 rep said something ambiguous.

Thanks,
Jon

Chances are they may "lose" the recording of the conversation :rolleyes:

Simple thing is to cancel your contract. By law you can as they have changed the terms of your contract.

Abraham · 26 Oct 2010 at 08:15

biron_w said:
Chances are they may "lose" the recording of the conversation
Simple thing is to cancel your contract. By law you can as they have changed the terms of your contract.

depends whether he "agreed" to this new term when he changed his contract.

if it was just applied to all existing customers it would be a contract get out clause, this is why it wasn't applied to existing customers, they'd have lost so much on iphones

Wicksta · 26 Oct 2010 at 11:15

Again, he's changed tariffs (possibly even twice) since the cap was introduced - they don't go back in time and let you choose from old tariffs that were available a year ago do they? You go onto a current tariff if you change, unfortunately the OP didn't notice the cap on newer tariffs when he agreed to move to it.

theron · 26 Oct 2010 at 17:19

Wicksta said:
Again, he's changed tariffs (possibly even twice) since the cap was introduced - they don't go back in time and let you choose from old tariffs that were available a year ago do they? You go onto a current tariff if you change, unfortunately the OP didn't notice the cap on newer tariffs when he agreed to move to it.

think this is the bit you need:

jon86 said:
I told him that I couldn't recall being told that and asked for the details for contacting O2 Head Office. I said to him that I would send a letter to the Head Office to ask for my call to be pulled from the system and find out what I had actually been told.

the question is not "how can i change this?" it is "how did this happen without me knowingly agreeing to it?"

vti_786 · 26 Oct 2010 at 17:35

paininlife said:
my brother is on Iphone 3gs contract with O2 £45/month 24months since april 2009, they never capped his data allowance

this is because your brother had the contract before the change over date

jon86 · 27 Oct 2010 at 00:03

theron said:
think this is the bit you need:
...
the question is not "how can i change this?" it is "how did this happen without me knowingly agreeing to it?"

Exactly. If they "lose" the call, they won't be able to prove I agreed to the new data allowance and thus have to give me my old data allowance.

GeX · 27 Oct 2010 at 00:53

so long as you'd be then happy to pay £15 x 5 seeing as though you've been on 'the wrong contract' for 5 months?

theron · 27 Oct 2010 at 07:13

jon86 said:
Exactly. If they "lose" the call, they won't be able to prove I agreed to the new data allowance and thus have to give me my old data allowance.

no, in that respect Wicksta is right, the best u are likely to get is the option to cancel ur contract for being mis-sold. (so you might wana check if there are any other tarrifs / companies around that are prepared to give higher allowance first cause i think this is pretty much the standard now)

btw this is better dealt with by email cause then u have a record of what theyre telling u now that u raised a complaint

Wicksta · 27 Oct 2010 at 08:26

If I phone up my mobile provider and say "I'd like to change my tariff to your £30 a month one" surely the onus is on me to have researched said tariff before? This isn't a sales call, it's a customer specifically asking to be moved to a specific product. You might get something out of goodwill but I don't see how the operator is to blame here.

GSDog · 27 Oct 2010 at 10:14

I changed my O2 PAYG tariff to "Text and Web" a couple of days ago and immediately topped up £10. I then got a text message saying that I have 300 free texts and unlimited internet this month, and if I top up before the 24th of November next month I will get the same. I thought the "Text and Web" tariff had a cap of 500MB internet usage but it looks like mine is unlimited - not bad for £10 a month!

theron · 27 Oct 2010 at 19:03

Wicksta said:
If I phone up my mobile provider and say "I'd like to change my tariff to your £30 a month one" surely the onus is on me to have researched said tariff before? This isn't a sales call, it's a customer specifically asking to be moved to a specific product. You might get something out of goodwill but I don't see how the operator is to blame here.

most specify in the terms of the contract that you can change a certain amount of times in a certain time period. also there is usually a "cooling off" period at the beginning of a new contract to protect people from pressure selling.

Wicksta · 27 Oct 2010 at 19:43

theron said:
most specify in the terms of the contract that you can change a certain amount of times in a certain time period. also there is usually a "cooling off" period at the beginning of a new contract to protect people from pressure selling.

I don't see the relevance of your comment - yes I know you can change tariffs a certain amount of times, which he has done. However he didn't research the tariff he asked to be put on and just assumed it was the same as a tariff he saw 12 months prior. If I phone Sky TV today and ask to move to their £20 a month Sky entertainment package I wouldn't just assume it was the same as a £20 package I saw in 2009.

Also there was no 'selling' involved here, he phoned up and asked to change! Plus it was over three months ago he lost his 'unlimited' internet, long after any cooling off period would have expired anyway.

theron · 27 Oct 2010 at 22:10

it was not 100% specific to this thread, though equally not massively irrelevant. it was a bit of an fyi, for people reading ur post it comes across that if they have a contract with a phone company there is nothing they can do at all when a problem arises.

jon86 · 27 Oct 2010 at 22:31

Wicksta said:
I don't see the relevance of your comment - yes I know you can change tariffs a certain amount of times, which he has done. However he didn't research the tariff he asked to be put on and just assumed it was the same as a tariff he saw 12 months prior. If I phone Sky TV today and ask to move to their £20 a month Sky entertainment package I wouldn't just assume it was the same as a £20 package I saw in 2009.

Also there was no 'selling' involved here, he phoned up and asked to change! Plus it was over three months ago he lost his 'unlimited' internet, long after any cooling off period would have expired anyway.

I spoke to several O2 customer representatives; one who checked with his supervisor and another being from the retentions team. The guy who checked with his manager said that it is O2 policy that all customer representatives must notify the customer of the data allowance contract change before they are 'allowed' to change a contract. If the person who changed my contract did not do this, the rep effectively said "something [will] be worked out [with regards to the data allowance]". When I spoke with the retentions team advisor, he said that if the O2 manager who listens to my call finds out that I wasn't told about the new data allowance, O2 will either change my data allowance back to "unlimited" or give me the extra allowance (extra 500 MB) on my contract for free.