Possible fraudulent use of my address. How long before O2 should respond?

[baffledmum]

Yesterday I came home to find a letter addressed to someone at my house who has apparently used it to order a mobile phone online - and to set up a monthly contract. The phone was, of course, delivered elsewhere.

I could not get through to O2's customer service for love nor money and used their chat service. Being on hold at 5p a minute for a good 50 minutes was a complete was of my £2 and time. What sort of operation are they running??

Understandably the chat person could not give me details BUT they tell me that O2's fraud team need 5 days to respond. 5 days?? I gave them the phone number involved - surely they just cut it off and wait for the person to get in touch? I thought that is what the IMEI was for? I have rung the number today - it still connects.

AIBU unreasonable to think that O2 should have looked into this today and got in touch with me? I feel in limbo over it and am very annoyed at the silence. I'd like to know whether this was a simple mistype of an address or whether the person has fake ID with my address on it. How responsive are O2 about this sort of thing, does anyone know?

Threaten them with the Ombudsman, OP, that's 'Otello'. Then follow up any correspondence and copy it to them if you don't get a response in a reasonable timeframe. I did that - and won - and funnily enough, that was O2 as well.

Thank you very much for the practical advice. I have been in touch with an identity protection business Red24 and have to say they have been massively reassuring and helpful.

LWitWardobe - did you email them or call them? I couldn't get over how awful it was trying to get through to them. Am glad I am not one of their customers, must be a real pain.

I had something similar happen to me. I was on Vodafone and someone managed to order another phone and contract add it onto my Bill. Of course delivered else where. I only found out when I checked my Bill online and found this extra phone number.

They blocked the number and removed the £400 they had run up in 5 days. Asured me it was their cockup (not doing all the security checks instore) and it would be wiped with no comeback on me.

But when I got my next bill it also had the other numbers Bill. It was itemized, even with a little graph showing what numbers they had used most/spent longest on the phone to. Turns out the cunting twat liked to phone his mum in between his drug deals

Did you phone the number? I confess that I have rung the number to tell them that I am on to them!

I stupidly rang to ask how his number had been connected to my account , but was stopped when he answered asking "what did I need tonight" . In return he stupidly told me his name, that was helpful when discussing his fraud and drug use with his mum.

That's a good result! I have also rung pretending to be O2 and asking them to get in touch with O2 immediately so that we can sort it out.

I was also thinking of contacting O2 again to report "my" mobile stolen to give the owner some more inconvenience.

I normally have no issue with o2 and have in fact called today and sorted my mils tariff

Do you have the right number?

I e-mailed them, OP. I, like you, got fed up of trying to contact O2 and being left on hold at tremendous cost. I got compensation too. They were very good and really helpful. Consumers win because the big companies just can't seem to reply within the deadlines and don't seem that motivated to do it either.

www.ombudsman-services.org/communications.html

It's a fairly common fraud. O2 won't charge you so its no skin off their nose if they take 5 days to get in touch. They won't investigate as in the grand scheme of things its not very much money to them.
Report it on actionfraud.police.uk or there is a phone number on that website you can call them on. Then you'll have a fraud report reference number which is what O2 will want.
Have you had a driving licence stolen, other paperwork, are you a company director or run a company from address? These are common ways for the bad guys to get your details.
Can you tell what I do for a job??!!

I have just had exactly the same thing happen to me and O2 were dreadful. They took ages to contact me again and still haven't phoned me despite me asking them too.

The number you need is the fraud team who only open between 8.30 and 6.00pm Monday to Friday 0844 847 1420.

Also report it to the police at Action fraud, I called them and they were really helpful.

Thank you to everyone with their advice here.

I have registered with Equifax and been in touch with Action Fraud.

O2 have been bl**dy hopeless.

I quite agree, have just spoken to them and they are rude and totally inept it seems. They really don't care about how their public persona appears so it will be one company that I will not be opening an account with in the future.
The woman was patronising and totally unapologetic, I would expect them to be a little more concerned about how they appear to the law abiding public but apparently not.

Dont write off an entire company based on one person in a call centre. Its a stressful job where you dont eveb get time off for breavment.

Granted the advisor should do their job right but you never know why you got bad service.

It took T-Mobile 14 days to respond when this happened to me. They did quickly close the account, though, and didn't ever try to charge me for it.

That was in my name, too

I've spoke to at least seven people including finally the fraud department today, and have worked in a call centre myself. None have managed to either do their job or remain polite even though I remained polite. I can accept one of them having a bad day even though I'm not rude at work when having a bad day but not everyone I spoke to.

Action fraud ,on the other hand, couldn't have been nicer.

O2 won't give a fuck. I had this happen to me, they just write it off. This kind of crime is basically risk-free in modern Britain, that's why we are a magnet for foreign fraudsters.

Sorry life I didn't mean anything. Just I know during my depression working in a call centre, I could of came off bad. And I would hate for it to have a knock-on effect for the company.

I don't work in call centre now though thank god.

No problem soon been there ,done that,it's why I always try and stay polite when talking to call centres, and if I complain I always make sure the person I speak to knows I'm not getting at them personally but I do hate it when they're rude after my apologies for complaining.