- Sunday, 29 November 2009
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We're not in a hole. A lot of companies would like to be in our hole - Scott 'touch'n'feely' McNealy
O2 sets debt collectors on woman over three unwanted accounts
AN INQUIRER reader is having a mare of a time after O2 sent her a mobile phone unasked, and subsequently revealed two further accounts had been opened in her name, setting hounds from a debt collection agency on her in the process.
The unfortunate recipient of an unwanted Sony Ericsson mobile phone last November has spent many hours in the last four months repeatedly calling O2 and the debt collection agency to get them off her back.
But despite assurances from O2's "fraud office" on many occasions that accounts had been opened in her name fraudulently, she continues to get threatening letters from the firm's debt collection agency and is unable to get through to O2's "fraud office" where the phone just seems to ring and ring.
The reader has checked with her bank and her credit card providers and her identity hasn't been stolen. O2 so far has sent her two "certificates of disclaimer" which she refuses to sign as she never requested the phone, has never had her identity stolen and never opened any of the three "accounts". The first phone was returned to O2 as unsolicited goods.
Despite repeated assurances from O2 that the matter is now settled, she received a demand from O2's debt collectors, Moorcroft Data Recovery Limited, this week, attempting to recover £733.72 from her, and threatening a "home visit ".
We asked INQ telecomms editor Tony Dennis how this sort of situation could have come about. He said that he'd heard of scams where unscrupulous mobile phone salesmen opened accounts on people's behalf, collected a commission on the "sales" and then scarpered. µ
* THE UNFORTUNATE victim is Mrs Magee of this parish. We have contacted O2 for a comment.
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reminds of a time I kept getting demands from a "university" for a course I never took.

took a while but after I kept escalating my complaints higher and higher it was finally sorted out.

what I don't like is how the emphasis is always on the "consumer" to prove that the debt is not theirs. and of course there's never any compensation for all the time and effort spent proving it's nothing to do with you.
think its great that you help this woman.
Every time something like this happens why does it take MONTHS to solve these issues when you send all the required information to the companies demanding a payment or something from you... are they all really that incompetent?
Regards
www.germanjulian.com
If neither O2 nor Moorcroft can provide a signed copy of the original agreement, they can't enforce the debt.

http://www.debtquestions.co.uk/debt_forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&p=186923

Phil
Ok, this must be some cultural misunderstanding but I don't understand why the burden of proof is on you? At least in my country, they have to prove it's you NOT you to prove it's not you.
Until someone can forge perfectly your signature it shouldn't matter any of this.
I'm assuming that you live in the US and you are claiming that the burden of proof is on the plantiff, not the defendant.

If that is what you meant, then your wrong. The burden of prove is only on the plantiff in criminal cases. In civic cases, its the other way around.

AT adds: Assume makes an ass of u and me.
Gotta love that threatened "Home visit". 

For some reason when I read that I get visions of big blokes with low foreheads knocking on the door and punching their own palms in anticipation.

Excellent job outing O2, please do us the great favor of telling us how this tale ends. Oh, and find the redoubtable Mrs Magee a body guard or two lest the threatened "home visit" becomes less of a threat and more of a reality.

O2 should be ashamed and fined and sued, and lastly - thoroughly humiliated.

Oh, wait...perhaps there is some movement on that last one.
...although from my mother's experience of O2, I wouldn't touch anything to do with them, ever.

However, I know a colleague on Orange who is also having similar problems. Due to an administration problem with Orange, they are billing him for two phone lines and two phones, despite him only having signed up once. He's still trying to get the matter sorted out now (six months later), and Orange doesn't help him because they keep cutting off his phone line without any notice.

O2 and Orange, I would avoid them both.

Oliver.
Hey, on the follow-up piece you said:

"We at the INQ are willing to intervene on behalf of readers if the facts are pretty straightforward."

I've posted on the follow-up piece with my situation - pretty much the same as yours. The facts are very straightforward, so if there's anything you can do to help, that'd be great. (My MP is a total waste of space - nuff said.)

Actually, all I really want is a frigging postal address for their fraud department... since all my efforts to phone them, get them to phone me, or find out how to write to them have been utterly fruitless!

Furthermore, I think I'd like to see it become law that any company who can set up accounts like this and can darken credit ratings, threaten debt collectors and so on, absolutely has to provide a postal address for correspondence.

Because why the hell should I waste my time in a futile game of telephone tennis with an imaginary opponent who (as far as I can tell) doesn't even exist?

O2, are you reading this? Your facelessness and inability to be contacted, and promises to call me back (which never happens) are WOEFULLY lacking.

I say it again: get the hell out of my life, because I've got better things to be doing than clearing up your bullshit!!