PDA

View Full Version : New o2 T&C's - Can I Cancel My Contract?


DJBenson
01-10-2006, 17:21
o2 have just mail-shot a new list of T&C's and amendments to my original contract which I have conveniently been trying to get out of, my financial circumstances have changed drastically in the last couple of months and I simply cannot afford the line rental any more.

I remember a thread not so long ago where people had managed to get out of their contracts due to an amendment so could somebody look over the new T&C's and advise if I could exit the contract.


1. If you connect to an online tariff your airtime agreement commences on the day your mobile phone is dispatched (clause 3.1).
2. If you upgrade your mobile phone a new minimum period will apply – (clause 3.3).
3. Some pricing information has been moved to the O2 Price List (clause 5).
4. If you are a consumer customer, within 6 months of upgrading you must not move to a tariff with a lower monthly subscription unless you pay us the difference between the monthly subscription on your original tariff and the lower rate tariff. This does not apply to business customers (clause 5.13). Business customers cannot move tariffs at all during their minimum period unless we agree in writing.
5. The insurance provisions have been updated to include reference to our new O2 insure policies Premier & Standard (clause 6.3).
6. We have added a new clause stating that you agree that you are procuring the SIM cards, mobile phone & service for your own use and that you will not resell or act as a distributor in respect of these things (clause 6.6).
7. We have slightly amended clause 8.4 (a) which gives you the right to end the agreement if we break this agreement in any material way and do not correct the situation in 7 days from receipt of your written request.
8. If we increase charges for inclusive calls or monthly line rental, we will give 30 days' notice and in these circumstances you will have the right to cancel your contract provided you give us 30 days' written notice & provided you tell us within one month of our notifying you about the changes. (If we increase charges for other, additional services such as Bolt Ons, third party services, premium rate services or other value added services, you may cancel or stop using this additional service only) (clause 8.4c).
9. New clause 9 has been added. This section only applies to business customers and contains various clauses from the previous business contract. The wording has been tweaked slightly in some places.
10. O2 is not responsible for deletion, loss or corruption of any content transmitted or maintained by the network unless this is caused by our negligence (new clause 9.2).
11. Limitation of liability wording has been slightly amended to state that nothing in the agreement shall exclude or limit liability for death or personal injury resulting from either party's negligence or fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation and new limitation of liability has been added for business customers. (clause 10.4).
12. We have added that we will post any changes to terms and conditions or charges on our website (clause 12.1).
13. We have updated the wording which explains how you can contact us if you have a complaint (clause 15.4).
14. We have extended the ways in which we may use information about you and your use of the service – which may now include communications made and received by you and the date, duration, time and cost of such communications and the location of your mobile phone (clause 18.3).
15. Details of premium rate services charges operated by third parties, are available via our website www.O2.co.uk/premiumnumberpricing.
16. We will charge a fee to receive a copy of any information from a credit reference or fraud prevention agency, which we hold on file about you.
17. Our address for complaints has changed to:

Complaints Review Service
PO Box 116
Leeds
LS11 5DS

18. The address that you need to write to if you want to cancel your agreement with us has changed to: O2 UK, PO Box 202, Houghton Regis, LU5 5WA.


I have put in bold the only term I can see that I don't agree with and the one which I personally would presue as a reason to exit my contract.

splobber
01-10-2006, 17:29
moving...

blender
01-10-2006, 17:38
that sounds resonable. But they might just say that they wont collect or use such data since you dont agree to it.

scoobywest
02-10-2006, 09:57
yes you can, there is a post with a lot of info on this somewhere...

Vini
02-10-2006, 12:40
yes you can, there is a post with a lot of info on this somewhere...

Thats helpful, where exactly?

Could do with ditching a few contracts myself.

scoobywest
02-10-2006, 14:09
do a search
http://www.thedvdforums.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=433225&highlight=cancel+contract

Vini
02-10-2006, 15:35
do a search
http://www.thedvdforums.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=433225&highlight=cancel+contract

as you will see that is an old post for a different change in T&C. one that actually affects the costs of calls.

this change of T&C doesnt cost the user anything, and i presume has been well thought through by o2 to prevent a sudden landrush in cancellations.

senormankypants
02-10-2006, 15:50
as you will see that is an old post for a different change in T&C. one that actually affects the costs of calls.

this change of T&C doesnt cost the user anything, and i presume has been well thought through by o2 to prevent a sudden landrush in cancellations.

Still, Im not sure they can make any changes to your T&Cs under English contract law without your consent.

DJBenson
02-10-2006, 17:56
I have just emailed the web team and will post back their response. Will try their complaints department if I get no joy from the online team.

Rob_Baker
02-10-2006, 18:51
Funny, i just emailed them to before looking here! that clause worries me. Its in full below, basically says they can use date of calls/numbers/texts/costs/time & seemingly track your phone for their own purposes!
I'm not one of those people who tries to cancel if they change a single letter in the T&Cs but this worries me & i'm not comfortable with it at all. I'll let you know what the web team say to me as well.

