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In June, 2012 I visited the O2 shop in 49 George Street, Hove, BN3 3YB, enqurying about opening an account and getting two Samsung S3 mobile phones. David told me I could get the phones virtually free by paying £99.99 upfront and he would credit me £100 into my account for each phone. I still keep his written notes, luckily.

On the next day or two, I revisited the shop. I paid £199.98 for two phones. Christina went through the contract procedure with me. She was fully aware of the £200 credit. However, she told me, she could not add £200 to my account while I was there, because I was porting the numbers from Vodafone to O2. She had to wait a few days until the porting process finished and then my account was active. She said she would add £200 credit in a few days. So I left the shop with two new phones happily.

I have no way to check if O2 has put £200 into my account or not. Only at the time O2 monthly direct debit shows on the bank statement, I know the credit has not been credited. I started tracing the credit in August, 2012. At first, I thought it is a piece of cake to get it back. I did not trace O2 hard. I popped into the O2 shop occasionally when I was on George Street for something else. Sometime I had chance to speak to David, sometime I did not. David never denied his promise – how can he? I am glad I have not thrown away these pieces of little notes.

David asked me at least twice to write down my company name, address, account number, contact number. He always said someone would contact me. From my ten times visits, I received only one call from O2 in October, 2012 (or so, I can’t remember). But he did not sort out my issue straight away, instead he promised another call back within a week. Well, I never received a call back since then.

My last visit to the O2 shop was three weeks ago. I met David. David must think he should do something differently this time. He composed an email to the Area Manager reporting this issue, and clicked “Send” in front of me. I took it that David wanted to correct an error happened 7 month ago, he need some kind of authorisation. David said someone, probably the Area Manager, would contact me by the Friday within that week.

Well, more than a week passed. I had not been contacted by “someone”. I was not surprised this time. I must be a very patient man, but I lost my patience with O2 after half a year tracing the credit. I did something I was reluctant to do. I started a complaint procedure.

I am annoyed at being badly serviced by O2 for 2 aspects.

• Why O2 always ignore my queries? Why should I spend so much my valuable time tracing £200 credit? O2 wasted me much more than £200 worth of my time.
• O2 customer services seem do not bother with what is happening in the O2 shop. They said to me “the O2 shop is franchised – you have to sort your credit with the shop”. It sounds like “it’s none of my business”. I regard the O2 shop part of O2. Whatever the O2 shop is doing wrongly will ruin the reputation of O2. O2 is responsible for all outlet channels. Even if O2 customer services are not able to sort out the credit alone. They should liaison with the shop instead of asking me to go to the shop.