Promise with one hand, taketh away with the other...
I need mobile internet access for my laptop using a data card and approached my mobile phone provider (O2) to check out details whilst in one of their retail stores in Bristol.
The store price sticker quoted the monthly price to be "Free" and "Free" to "£120" for the data card. Not bad I thought and decided to ask the young retail assistant in-store a few more questions.
She knew little about the product and went back and forth from a back office repeating my questions to a manager who did not wish to bother to show his face... the answers I got back were verbatim and left me very confused. Why? Mostly because the monthly price was not "free" AS ADVERTISED and instead was £30 a month.... and was just the "one offer"... all rather flaky really.
The retail assistant seemed satisfied she had given me an answer and skipped back to her desk to do what ever she was doing before I arrived. She never even stopped to ask why I looked confused or was there anything else she could do to help me work out what was exactly on offer.
So I checked out the O2 website and get sidetracked by O2's internet offer of:
How is this unlimited use? I have to admit I feel that this stinks, smacks of being not particularly transparent and encourages me to lose faith in 02.
I then call O2 and speak to an advisor who mentions there are various offers for the Data Card, one being free which I think this now sounds good. Then she spoils it all by saying I would have to pay the £50 for the data card, which I refused seeing as Vodafone were able to offer to me one for free plus a monthly connection for 12 months at £25-00 plus VAT for 3GB usage (which seems steep to me).
So for those of you who can remember Sean Bean's little strapline in the O2 ads:
Well for me, O2 quite frankly can not do much right now.
So another LARGE company that doesn't get it and then wonders why it loses customers....
The store price sticker quoted the monthly price to be "Free" and "Free" to "£120" for the data card. Not bad I thought and decided to ask the young retail assistant in-store a few more questions.
She knew little about the product and went back and forth from a back office repeating my questions to a manager who did not wish to bother to show his face... the answers I got back were verbatim and left me very confused. Why? Mostly because the monthly price was not "free" AS ADVERTISED and instead was £30 a month.... and was just the "one offer"... all rather flaky really.
The retail assistant seemed satisfied she had given me an answer and skipped back to her desk to do what ever she was doing before I arrived. She never even stopped to ask why I looked confused or was there anything else she could do to help me work out what was exactly on offer.
So I checked out the O2 website and get sidetracked by O2's internet offer of:
Unlimited – so you can download exactly what you wantYet below this is mentioned:
Fair usage policy applies.
How is this unlimited use? I have to admit I feel that this stinks, smacks of being not particularly transparent and encourages me to lose faith in 02.
I then call O2 and speak to an advisor who mentions there are various offers for the Data Card, one being free which I think this now sounds good. Then she spoils it all by saying I would have to pay the £50 for the data card, which I refused seeing as Vodafone were able to offer to me one for free plus a monthly connection for 12 months at £25-00 plus VAT for 3GB usage (which seems steep to me).
So for those of you who can remember Sean Bean's little strapline in the O2 ads:
See what O2 can do for you
Well for me, O2 quite frankly can not do much right now.
So another LARGE company that doesn't get it and then wonders why it loses customers....
posted by Darren Moloney at 10/09/2007 04:57:00 pm
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