I wouldnt mind if it was specifically for legal reasons (ie disclosing information to the police) but they seem to have piggy-backed another clause on there to give them use of your info for their own purposes!
-----------
18.3 You authorise us to use and disclose, in the UK and abroad, information about you, your use of the Service including, but not limited to, phone numbers and/or email addresses of calls, texts and other communications (“Communications“) made and received by you and the date, duration, time and cost of such Communications, how you conduct your account and the location of your Mobile Phone for the purposes of operating your account and providing you with the Service, for credit control purposes, fraud and crime detection and prevention and the investigation and prevention of civil offences or as required for reasons or national security or under law to our associated companies, partners or agents, any telecommunications company, debt collection agency or credit reference agency and fraud prevention agency or governmental agency and other users of these agencies who may use this information for the same purpose as us. You can obtain further details from our public registration held by the Information Commissioner. If you wish to have details of the credit reference or the fraud prevention agencies from whom we obtain and with whom we record information about you or receive a copy (we will charge a fee) of the information we hold about you, please contact us by writing to the Data Controller at O2 (UK) Limited, 260 Bath Road, Slough, SL1 4DX or, if you have eCare, at mycare@o2mail.co.uk, stating your full name, address, account number and Mobile Phone number.
------------------

senormankypants
03-10-2006, 08:18
O2 have no legal basis on which to change the T&Cs without your consent. However continued use of your phone under the new T&Cs without objection constitutes your consent to the new T&Cs. If you don't consent then write to O2 and inform them of that. Their choice is then either keeping you on your old T&Cs or cancelling the contract.

DJBenson
03-10-2006, 09:54
But they have no way to "prove" that they won't use my data as they said they would, so I would demand that they cancel my contract. If it was a price rise, their word would be good because you could see on paper that they haven't changed their terms, in this instance, there is nothing to show that they are keeping to their word.

senormankypants
03-10-2006, 10:29
IMO thats not how it works unfortunately:
Section 8.4 (of my april 2006 contract):
"You make break this contract by giving us written notice if:
a) We break this agreement and we do not correct the situation within 7 days of your request."
So as I see it, your first course of action is to write to O2 to state that you do not consent to the new T&Cs and they have 7 days to reinstate your original ones.

DJBenson
03-10-2006, 15:15
As expected, they are not playing ball (yet):


Dear ########,

Thank you for contacting O2 Customer Service with your enquiry about our Terms and Conditions.

The key change to our Terms and Conditions is that we have merged the consumer and business terms together so that one contract applies to all.

We have not made any significant changes in our Terms and Conditions, which will affect your contract agreement.

You will complete your 18 month contract on 30 June 2007.

If you want to cancel your account now, you will need to pay the relevant termination charges, as you have not completed your contractual period. These charges will be calculated by taking the remaining number of months (of your contract) multiplied by your monthly service charge (line rental).

If you still want to cancel your online Pay Monthly account, please reply to this email with the following details:

Your name
Phone number
Alternative contact number
Preferred time of contact (Monday to Friday between 08:00am and 06:00pm)
Order number
Date of contact
Reason for wanting to disconnect
PAC (Port Authorisation Code) requested? Yes/No

A PAC is required to keep your existing number.

We will then forward your details to our Cancellation team.

If you want to post a written complaint, please post your written complaint to:

Complaints Review Service
PO Box 116
Leeds
LS11 5DS

Our team will review your complaint and they will contact you soon.

If you need further information about this matter, please reply to this email. For further details about O2, please visit our online Help Centre at:

http://www.o2.co.uk/help

Important - Please make sure that every time you contact us you include the following information: Your Date of Birth, Postcode and Mobile Number.

Kind regards,

Ngashepam Singh
O2 Customer Service.

Getting your query right the first time you email us is very important to us. If your query has not been resolved this time, please reply to this email with the words 'Need More Help' in the subject field and we will deal with your response as a matter of priority.

O2 (UK) Limited, Registered Office: 260 Bath Road, Slough, Berkshire SL1 4DX. Registered in England No 1743099.

Rob_Baker
03-10-2006, 16:41
well i got...

-------------

Dear Robert,

Thank you for contacting O2 Customer Service.

I am sorry you want to cancel your Pay Monthly contract, as you feel we have shared your personal data.

Account security is very important to us and combined with the Data Protection Act, this means that we do not share your details with anyone other than the registered account holder.

Your online account is protected using 128-bit encryption. Encryption is a way of encoding information so that it cannot be read as it travels across the Internet.

If you want to check whether you already have this level of encryption, please perform the following steps:

Connect to the Internet, using your preferred service provider.
Click on the "Help" Menu, and select "About Internet Explorer". This will launch a small window that will contain the Version of Internet Explorer you are using, the Cipher Strength, and the Product ID.
The Cipher Strength should read 128-bit.

If you need further information about this matter, please reply to this email. For further details about O2, please visit our online Help Centre at:

http://www.o2.co.uk/help

Important - Please make sure that every time you contact us you include the following information: Your Date of Birth, Postcode, Mobile Number.
---------------

??? They got a reply to that obviously so we'll see!

senormankypants
03-10-2006, 17:00
The new T&Cs also stop you from selling the mobile phone! I'm guessing this only applies for the length of the contract but still.

Rob_Baker
05-10-2006, 16:43
Getting funny non-commital answers, i've asked a specific question & said that if i cancel & AM liable for charges then i will speak to the complaints department & have to give the name of the person who told me this. We'll see!

dvds2000
05-10-2006, 17:06
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/04/mobile_phone_location_data/print.html

dvds2000
05-10-2006, 17:37
I've just called o2 and they can't even access the changes or new T&C on their systems lol

I'm not bothered about the data part as you can opt out

The part about not selling the phone is what concerns me, the phone doesn't form part of the contract and is yours from day one. Unless they want to keep ownership of the phone for the whole of the contract (and therefore be liable for any out of warranty repairs) then I fail to see how they can tellk you you can't sell it