02 Shop Rant

MeatLoaf · 23 Mar 2007 at 18:41

Went into the local 02 store today to buy myself and the wife a mobile. 2x Nokia 6233 @ £129.99 each plus 2x£10 top up vouchers

I ask the guy behind the counter if they have 2 in stock and he says yes, but needs to confirm that he has authorisation to sell me 2 as im paying cash :confused:

So he gets off the phone and he says he can oinly sell me two if i can provide some ID

Now my temper is very short at the best of times so when i asked why he said something i diddnt quite catch, but im sure he said something like box breaking? Basically people buy the phones and sell them abroad to make a profit. Im like WTF, id no idea what he was on about to be honest but he said i could have 1, an offer i declined, as i wanted 2 matching phones for me and the missus

To be honest he was pretty abrupt about it and i was made to feel like an idiot. So thats a £280 sale the store has lost because of some stupid policy.

A very unhappy customer, and im seriously thinking of switching to another network now

tom_e · 23 Mar 2007 at 18:57

could you not of just flashed him your drivers licence or some other random peice of id im sure you have in your wallet?

MeatLoaf · 23 Mar 2007 at 19:00

blitz2163 said:
could you not of just flashed him your drivers licence or some other random peice of id im sure you have in your wallet?

Bilieve it or not i dont carry a wallet, i just have cash stuffed in my pocket. Driving licence is at home with all the other important documents in a safe.

tom_e · 23 Mar 2007 at 19:12

MeatLoaf said:
Bilieve it or not i dont carry a wallet, i just have cash stuffed in my pocket. Driving licence is at home with all the other important documents in a safe.

fair enough in that case its a bit of an annoyance, i thought you may have been one of those people who just refused for some random reason so they would have something to moan about

garyh · 23 Mar 2007 at 19:47

You would have been fine if you'd of paid via card (transaction is then traceable so they can monitor how many you buy over a period of time).

I think a lot of companies are now adopting a similar policy on PAYG handsets in all fairness, the operators make a large loss on each PAYG handset they sell, they hope to recuperate this cost on airtime credits - if the customer doesn't do this, and like you said 'box breaks' meaning they ship the handset outside of the UK, or on a different network then the company make a loss on that particular sale.

The fact you're spending £280 is irrelevant, the handsets probably cost a considerable whack more than that for O2 to purchase and keep running.

Ak!ta · 23 Mar 2007 at 19:53

Buy here to sell abroad at a profit :confused:

Would have thought they were more here than abroad - just about everything else is

PinkPig · 24 Mar 2007 at 09:24

I don't quite understand what your problem is - it sounds like he was fairly civil about it, and the policy is there for a reason. PAYG handsets are still somewhat subsidised (look at the difference in price between a PAYG and SIM-free version of anything expensive), and they only want to sell it to you if they think you're going to be a genuine customer, they have every reason to check up on people buying more than one.

MeatLoaf · 24 Mar 2007 at 15:11

I am a genuine customer, ive used the 02 shop for years, both for handsets and for top ups. If he had bothered to enter my mobile number into his computer he would have seen that for himself. Added to the fact i also wanted airtime credit along with the phone i cant see why he'd think i want to send it abroad :confused:

In the end i got a cheaper handset from a different place and my wife didnt get one at all so they still lost out on nearly £200 of my custom

bigredshark · 24 Mar 2007 at 16:58

Personally I think you're being a bit stupid about it, it's not an unreasonable request really and as you're not likely to be spending £300 odd quid very often coming back with ID wouldn't have killed you.

Buying PAYG phones with cash and using them for a few weeks is a nice trick for criminals as it makes tracing and linking calls hard work. Given you wanted 2 handsets (and you were there on your own i take it) and were paying cash, the request for ID is very reasonable for multiple reasons...

Townlea · 24 Mar 2007 at 17:45

What do the teenagers do then? Most teenagers don't have ID ( I never did at 14-15) apart from a passport which my parents kept safe and never gave it me.

Moley · 24 Mar 2007 at 17:56

What so now we have to provide ID to buy a couple of phones with cash?

George Orwell would have been proud...

bigredshark · 24 Mar 2007 at 18:25

jamiemoles said:
What so now we have to provide ID to buy a couple of phones with cash?

George Orwell would have been proud...

No, you can buy them wherever you want but the shops has a perfectly legitimate reason to ask for ID and there's no reason not to give it, unless you intend to use them in conenction with crime or to sell on.

I'd be suspicious of anybody who came in and bought 2 expensive duplicate items with cash, thats not normal.

As for teenagers, don't be stupid, you've got £300 going spare? then you've likely got a bank account, and the bankcard would be all the proof of ID they'd want...

Maybe they lost £300 but it's peanuts to them, they have thousands of corporate accounts billing that much in a day...so better safe than sorry from their point of view...

Furbs · 24 Mar 2007 at 19:00

Not defending them but i used to work in said shop and it was always policy set down by the company to ask for ID on multiple handset purchases by cash... I cant quite remember why that was (been awhile since I was there).

And about putting your number into the system.. all they can check from that is your details (name address etc) not how often you have shopped there in the past.

