O2

by danhon

Or, more accurately, Telefonica O2.

Being a series of related bullet points.

  • I was in Austin for SXSW, and subsequently Toronto for IN09. If you follow my Twitters, this would’ve been painfully evident.
  • My (i)phone stopped working.
  • It stopped working on the day I was due to fly up from Austin to Toronto via Houston, and on to my next conference.
  • I rebooted it.
  • I “turned it off and on again”.
  • I wiped it and restored it.
  • I reset the network settings.
  • I had Lisa from work call O2 (on Tuesday 17th March), and they said there was nothing wrong with the account, and that while I could take it in for repair in the US, I’d have to pay for it myself.
  • When I say stopped working I mean like this and this.
  • It didn’t start working when I got to Houston.
  • Or when I got to Toronto.
  • I used Skype to make calls through my laptop over WiFi though. That was quite cheap, and the quality was entirely adequate.
  • My phone did “activate” as soon as I landed at Heathrow this morning, though.
  • And then later today, I got a text message.
  • It said this: “Your mobile usage is unusually high. A call restriction may be placed on your line. Please call the Customer Services number on your invoice to discuss.”
  • I got that message when I was in the office.
  • I called the number, and spoke to someone in accounts/billing.
  • My phone had indeed been deactivated. They had sent me a text message to tell me so.
  • I pointed out that they might want to look into the order in which they take those two actions, as there does appear to be a more optimal one.
  • She apologised.
  • I pointed out that someone had called on Tuesday and spoken at great length to find out if anything was wrong with my phone.
  • She checked the records and said they had no record of anyone calling.
  • I pointed out that that was a bit silly really.
  • She apologised.
  • I said: “It’s all very well you sending a text message, but you could also send an email. I can get emails.”
  • She said: “Well, it’s an automatic system, you see. There’s not people sending out text messages.”
  • I bit my tongue and decided not to say what I thought of their automatic system.
  • I pointed out, again, that I had a non-working phone for a pretty important business trip, and the whole thing could’ve been easily fixed.
  • She apologised.
  • I asked if she could remove the block. She said she would, and that my phone should work again within the hour.
  • I asked how we might prevent this sad series of events from reoccurring.
  • She said that I should let O2 know of my travel plans in advance, so they can make sure my phone works.
  • I went out to lunch.
  • When I came back from lunch, there was a letter for me in the mail.
  • Apparently, my phone usage has been unusually high…