Mystified by O2 mobile bill demand

Jun 5 2011 Mr Justice, Sunday Sun

A BROADBAND supplier has admitted its billing policy is confusing after unleashing debt collectors on a customer.

Kathleen Sherwood had initially been told that she did not owe any money when she decided to leave 02 for a competitor.

In fact, bosses said she was in credit and they owed her a refund. So it came as a surprise when they passed Kathleen’s account to their debt collectors.

Kathleen said she was harassed by several calls and text messages every day.

Now she has received an apology and compensation after I took on her complaint.

The dispute started when Kathleen, of Darlington, County Durham, terminated her contract.

02 said she was £6.42 in credit and arranged a refund. She even had emails confirming there would be no more charges.

Months passed and Kathleen started to receive calls from a company called Frederickson International. She said: “There were calls and text messages asking me to call them so I googled them and found they were a debt collection agency.

“The search revealed that many people had received similar calls and, believing it was a case of mistaken identity, I ignored them.

“But the calls and texts continued at a rate of several per day until I was made quite ill.

“I rang Frederickson International and spoke to a gentleman who would not give me any information as to why his company wanted to speak to me.

“Instead he asked for personal information which I was reluctant to provide over the telephone.

“He said ‘I can’t help you then,’ and rang off.” Three days later, Kathleen got a letter from Frederickson International confirming their clients were 02 and demanding £17.50.

Kathleen then contacted 02 and paid the amount requested just to stop the calls.

The fun started when she asked for an explanation of how a credit could turn into a debt.

Ready for this? Here goes.

02 told her in an email: “Your service with us finished on November 30, 2010, so a final bill was produced refunding you the line charges December 11, 2010 back to December 1 2010, leaving your account in credit by £6.42, which was refunded to you.

“As the payment of your previous bill dated November 12, 2010 was returned to us on December 2, 2010, this then left your account in debit by £17.50, which is made up of the £6.42 credit refund added to the balance of £11.08 that was showing as outstanding for your November 2010 bill.”

At least 02 had the grace to apologise for a system that does seem complicated.

They went on: “I appreciate the way our billing system works is confusing, so I can fully understand with the notifications you’ve received how you’ve believed your account was closed, when it wasn’t.

“I’m also deeply sorry for the way you were spoken to by Frederickson and with the amount of calls you received from them.

“I’m unable to comment on Frederickson’s policy on how they train their staff and with the way they spoke to you.

“I’m sure you can appreciate the nature of their business is to collect outstanding debts.

“However, I have passed over your comments to our debt recoveries manager and asked him to feed this back to them.”

I wanted to speak to 02, as well as Frederickson International.

02 later confirmed the account was recalled from the debt collectors and feedback passed internally to staff who had been in a position to stop the problem from happening in the first place.

A spokesman for Frederickson International said: “It does not look as if the customer will be receiving any more calls from us.

“We can remove her number from our files if she requests it.”

Kathleen later told me she had received an apology from 02 and compensation of £75.