what Some O2 customers Maybe I wanted it for Christmas It was the phone number I had always dreamed of. thing I had a habit of going the wrong way. Whether they got lucky is another question, as O2’s customer service is as hard to pin down as Lord Lucan.

J.D.‘s number was taken from her when a fraudster pretending to be her tricked O2 into transferring it to a SIM obtained from another provider.

This allows customers to receive a text containing a two-factor authentication code sent by their bank to verify that they are who they say they are. As a result, more than £4,500 was instantly stolen from her credit card. O2 explained that she was a victim of “.SIM exchange scam”, the criminal transfers your phone number to your SIM to receive calls and text messages from your bank.

They promised to block the stolen number and send a new card. Once this arrived, JD’s phone was back to life, but only for a few hours. Incredibly, the scammers were able to repurpose the number into their own SIM. O2 admitted that it failed to report the first SIM swap as fraud, which meant the second SIM swap was ignored without question.

JD said he was repeatedly told the fraud team would contact him, but never heard back. When she managed to catch them five days later, they solved the case.

She was told that compensation should not be paid because O2 had done nothing wrong. By then, she had gone nearly two weeks without a phone. Her bank refunded the stolen £4,500, but she was unable to access any of her bank accounts as she did not receive the security code needed to log in.

O2 claim it was a coincidence that the number was restored on the day I contacted them, but they admit they had poor communication and are offering me £350 as a gesture of goodwill.

when A.W.‘s My 91-year-old mother lost her dependable pay-as-you-go (PAYG) number. O2 told her that the mother’s SIM did not match the number in question. AW sounded. “I was asked to wait 48 hours as I needed to fill out paperwork,” she wrote. “Six days later, I was told that my account could be compromised and that it would take 10 business days to fill out two more forms.

“Then 10 business days later I was transferred to the retention department and was told that nothing could be done because the number and SIM did not match.I was connected to the fraud department and reached a recorded message. But then it was disconnected.”

O2 determined that the only way they could restore their number was to switch their account from PAYG to a monthly contract. This was done, a new number was provided and AW canceled the contract within the cooling off period.

So O2 sprang into action. Not to resolve the complaint, but to demand and chase an unexplained fee of £9.35. Nothing was said about the £24 credit left on my old PAYG account. O2 told me that they tried contacting AW’s mother multiple times to resolve the issue. I asked when and how the company became aware that calls were being made to a number that had been unreachable for a long time.

It later claimed that the delay was due to the PAYG account not being fully set up. I asked why, since it had been working fine for years. What O2 meant was that customers setting up a monthly contract would need to provide all the details. This is irrelevant because the account in question is not on a monthly contract.

We belatedly determined that AW’s mother may have been a victim of SIM swap fraud, but we could not be sure as not enough information was kept on PAYG customers.

Now the company has offered to refund the credit, pay £110 in goodwill for the poor service and restore the lost number after 5 months of delay, but of course AW’s mother changed providers. did.

AF Alerted O2 after receiving unrequested PAC (Portability Authorization Code). This allows you to keep your old number even if you change service providers. O2 told him they needed 10 business days to investigate. His phone number then stopped working and was said to have been ported. More than two weeks later, he called O2 three times and visited the branch, but on his third attempt he was told the case was closed when the phone went unanswered.

O2 told me he was responsible because they tried to contact him three times just before the case ended. It was confirmed that he was also a victim of SIM swap fraud and his phone number was subsequently returned, but as O2 predictably declares, he will not be compensated as it was all his fault.

Telecommunications regulator Ofcom requires customers to verify their identity before porting their number. The company said it was monitoring complaints about SIM swap fraud involving O2, which ranks among the lowest in the world. Latest performance table Due to insufficient complaint handling.

“We have discussed the steps they are taking to protect their customers,” the document said, adding: “It is important that all telecommunications providers protect their customers and that they have no evidence of widespread harm.” “We have shown that we will not hesitate to take action if we find out.” as needed. ”

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