the times | Saturday April 30 2022 65
Money
I
am writing to ask if you could
intervene on an issue I am having
with O2 concerning the transfer
of my mobile phone contract
from a business account to a consum-
er one.
My business has closed, so I
thought a consumer account would
be more appropriate.
After a series of phone calls, my old
contract was disconnected in Octo-
ber and my number transferred to a
new account. Then, in November I
had an invoice from O2 asking me to
pay a £178.04 termination charge.
It only became clear that a finan-
cial penalty was likely to be applied
when I was trying to get my number
transferred.
I contacted O2 to ask why I should
pay this amount when I was still an
O2 customer. Eventually I was told
that I should contact O2’s partner
company, Think Comms Ltd.
I am very confused as to why Think
Comms are involved when my
payments go to O2. I also think the
termination charge is unreasonable
and unfair business practice.
Jocelyn
Address supplied
Troubleshooter says
You took out a 24-month phone
have to pay this fee for not reaching
the minimum term, or whether it had
buried this in the small print.
When I spoke to O2, it said: “We’ve
looked into this one and the terms
and conditions the customer signed
make clear that early closure of the
contract would cause a term fee to be
applied.”
When I asked if its staff had
warned you about the fee when
speaking to you on the phone about
the new contract, it simply said: “All
proper processes were followed dur-
ing this case.”
I then asked about Think Comms,
which works with O2 to distribute its
business contracts. While O2 pro-02 charged £178 to move... to 02
Katherine
Denham
Times Money
Mentor
Troubleshooter
vides the mobile network service and
sends the monthly bill, Think
Comms manages and supports the
customers.
You said that you had signed up to
the O2 contract online and, given
that all your bills were from O2 and
paid by direct debit, you had no rea-
son to believe that you had entered
into a contract with any company
other than O2.
The good news is that O2 agreed to
refund the £178.04 fee.
It said: “We are glad our customer
has found a new contract with O2
that she is happy with and as a ges-
ture of goodwill we are happy to clear
the charges on this occasion.”
You said you welcomed the good-
will gesture, but thought it should
have been offered much sooner and
without the need for my assistance.contract in February last year, but
wanted to swap to a new contract
eight months later. As you were stay-
ing with O2 I can see why you took
issue with the company charging you
an exit fee, though it is common for
phone companies to charge fees to
cancel a contract mid-term.
With that said, I still wondered if
O2 had made it clear that you wouldMoney Mentor
Online
Find out how to reduce
your phone bill
thetimes.co.uk/money-mentorIf you would like us to investigate
a consumer problem, write to
Troubleshooter, Times Money,
1 London Bridge Street,
London SE1 9GF or
[email protected].
Please include a phone numberMy Swift transfer was anything but
I am having a nightmare getting
Revolut to process a bank
transfer of €10,725 (£9,000). The
company prides itself on having
slick fully automated systems and
most of the time these work well.
However, I sold some shares on
the SaxoTraderGo platform in
October and attempted to send
the cash to my Revolut euro
account, but the money never
arrived. For weeks I followed up
with the online helpdesk, but it
seemed powerless to do anything.
No one took responsibility and it
was impossible to escalate the
problem. They said they were
working hard to resolve it, but
there was never a clear statement
about what was wrong or how
long it would take to fix.
Months later Revolut then told
me that the transfer had been
processed and the funds would be
in my account soon, but I still
have no clear idea of when.
Jeremy Johnston
ShropshireTroubleshooter says
Transferring money between
financial companies should take
a matter of days and yet your
€10,000 was in limbo for months.
Revolut is a UK-based financial
technology company known for
being a low-cost way to exchange
currencies, while Saxo is a Danish
bank and trading platform.Saxo uses a system known as
Swift, a kind of international
messaging service to move
money around the world, to
process your transaction. We
have heard a lot about Swift
recently in light of the ban on
Russian banks.
For transactions to be
processed using this system, an
International Bank Account
Number (Iban) is needed. This
number verifies your account
number, bank, country and other
information.
The problem was that Saxo
hadn’t provided an Iban. Instead
it sent the money with your UK
account number and sort code.
You tried to sort the problem
out by getting Saxo to amend thedetails, but Revolut said it didn’t
get this amendment. Both
companies blamed each other for
your ordeal.
After I got involved, Revolut
eventually sent the money back
to your Saxo account. so you are
now back at square one, but at
least your money is no longer
missing.
Saxo said: “We’re sorry to hear
that Jeremy had so much trouble
transferring funds from Saxo to
Revolut and we fully understand
and appreciate the distress
missing funds can cause.”
It has now changed the Iban in
its system to avoid these delays in
the future, so you shouldn’t have
a problem resending the funds. If
you do have a problem, I want to
know about it.
Revolut said: “The customer
was underserved by several
institutions, including Revolut, in
terms of response times and
communications. We recognise
the frustration caused by the
time it took to resolve and
apologise for the inconvenience.”
Revolut refunded your annual
account fees, giving you £120
compensation. I asked it to
review this and it increased that
compensation to £520.
Saxo gave you €50 and left you
feeling that you were a bit of a
nuisance. You are still annoyed
— and I don't blame you.