Wednesday 28th July 2010

I am pretty tense at the moment as you might expect, with all that I have to do and the limitations of time - more hours in a day God, is that too much to ask? You fucking idiot. I'd had a busy day, getting another podcast done with that bloody fool Andrew Collings and doing all sorts of bits of admin.I am pretty tense at the moment as you might expectwith all that I have to do and the limitations of time more hours in a day Godis that too much to askYou fucking idiot. I'd had a busy daygetting another podcast donewith that bloody fool Andrew Collings and doing all sorts of bits of adminSuddenly it was the evening time and I needed to dash out to do another previewbut I was perusing my online account and noticed that O2 who I have my mobile phone with and with whom I used to have mobile broadband had taken £92 out of my accountI knew what this was about and my heart sank immediatelyI had cancelled my mobile dongle a couple of months ago because it wouldn't work with my new laptop and I was planning on getting a 3G iPad which would do the job for meI had signed up for an 18 month contract back in January 2009which meant I had to pay out the last couple of months (I hadn't used the thing since January so they'd already had some extra money off me for nothing)According to their computer I had a 24 month contractbut I pointed out that this wasn't the case and they checked and saw that I was right and cancelled the order. A little later I got an email explaining I had been billed for £92presumably for the 6 months that I hadn't ordered and certainly wouldn't be usingA couple more calls and some more explanations and they again realised their mistake and the bill became 1p for a while and then correctly back to nothing So farso boring. So clearly in spite of all thissome gremlin in the machinery still believed I had had a 24 month contract and so I had been charged anywayI hoped a quick call would sort this outI wasof course incorrect. I rang upbut hit my first hurdle when I was asked for the mobile broadband phone numberNaturally I didn't know this and on checking my online accountonce the thing has been shut down they had wiped all the records from thereSo I couldn't enter it when requested to by the computerised voiceI didn't think that would matter too much as surely they could find my account by other meansBut when I finally got through to a human beingaware of time passing and the fact I would have to leave soonshe asked for the number and I explained I didn't have it and she told me that there was no way she could access my account without the phone numberI heavily suspected that this wasn't the caseMainly because I am pretty sure I have done this before without problemsI explained that I couldn't get the number as my account had been shut down and that she'd have to find some other way to access the account otherwise O2 would be stealing money from meMy blood was boiling a little bit already it was annoying that this thing that I had spoken to them 3 times about already was still rumbling onbut I remained reasonably politeif a little agitatedI think the woman was having a bad day toobut she wasn't good at her job and kept talking over me as I tried to explain what had happened and repeating that there was absolutely nothing that she could do without a mobile numberI told her that I didn't think that was trueShe clearly didn't like me much and I had to tell her to treat me a little bit more respectfully at one pointeven though I had accused her of lying to me. This went round in circles for a while and I told her that I had my mobile and my iPad with O2 and that if she couldn't sort out this issue then I would have no other choice but to move my accounts to another provider This seemed to make her a little more concerned than she had been and she told me she would speak to her supervisor and I got played some Elbow for a couple of minutesThen this now very surly woman returned to inform me that she "mightbe able to access my account if I gave her my postcodeSo I was rightShe had been lyingI resisted the temptation to say"So when you just said that there was no way you could do that and I told you that that was a lieI was right then?" She took my postcode and there was a beat and she said"We have no account with that postcode.Which I knew had to be a lieBecause even if my mobile broadband account had been entirely erased then my mobile and my 3G account had that postcodeI started to get a little crosser as I told her thisbut she was insistent that I did not even have a mobile phone account with O2 even though I was talking to her from an O2 mobileI told her I had the original email with the order number for the dongle and suggested that that might be on the systemShe insisted that it wouldn't beShe seemed to want to end the conversation until I could provide her with a number that I didn't havemeaning O2 would just keep the money that they had taken despite strong efforts on my part to point out their mistakeI could feel my blood pressure rising and on top of everything else I thought that it would be fitting if this unnecessary agitation and incredibly poor customer service ended up with my heart popping and me checking outIt was incredibly frustratingIn a way it wasn't worth me spending time and energy in the pursuit of £92 that it seemed at this juncture that it would take me several phone calls to reclaimbut there was a principle at stakeIt's wrong for companies to take money that doesn't belong to themI reminded her how long I had been an O2 customer and repeated my request to be transferred to someone who could cancel my mobile phone accountor at least sort this issue outAfter 30 minutes of being on my phone she finally agreed to take my order number and hey presto the account came straight upAgain I resisted the temptation to tell her that I had known this all alongbut it was infuriating that this could have been handled so much betterMy girlfriend later told me that she used to work in customer service and sometimes when things were difficult to do the staff would claim thing were impossiblebecause otherwise they had to get a supervisor and it would take up lots of time and they get into trouble if they don't take a certain number of calls an hourEvensoit would have seemed sensible to admit that it was possible to access my account a lot earlier. She was in there and told me that the account was all paid upI said that yes it wasbecause they had taken the money that I didn't owe themEven now she didn't grasp the issue "This is a broadband account is it?she saiddespite the fact I had repeatedly told her what my problem was. "Yes,I said. "Then I need to transfer you to someone else,she againI suspectliedOnly as the transfer was going through did I realise she hadn't given me the mobile numberwhich she presumably now knewWas I going to have to go through all this again? As it happened I wasn'tas she had transferred me to home broadband rather than mobile broadband (and surely she knew it wasn't home broadband that I had been talking aboutand the new lady told me that there was nothing she could do to help and nor could she transfer me to the right person (surely not true eitherand that I would have to start the whole process againMy blood was fizzingI didn't have time and I went downstairs in quite a state of suppressed fury which didn't leave me for at least an hourThe drive to my gig was a tense and unpleasant oneI understood why businessmen peg it in their mid-forties sometimesI hadn't needed this hassle. The more I thought of itthe crosser I became and the more determined to find a new phone providerI have been having quite a lot of issues with BT over my home broadband connection and it was annoying that this had come up nowEspecially given I have so little time before I go to Edinburgh and so much to doCould I face another 45 minute conversation leading nowhere? As it happensI just rang O2 before I wrote this on Thursday lunchtime and the lady I talked to this time completely grasped the issuemade no claim that I had to give her the mobile broadband numberwas happy to take the order numbergot my accountsaw what had happened immediately and said that sometimes the direct debits don't get closed down in time and she would reimburse the money straight awayThe call took three minutes from start to finishSo I had clearly just got an obstructive member of staff last nightThat isif the money does end up being reimbursedDo I get any compensation for my time and emotional damage though O2I can't believe how much this incident affected meNor the difference between being treated with efficiency and respecteven if you yourself might be a little perturbed. I suspect that last night's lady might do better on another day and that we caught each other at exactly the wrong timesBut her blatant lies are quite breathtakingespecially with the hindsight of how easy it was today. Meanwhile I think I'd better go with the plan of dying before I am 45 rather than living to 90I am never going to be able to hold on if life aggravates me this much on a day to day basis.Get your name in the Christ on a Bike programme and raise money for SCOPE by clicking hereEmail this edition of Warming Up to a friend ]

• ⇒Alex's Worst Cup of Coffee Ever
• ⇒Oneupweb Reviews : Nike Plus Running Community
• ⇒Weekend Reads
• ⇒Open Thread: Child-Free Resources, Suggestions, and General Bitching
• ⇒Caving into bullies (aka, here we go again)