The guy was just doing his job by the sound of it.

El Gringo · 24 Mar 2007 at 20:36

I don't really think the shop cares about losing out on your custom.

From what you said in your post, the fault, if there is any, is on you. You've self admittedly got a short fuse and he did nothing wrong nat all, all by the book. Calm down and use a card next time

Or bring ID

blairw · 24 Mar 2007 at 23:20

I work for o2

The policy is there for a reason, and i shall explain it for you.

Whenever a phone has just been reduced or is on special offer, you will see a large amount of people attempting to buy multiple handsets, with cash, at each store the offer is on. The reason is that mobile phones are in limited supply / and or expensive. This means they can be sold on for good amounts of profit.

If one such person goes in to each o2 store in edinburgh for instance, gets 2 phones, then can end their day 6 phones up, bought with cash - and under 3 different names and postcodes. Now these handsets can be sold on for good profit abroad - an easy bit of extra cash i think you will agree

You may think that this is ok as o2 still get the money for the phone, well most of their profit is made from people actually using the handsets, and boxbreakers wont be using the handset on the o2 network at all.

Usually you can get away with buying two phones with cash if everythng seems to be in order (eg you dont have a phones 4 u bag, a carphone bag, and another o2 bag with you) but we are coming up too the end of quarter, so the pressure is on to make bonus, and people have been getting into trouble by selling phones to boxbreakers to make up the numbers.

So please, consider this before slagging off someone who is doing their job, and by the looks of it very well and politly

LeperousDust · 25 Mar 2007 at 00:10

blairw said:
I work for o2

...If one such person goes in to each o2 store in edinburgh for instance...

Ooooh, just got back home from Edinburgh, which store do you work in, don't just say the *one* down Princes street because there are at least two

I was thinking of getting a job there possibly when i go back...

MeatLoaf · 25 Mar 2007 at 02:48

blairw said:
I work for o2

The policy is there for a reason, and i shall explain it for you.

Whenever a phone has just been reduced or is on special offer, you will see a large amount of people attempting to buy multiple handsets, with cash, at each store the offer is on. The reason is that mobile phones are in limited supply / and or expensive. This means they can be sold on for good amounts of profit.

If one such person goes in to each o2 store in edinburgh for instance, gets 2 phones, then can end their day 6 phones up, bought with cash - and under 3 different names and postcodes. Now these handsets can be sold on for good profit abroad - an easy bit of extra cash i think you will agree

You may think that this is ok as o2 still get the money for the phone, well most of their profit is made from people actually using the handsets, and boxbreakers wont be using the handset on the o2 network at all.

Usually you can get away with buying two phones with cash if everythng seems to be in order (eg you dont have a phones 4 u bag, a carphone bag, and another o2 bag with you) but we are coming up too the end of quarter, so the pressure is on to make bonus, and people have been getting into trouble by selling phones to boxbreakers to make up the numbers.

So please, consider this before slagging off someone who is doing their job, and by the looks of it very well and politly

Yeah the guy was quite polite as i said but my argument is if i was boxbreaking would i have wanted to buy airtime credit as well? I even asked iof he could check if i was entitled to an upgrade reward, but he never got chance to check as i didnt want just one

Would he have been the same if i'd askled for 2 Sim Free handsets?

And surely these boxbreaker, seeing as they are branded as criminals would get contract phones for free, not pay the charges and sell the phone for an even bigger profit?

I wasnt slagging the guy off, i just thought he couldve explained the situation better. All i cought from what he said was boxbreaking and selling for a profit.

Ive never had this problem before, last year we had matchinbg 6280 phones and the year before we had a couple of 6101 phones from the same shop. Ive always paid cash and always will do

Furbs · 25 Mar 2007 at 11:01

If you would have asked for two sim free handsets I would guess they would be even less willing to sell them. Sim free handsets count for nothing towards the stores targets and just reduce the stock they have to sell contracts with / upgrades. Although it has been a year or two since i worked in a O2 shop so this might have changed.

KillBoY_UK · 25 Mar 2007 at 23:29

bigredshark said:
Personally I think you're being a bit stupid about it, it's not an unreasonable request really and as you're not likely to be spending £300 odd quid very often coming back with ID wouldn't have killed you.

Buying PAYG phones with cash and using them for a few weeks is a nice trick for criminals as it makes tracing and linking calls hard work. Given you wanted 2 handsets (and you were there on your own i take it) and were paying cash, the request for ID is very reasonable for multiple reasons...

it seemed u just went off on one any way which would get anyones back up

Kappa · 26 Mar 2007 at 11:06

hmm... I think the argument that you were buying credit should have stuck, in my store (Vodafone) we are getting stick about box breakers, but if someone buys more than 1 phone, as long as we put the credit on the phones ourselves and connect them its fine. I understand he was sticking by his policy and not using his initiative. However, please understand that not buying a pay as you go phone has relatively zero impact on the store. It normally doesnt matter if you buy a £500 phone or just a £5 sim card, the result for the stores targets are the same.

At the end of the day, the guy's a plank if he cant figure if someone's box breaking and who's not, they are REALLY easy to spot.