Warning - O2/Carphone Warehouse - billing error

[BankFodder]

Here's what happened to me - in case it ever happens to you.

On an O2 account through CPW I received a warning letter that the account was £35 in arrears and shoujld be paid immediately and if not ... blah threats blah.

This account is paid by direct debt and there is no reason why the DD should fail.

I called them and they told me that the account was uptodate and that the letter had been sent out in error.
Fine, except I am well aware from reading this website as how these things are sometimes not fully corrected and you end up with entries on credit files etc.

I told them that I wanted a letter confirming that the letter was sent in error. They told me that they didn't have such a letter and that it would be impossible to generate one. They would send me an updated statement of account.
I told them I wanted the letter that they had better find someone to write one out then because if I didn't receive it I would complain to the Information Commissioner and also to the OFT under the new CPUT regs. I was told that they couldn't do it. I told them to get a manager to speak with. After a lot of wating the operative came back and told me that the letter I wanted would be written and sent to me.

I asked for a call reference number. They don't generate them. I got the name of the manager who apparently be writing to me and the name of the person I was speaking to. I then said that I wanted her to read out to me the screen notes that she was making to confirm that she had it all down.

The whole thing is very unsatisfactory and I don't really expect that I will receive the promised letter so in 7 days I will be complaining as I promised.

At the end of it all I will insist on a free Subject Access Request to ascertain that everything is clear.

It's all an awful lot of trouble but the way these kind of people are so sloppy and so cavalier about putting entries on data files which then require a mountain of effort to get removed, one has to be very firm about it from the outset just as a matter of self-defence.

I'm posting this really to give an example of how I think that these things need to be handled. I think that it is probably a big mistake just to accept a verbal statement that a letter like this was sent in error. The letter was generated by a computer. This means that there must be an inaccurate record somewhere that there is money outstanding. That is thin end of the wedge. It can soon become a rather large snowball.