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I have written plenty about O2 over the past few months, both here and on Forninepounds, and yes it has all been bad.
You have all read about my trials attempting to get an iPhone, and the treatment I, as a bill pay customer of their’s since esat digifone launched, have received.
I have sent 2 emails of complaint. Both were answered, the first in a very snooty fuck off sort of way and the second from Paddy where he took everything I said on board, and is, according to his email and forum comments, doing something about it.
Ok I know the iPhone stocks were low, I know everyone wanted one, but I nearly drove myself to insanity trying to find one.
Prompted on by Alexias post last week, I feel now that I have one, I should fully explain what has happened over the past 2 months.
2 days after launch day (July 11th) I was phoning O2 stores getting my name on waiting lists for the next deliveries of the phones. I had my name on 3 stores lists, but I knew if any of them was to come through, it would be the store on the top of Grafton Street. O2 experience stores were not taking names down and were selling them in a first come first served fashion as were the carphonewarehouse.
I kept a close eye on the O2 forums, keeping an eye mainly on stock levels. I admit I did not hang around stores every day unlike others but I did spend hours on the phone attempting to get through to stores, to this day even with stock problems virtually resolved, stores are still proving hard to get through to, more on that later.
Every time I phoned I got the old “no, none in stock” when are you getting them “have no idea could be today could be next week, we are not told by Apple” fair enough I thought, I will just have to wait. Then it all started to get very annoying.
On Sunday the 3rd of August I was out and about in the Square, Tallaght. I had read on the O2 forum and Boards.ie that people were getting lucky and picking up phones calling into O2 stores, so I thought feck it why not give it a go. The guy in the store told me they had 3 8 gig black iPhones, OK I wanted a 16gig but at this stage anything would do. I went to find Paula to tell her I could get an 8gig, she said so long as in 3 months time you don’t want a 16gig go for it. Off I went with a grin like the cheshire cat on my face. This is where I ended up been told that I could not have one, yes they had 3 in stock but what your man forgot to tell me was that they were being held for people. I was livid, and the manager could see this, she asked me if I wanted to put my name on a list, oh god not another one, I said no thanks and walked out.
She followed me and asked me to give her 5 minutes, one of the phones was been held for a worker in a store nearby, she was going to see if he wanted it and if not the phone was mine, so I waited and she came back and told me the guy was not there, but if any of the phones were not collected today she would free them up and I could get it first thing in the morning. I knew I would be around until the store closed so I thought I will go in just before closing and see what the story is, leave it as late as possible if they aint gone then its the same thing as me going there first thing in the morning.
20 minutes before the store was about to close I toddled in and the manager was not around but I asked one of the other guys if any of the 3 phones had been collected, he had a look in the back and came out and said nope the 3 phones were still there. I explained the fact that I had been in earlier and what the manager had said, he was not taking the risk, I could have been lying, and asked if I could wait till she came back, to which I replied of course. Back came the manager, at this stage 10 mins left to closing, she saw me and I asked had the guy been in to collect the phone she would free up, to which I was told yes he has been in and collected it.
So the store bullshitted me probably so they could close early and rather then argue, which I should have done, I walked out so annoyed.
Tuesday the 5th of August at 9.12am, I was still at home on holidays and knew that iPhones were going online to be sold. I was refreshing the page for 45 mins beforehand but once O2 uploaded the online order form I was in, and I had bagged myself a 16gig black iPhone, woohoo happy days, until I got to the end “confirm order” button, after 15 mins waiting for the next page after pressing the confirm button I was informed that since I am a bill pay customer I have to get the phone instore, you what!!! I am already on lists instores and ain’t having any luck with that, with phone calls or calling in.
I promptly rang 1909 to speak to customer care. I spent 1 hour 15 minutes on the phone there, getting absolutely nowhere nearer owning a phone, but the agent I was speaking to was fantastic. I have since found out that because bill pay customers need a upgrade it cant be done online, its too complicated, yeah right bullshit. While onto customer care I said I wanted to complain about O2’s service. I was told to write an email, but explained that under no circumstance did I wish to do that again due to the first snotty email that arrived, I demanded a phone call from someone because my nokia e65 was dead and I needed a phone if this did not get sorted they were losing me as a customer by the end of the week iPhone or no iPhone.
