O2 (Ireland) - Criticism

Criticism

In July 2004 the company admitted overcharging 71,000 customers following a review of its systems.The disclosure means that 136,535 O2 subscribers - more than 10 per cent of its customer base - were overcharged.

Analysis by the Sunday Independent in January 2006 showed the massive margins being earned by Vodafone and O2 in the country are costing Irish mobile phone users about €300m a year. If the mobile phone companies were to cut their Irish margins to the group average,O2 customers would end up paying €84.07 less every year (€7 a month less).

The European Commission upheld a ruling by the Irish regulatory body, Comreg, that the Irish mobile phone market needed greater competition, and acknowledged that "tacit collusion possibly existed between O2 and Vodafone".

In May 2007, O2 Ireland management announced that the entire O2 Ireland technical staff were to be outsourced to a single Managed Service Provider. The next month O2 customers got a busy signal or no dial tone at all when they tried to make calls due to a network glitch. The reason for the glitch remained a mystery at the time because the company's spokesperson couldn't be reached by the media on her mobile, also seemingly affected by the problem.

The Consumers' Association of Ireland lodged a complaint with the Competition Authority over a loophole used by O2 that allows it to bombard customers with unwanted text messages.

The telecoms lobby group ALTO criticised O2 Ireland for its decision to quadruple the revenue it generates from calls to the 1850 LoCall number. This is a fixed price, shared cost service used by charities and a number of public service bodies.

The company was criticised for its monthly subscription fees levied on Irish users of the iPhone, as they represent poor value for money when compared with the services available to customers paying similar amounts in the UK. Less than 48 hours after the much hyped launch of Apple's latest model, owners of all phones on the O2 network discovered they could not access the internet at all due to a network failure. Further criticism has come from iPhone customers regarding the continued failure of O2 to deploy Visual Voicemail. O2 was the only carrier in the world to launch the original iPhone without Visual Voicemail, one of its headline features.

O2 was responsible for the highest number of registered judgments, which financially blacklists those people who do not pay their bills on time in August 2008.

The Advertising Standards Authority have upheld complaints concerning advertisements by O2.

In August 2010, O2 was warned by the telecoms watchdog, ComReg, that it cannot move customers to online billing without their explicit agreement.

In March 2011, O2 pleaded guilty to a breach of the Data Protection Act at the Dublin District Court.

In March 2011, it was revealed that Denis O'Brien made payments to the Minister for Communications, Michael Lowry, to aid Esat Digifone's licence bid.