Washington's Stuart Brown claims his business took a tumble when he was left hanging on for more than two weeks before he could start using his new mobile phone.
Stuart, 41, who is the owner of My Pets Direct, on Crowther Industrial Estate in the town, reckons he lost around £7,500 while he waited for O2 to get him up and running, as most of his business is conducted via his phone.
And he says he even had to pay staff from his own account as he was not able to authorise the payroll and risked being late with his quarterly VAT return and company accounts, as he had no access to his bank account without the two-step authentication linked to the missing phone number.
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The fed-up businessman's woes started when he decided to take out a new mobile contract with O2, and was assured by staff at the O2 shop in the town that moving his number from his old Virgin contract to O2 - a process known as number porting - should take no more than 48 hours once they had the PAC - or Porting Authorisation Code - from Virgin.
According to telecoms regulator Ofcom and O2's own website, the process should take one working day one the new provider has received the PAC code from the old supplier, however Stuart was in for a long wait.
He says he received the PAC from Virgin promptly, which deactivated his Virgin account, and thought he would be up and running with his new O2 phone in a couple of days, especially as the two companies had merged in 2021. However, 16 days later, he was still without a phone and growing increasingly frustrated by the effect he says the hold-up was having on his business, which he set up in 2020 to supply pet beds, mainly using online marketplaces.
"I spoke to the O2 shop several times and was told that they could see that the portal had started but it seemed to be stuck in the system," said Stuart. "I was told that someone would get back to me, but they never did, so I went back into the shop and the whole thing repeated again. I don't think it was the shop's fault as they have been helpful. I went back into the shop for a third time and the manager escalated the complaint and said I would get an email within 24 hours - but I didn't.
"Meanwhile it was my staff's payday and I could not access my business account to pay the wages, so I had to use my personal account to do that. And all the while the clock was ticking on my quarterly VAT return, which required access to my bank account to complete and I also needed to download detailed statements for my annual accounts, which I could not do.
"It had a real and major impact on my ability to run my business, and I reckon it's cost me as much as £1,000 a day in lost sales as I was not able to upload new stock to Ebay or Amazon and I could not buy new stock as I could not access my bank account to do so. I basically run the business from my phone, so am completely reliant on it. Without it I could not do much at all."
Stuart rejected O2's original offer of £50 compensation but has accepted an updated payment of £200, although he said that he was disappointed that O2 were 'refusing point blank' to accept any blame for loss of earnings. "I have too much on to go back and forth fighting it," he said.
An O2 spokesperson said: “We apologise to Mr Brown for the delay in transferring his mobile number. We’ve resolved this issue and have offered a goodwill gesture for the inconvenience caused.”
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