O2 Bank Transfer

[MonkeysUncle]

I am not with O2 so cant say from experience but these seemed odd to me.

My dad is trying to close down his O2 account, its an old contract he doesnt need anymore.

So went to pay off the final bill, called O2, the rep for O2 said he was working from home so cannot take payment over the phone, instead he can give bank account details so my Dad can do a bank transfer.

Dad thought this was a bit sus and asked me. I have never heard of a company doing this, mind you i do everything online nowadays. For the moment I have said wait till I can find out more.

So if this normal for WFH scenarios?

[SueEllen]

No.

Does your dad have an online account?

If he does he can log in and go to "Make Payment" and pay them using a card.

If he doesn't have an online account from what I remember you can set one up quite quickly so you can do a payment.

[northernladuk]

I'd be very surprised to hear that as well. Could be they have a different system where every call handler doesn't have the ability but I'd expect them to put you through to someone who could.

Yeah my alarm bells would be ringing as well.

[pr1]

I am not with O2 so cant say from experience but these seemed odd to me.

My dad is trying to close down his O2 account, its an old contract he doesnt need anymore.

So went to pay off the final bill, called O2, the rep for O2 said he was working from home so cannot take payment over the phone, instead he can give bank account details so my Dad can do a bank transfer.

Dad thought this was a bit sus and asked me. I have never heard of a company doing this, mind you i do everything online nowadays. For the moment I have said wait till I can find out more.

So if this normal for WFH scenarios?

What number did he call O2 on?

[malvolio]

More to the point, how was he paying for the service contract he's trying to shut down? Surely that's where the final payment should go.

I had a confusion with O2 over an old mobile data contract that I couldn't access, and which was years out of date anyway. In the end I cancelled the DD and waited for them to contact me. I got a letter a week or so later.

[Paralytic]

I suspect it was kosher and the agent was not able to take payments due to O2 wanting to be PCI DSS compliant. This places restrictions on taking card details over the phone.

Seems a bit clunky to ask for a bank transfer though - unless i was 100% certain it was the right account, i'd be pushing the problem back onto O2, making it clear i'd requested the account to be closed from today and not paying for anything additional due to them not being able to take payment over the phone.

[Lance]

I suspect it was kosher and the agent was not able to take payments due to O2 wanting to be PCI DSS compliant. This places restrictions on taking card details over the phone.

It simply means they cannot record all the card information. Payment over phone is pretty standard for compliant companies.
Sounds like the call centre guy was a moron/lazy (it's still Crapita I think who run it). Just ring again and speak to someone else.

[MonkeysUncle]

More to the point, how was he paying for the service contract he's trying to shut down? Surely that's where the final payment should go.

I had a confusion with O2 over an old mobile data contract that I couldn't access, and which was years out of date anyway. In the end I cancelled the DD and waited for them to contact me. I got a letter a week or so later.

thats what he did, it was an old contract he didnt remember the number of, or any details so cancelled DD and waited for the email. The number he called was on the email, i checked ont he O2 website and the number matched.

He called back and got someone who was in the office, they were able to take the payment as per normal.

I get not being able to take payment when WFH but surely there must be some automated payment mechanism or as mentioned, be put through to someone who can do it.

[Paralytic]

It simply means they cannot record all the card information. Payment over phone is pretty standard for compliant companies.
Sounds like the call centre guy was a moron/lazy (it's still Crapita I think who run it). Just ring again and speak to someone else.

The "call centre guy" was not in a call centre, he was working from home, and very likely did not have the tech needed to ensure the call was fully PCI DSS compliant. You don't have to record the card details to fail compliance - the very act of the agent taking card details from a customer over the phone (and therefore having the opportunity to note them down) will fail certain levels of compliance.