O2 Online - dubious offer.

Within the last 24 hours O2 Online have run a TV advert which promised 2,000
minutes and 200 texts a month and a flash new phone for £35pcm.

Then for the last few frames it had some small print at the bottom of the
screen along the lines of: -

"Only valid on contracts entered into before 31/03/07"

clearly an impossible condition to fulfil.

Over the years I have had enormous difficulty in getting O2 to honour
contracts it has entered into, but now they seem to dishonour their offers
before you can even take them up!

--

R. Mark Clayton

nospamclayton@btinternet.com
remove nospa for email

R. Mark Clayton wrote:
> Within the last 24 hours O2 Online have run a TV advert which promised 2,000
> minutes and 200 texts a month and a flash new phone for £35pcm.
>
> Then for the last few frames it had some small print at the bottom of the
> screen along the lines of: -
>
> "Only valid on contracts entered into before 31/03/07"
>
> clearly an impossible condition to fulfil.
>
> Over the years I have had enormous difficulty in getting O2 to honour
> contracts it has entered into, but now they seem to dishonour their offers
> before you can even take them up!

Complain to the Advertising Standards Authority? Running adverts for
out of date offers is a big no-no in their book. I know some retailers
(Dixons + PC World I think) who got told off for running an advert for
an offer on discount PCs, when they'd already run out of stock and
therefore was impossible to take advantage of (and therefore many people
were offered a more expensive machine).

D

On Apr 11, 3:34 pm, "R. Mark Clayton" <nospamclay...@btinternet.com>
wrote:
> Within the last 24 hours O2 Online have run a TV advert which promised 2,000
> minutes and 200 texts a month and a flash new phone for £35pcm.
>
> Then for the last few frames it had some small print at the bottom of the
> screen along the lines of: -
>
> "Only valid on contracts entered into before 31/03/07"
>
> clearly an impossible condition to fulfil.
>
> Over the years I have had enormous difficulty in getting O2 to honour
> contracts it has entered into, but now they seem to dishonour their offers
> before you can even take them up!
>
> --

Why not just look at the o2 Online website?

It is £25 a month, not £35, for 2000 minutes (between 7pm and 7am) and
200 texts.

Nothing confusing about that?

In message <7PqdnTIIBKYfbIHbnZ2dnUVZ8sqjnZ2d@bt.com>, R. Mark Clayton
<nospamclayton@btinternet.com> writes
>Within the last 24 hours O2 Online have run a TV advert which promised 2,000
>minutes and 200 texts a month and a flash new phone for £35pcm.
>
>Then for the last few frames it had some small print at the bottom of the
>screen along the lines of: -
>
>"Only valid on contracts entered into before 31/03/07"
>
>clearly an impossible condition to fulfil.

LOL.

I think the 2,000 minutes refers to the maximum number of 'free' minutes
you can use on O2 Long Weekends.
--
Martin Jay
Phone/SMS: +44 7740 191877

On 11 Apr, 15:34, "R. Mark Clayton" <nospamclay...@btinternet.com>
wrote:
> Within the last 24 hours O2 Online have run a TV advert which promised 2,000
> minutes and 200 texts a month and a flash new phone for £35pcm.
>
> Then for the last few frames it had some small print at the bottom of the
> screen along the lines of: -
>
> "Only valid on contracts entered into before 31/03/07"
>
> clearly an impossible condition to fulfil.
>
> Over the years I have had enormous difficulty in getting O2 to honour
> contracts it has entered into, but now they seem to dishonour their offers
> before you can even take them up!
>
> --
>
> R. Mark Clayton
>
> nospamclay...@btinternet.com
> remove nospa for email

The ASA and/or OFT may be interested in this from a false/misleading
advertising angle.

If done deliberately (never underestimate the capability for
incompetence) this could be a case of 'bait and switch' - you ring up
to take advantage of a very attractive offer; they say it has ended,
but have you considered this other slightly less attractive offer.

Not sure on the legalities of this at the moment, but I note that this
practice is going to be 'blacklisted' later this year when the Unfair
commercial Practices Directive is implemented.