To think my elderly DM is being scammed via O2?

[head2toeinuniqlo]

DM is in the UK and I am overseas. We normally talk for free over WhatsApp. She was in hospital a couple of months ago and couldn't get anyone to help her connect to the internet, so she was using her normal mobile phone service with O2 to call me and send texts. This left her with a bill of £1,700 for the 2 weeks she was in hospital.

Since she has been out of hospital, she has been using WhatsApp again. However, she just received another O2 bill for £4,200!

We can't get through to anyone to help. Mum doesn't have an online account so the phone is the only way to contact them, but no one is answering.

She is also randomly getting bills from Talk Talk, who she doesn't have an account with. My only thought is that they have bought out Shell Energy who she used to have her internet with, but I can't confirm this.

Something is up and I need to get to the bottom of it. Mum is getting so distressed about it all. I think she is being scammed as none of this makes sense. AIBU and can anybody help? Thanks.

My phone always kicks in to data in hospitals, WiFi doesn't work there unless someone actively puts the nhs wifi password in for me.

It does mostly tend to reconnect to free WiFi in other places and when I'm back home most of the time. But sometimes it doesnt, it stays on data so I have to change it myself. Maybe something like that with your DMS phone.

I think the fact you're trying to call a mobile number to speak to O2 is a huge red flag tbh. Where have you got those numbers from?
I think once you talk to them on one of their actual numbers they will be very helpful, and will be able to work out if there is a scam somewhere, but O2 won't have scammed; they're too big for that!

@StMarieforme I got the number from the O2 website. I don't think o2 are scamming her, I think someone else is. There is no way we could have burned through 4 grand worth of data in 2 months!

I got the number from here (where it says 'from abroad').

https://www.o2.co.uk/contactus

I've just googled the mobile number you're calling. It's not O2

It does sound like the phone hasn't reconnected to her internet now she's home and that she hasn't got it on a setting where it will do it automatically. I would think perhaps someone has been trying to help her while she was in hospital and has messed up the settings. I have no helpful ideas about how you remedy that beyond someone physically helping her if she doesn't know how to do it herself. Doesn't she have a landline that she could use until it's sorted out? And no, O2 don't have a duty of care. I don't really think that would be possible to administer.

If she's housebound, does she have carers or good neighbours? One of them could check it. I'd also look into a diff operator for her.

You can buy esims now so maybe look into that and ask someone to install it for her.

Call 02 again. They should be monitoring huge bills, there's no excuse for them not having spotted this. Don't pay it challenge it all. But get her a new sim before hand so you're still connected.

Can you login (somehow) to her O2 online account and see what’s going on?

it’s coming back to me that I managed to generate what I considered to be a fairly large bill by sending a few photos via text. Might even have been a foreign number. It was nothing like the bill you’re facing, but enough for me to look at my settings and put an immediate spend cap on my account as it was so easy to do and no warning from O2.

I hope you can speak to someone and get it sorted. Is there anyone that can go round to her house and look at her phone/tablet and make sure it’s set up properly?

Every business has a duty of care to vulnerable customers!

I don't know, you'd be surprised. I made a phone call once, no more than an hour, and was charged £30 for it. I rang them, and it was correct. I changed service providers. It really depends if your mum has had her mobile data on and WiFi off for the last 2 months. Is there any family in the UK that can go and have a look at her phone for her?

Is she on bill pay? Get her on prepay.

My elderly mother is on prepay. So there is no way that she can spend more that 30 pounds a month on phone credit.

I would get your mum off bill pay

They're a very large company. Bills are automated.

They won't even know this is happening unless someone rings them and tells them.

I used to work for a similar large company (not O2).

We did have a dedicated phone line for elderly and vulnerable customers.

But someone had to ring in and tell us that their parent needed extra help. Otherwise we couldn't know.

Definitely ring in and tell them that she is struggling

I too have never had any issues getting through to o2.
But I did change my opinion of them when I tried to cancel the contract for my mother who has dementia and was no longer able to use a phone. They went on and on and on trying to get me to change to a different contact and didn’t seem to care at all when I was explaining that she didn’t even know what a phone was anymore so I just wanted to cancel. Awful.
Good luck OP. It sounds like your mum is on a very expensive contact. I have loads and loads of data included in mine (and it’s cheap) so it sounds like your mum would be better on a contact that includes a lot of data so if the issue was her not being on WiFi then she still wouldn’t be charged much.

You say she doesn’t have an online account but I am pretty sure you can just sign her up for an account using her email/phone number and it’ll load the details of her contract and all of her bills so you can gage where the charges are coming from?

Also if you’re still having no luck via the phone then tweet them explaining they have sent a £4K bill to an OAP who’s been in hospital. Guarantee you’ll get the worlds swiftest response as they won’t want to be seen as publically ignoring that.

It depends on what her contract is set up to cover - if it doesn't include mobile data (or only a tiny amount of it) she'll be being charged premium rates as soon as she runs out of her allowance.

Oh goodness, what a worry. I've been with o2 a long time and like others spoken to them many times and not had trouble getting through.
I see a kind poster above has provided the correct numbers so definitely give one of them a try. Like you did say, I don't think it's o2 scamming her.
Hope it gets sorted for you.

Whatever plan she is on get her off it.

Bill pay plans are notorious for letting people run off huge charges.

Get her onto a pre pay plan.

There are pre pay plans where if you pay 30 pounds, you get unlimited data for a month

Posters saying that they always got through to O2 easily.

The difference is that the OP is abroad.

You have to ring a completely different number from abroad.

And you get charged more

You could have done, if you’re using data rather than wifi. If your data isn’t covered under a contract, the rate is horrendous.

O2 are usually good for customer service recently had an issue and found best way to contact was the online live chat through the official O2 website, which you should be able to do on her behalf? Unless you think she can deal with it, because she can call internally direct from her mobile or use the online chat via there too, if she has a genuine O2 account.

I also managed to get an email address to ‘appeal’ my situation, as it was not my initial error. I won’t publish it here, but you can pm me for it if you think that’s needed. It puts your complaint into an official process, rather than just a customer account query.

Can you switch her to a contract with unlimited data with another provider, if necessary? That would cap the monthly costs if she accidentally isn’t connected to the wifi and doesn’t notice.

As you’re ringing from abroad and having issues with that line not being able to get through, it might be easy to try and talk to someone on social media, I’d use twitter to contact on their official account to see if you can get some clarification or a call back.

So I asked Mum to tell me what she could see on the top right hand side of her screen and she said 'O2/UK' and then the battery percentage. If she was on WiFi, shouldn't she see the WiFi symbol?

Yeah if WiFi is on, she will see the WiFi symbol

Can you ask her what plan she's on?

She should have got some information about how much data she has a month.

And how much she's paying for it