To this date I have not received that call.
After 2 days waiting I decided to write the second email, mentioning the snotty email from a few weeks earlier, I also let them know that if that person who wrote the first email wrote back to me again I would probably leave. Thankfully a different person, Paddy, sent back a lovely email, I had told him of my story in Tallaght, how upset I was at the online booking fiasco aswell and also the fact that the loyalty of their existing bill pay customers really meant fuck all to O2. He was so apologetic for the online mess, and did say that it should have been made clearer on O2’s part, in relation to Tallaght I was to expect a call from the store apologising.
Once again, to this date, I have not received that call.
I let Paddy know this on the forum and he seems to be unimpressed, saying that “We’ve escalated this issue, but don’t have a time frame yet McAWilliams.” I honestly don’t expect a call.
On Thursday evening I had given up on the O2 stores but looking at forums I saw people were getting phones in O2 Dundrum and Grafton street. I felt determined and was first into the store in Dundrum on Friday morning, “no phones in stock”, they were “holding phones for people on lists”, LISTS I said you guys have been telling me for weeks you are not doing a list, oh no this was “the prelaunch list”, bullshit since people on forums who were not on lists walked in the day before and picked up a phone. Once again I was left frustrated by O2.
So into town I went, I had gathered from the forums that the experience store in Grafton Street was my best choice since they got the majority of stock since they are a major apple outlet. No joy there they had none at all in the store had no idea when they may arrive “possibly tomorrow” but who knows. Went up to Carphonewarehouse Grafton Street and was told that they did have some arriving, but they were been held for corporate customers, I asked why since CPW has never held phones since launch day, and was told that its because the directors of the company said so, the manager there did say he tried to argue it with them but got nowhere, but he did say a delivery was arriving to the Stephens Green branch, so I ran up there and begged the guy to hold one for me, the other option being me sitting in the store until the delivery arrived, he said he would hold one. Could I trust him though, I decided to recall into all the other stores that morning funny thing is by doing this I saw 2 people in the O2 Experience Store getting shiny boxed new iPhones, I eventually made it to the counter and asked had the stock arrived to be told no we held these for these guys, this is after been told that they do not hold phones for anyone. Anyhow Stephens Green came true and thats how I got my iPhone.
So why the ongoing saga, well today I decided to ring the stores again, this time I wanted to try and get a dock for the iPhone at home, I tried ringing the stores near me in work, Carphonewarehouse first since I swore never to shop in O2 stores again, they answered promptly and Michelle (great girl) told me I would have to go down to order one, needing one now I decided to bite the bullet and ring O2 Baggot Street and after 2 hours I have still not got through, I also tried the store at the top of Grafton Street, eventually I got through and was told that they did have them, but have none at the moment. Since I had them on the phone I also wanted to let them know I had got an iPhone so could be taken off their list, to which I was told that “everyone had been phoned last week on the list” to get phones and that the list no longer existed, funny that cause I never got a call, whats going on there? they did tell me to try the most difficult number in Ireland to get through on the O2 experience store on Grafton Street.
After an hour and a half of the phone either being engaged, sounding like it does not exist and occasionally ringing off I got through, only for the phone to be put on the counter and left there for 8 minutes, without a hello or any sort of chat. I was able to hear the staff talk between themselves talk to the occasional customer, but not one word was uttered to me!
After as I said 8 minutes of me saying hello, hello, hello I gave up and hung up the phone only to retry and hear the engaged tone.
So thats why they are engaged all the time, they take the phone off the hook, I feel like ringing customer care but what good will that do me! I am awaiting so many fecking calls at this stage, whats the point!
So if anyone from O2 reads this please let me know if you really truly value your customers, although when you look higher up I suppose at CEO Danuta Grey announcing the first generation iPhone launch being great for the “Apple Freaks”, why should her minions pay any respect.
