iHate iPhone – the next chapter     24th Jun 2009

You may remember my disappointment at the start of the year with the new iPhone 3G, if not, catch up with opening chapter of my fruit phone epic here.

It's been 6 months since the revelations and bitter anticlimaxes of my first iPhone post. It was slow, fragile and temperamental. I spent the first half of the year coveting my boyfriend's Blackberry and warning prospective iPhoners away from the dark side.

"Do you want a life of bitter disappointment and frustration?

Oh you do?

Well hell yea, go ahead, buy an iPhone.

If you need a reliable device to keep your business ticking over, get a Blackberry."

It was that simple.

Since that fateful day in November 2008 when I rang O2 and placed my order, vast pockets of my working day and coveted social life have disappeared into a deep vortex which I affectionately call "iwaiting". Watching the little circular loading icon spin round, staring blanking at an email whose only communication reads "loading..." or just... simply... waiting...

It was Touch and Scream not Touch Screen.

The endless waiting for something to happen, something to load, a service to fire into action was painful. Physically painful. I discovered gripping the snoozy iPhone tighter in my white knuckled palm and waving it about above my head and near windows did nothing to impress on it my need for speed. Surprisingly.

I rang Business Customer Services... who put me on hold.

Great, more waiting.

When I finally spoke to someone, we went through the usual rituals of rebooting, resyncing and general passing of responsibility for any faults.

I went into O2 shops, several of them in fact. I spoke to suitably cheery sales assistants, several of them in fact, who then proceeded to give me the live version of the Customer Service performance.

I nagged every computer geek I knew, thrusting the phone in front of them and demanding they do something to make it work.

Social etiquette went out the window, I didn't care if they were about to get married, eating their dinner or just off a 14 hour Trans Atlantic flight - I wanted the dam thing to work.

It didn't.

Then one day, something strange happened.

During one of my monthly moans to iLover Lyall, he spotted the 3G symbol was missing from my screen.

"Oh" I said, "I've never seen a 3G symbol before"

[Queue parting of the clouds, dramatic down pouring of light and enlightening twinkly music]

Another phonecall to customer services (put on hold again, but hey, I'm used to it now) and I'm informed it appears I only have a 2G sim card and they'll pop a 3G one in the post to me tomorrow.

"pop it in the post" ?!?!? It's not a flaming lost mitten! 6 months of fury twisted frustration combine to form a monstrous beast of pure anger at the sheer incompetence of O2 and I kick nearby paint pot with such fury that I even surprise myself a little.

I regain my composure and wait for the Sim Card.

It arrives, I insert it, it works.

3G on the screen, 3G in the phone.

Over the last 6 months my ability to run my business has been seriously compromised by O2's negligence. I've missed emails, lost time and money waiting for things to work or open, but most frustratingly of all, I have been paying for a service I was never provided with. O2 failed to provide me with the devices and hardware required to access the services for which I was paying.

In the contract (the 2 year contract) O2 sates:

3 Supply of Equipment to Business Customers  

3.2 We agree, subject to acceptance by us of an Order, to supply you with the Equipment requested in your Order

subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement.

I requested a 3G iPhone. A 3G sim card is an integral part to this. Without a 3G sim card, you cannot use 3G technology.

Am I being daft, or is this really quite elementary?

This morning at 8:30am, Purvinder at O2 Business Customer Services informed me I would be getting no refund on my charges for the last 6 months, despite the fact I had not been receiving the services I was paying O2 to provide me. Nor would I be getting any sort of compensation, upgrade or even an apology it would seem. Yes, even in the face of sheer incompetence, O2 were clinging onto their "accept no blame, pass the buck" policy.

Purvinder explained to me that the fact that I had not been receiving the correct services or had the correct equipment was in fact... wait for it... my fault.

Yes, that's right folks, it was MY FAULT.

Not O2's, but mine.

Me, me, me.

Johanna Basford.

I, the customer, had failed to contact O2 customer services enough times for them to identify and rectify the problem. Had I made them aware of the problem, had I persisted with the calls and complaints, they would have eventually found the problem and rectified it straight away.

Silly me.

I quizzed Purvinder on how many times one has to ring customer services or go into a branch in order to qualify for actual Customer Service (I wondered if I'd missed out by just a few visits).

I asked how long a Business Customer has to spend on hold before their complaint was dealt with and they received the services O2 were contractually bound to supply them with. I asked how many times I had to visit a store and speak to a "trained member of staff" before they would provide me with the goods I had purchased from them.

Purvinder was adamant, O2 were not to blame, no apology, no compensation.

Frustrated once again, I took a deep breath and pointed out that as O2 had failed to meet the terms and conditions, the contract was therefore void and I felt I had a legitimate reason for early termination. I pushed the image of shiney, fully functional Blackberry from my mind and concentrated on the task at hand.

Purvinder: "Well Miss Basford, you would need to talk to the Cancellations department. They don't start till 9am, so you'll have to wait 20 minutes."

I put down my iPhone and weep.