Help! O2 is chasing me for a debt I've already paid

By TONY HAZELL FOR THE DAILY MAIL

Updated: 06:27 EST, 26 September 2012

We had our broadband and landline with O2, which we cancelled because internet speeds were painfully slow.

We were told we owed £68.17 to settle. I contacted Barclays and told them to cancel the direct debit once this payment was collected.

Unfortunately, Barclays cancelled it too soon. Barclays apologised, I paid by debit card and that should have been the end of the matter.

But O2 has continued to chase the money and we now have debt collectors phoning. Mrs P.E., Stevenage.

Crossed wires: O2 has been chasing a reader about a debt that has already been paid.

Tony Hazell, from Money Mail, replies: You had made numerous attempts to sort this out before contacting me, yet could not get O2 and its debt collector off your back.

Your bank statement confirms you paid the bill on May 28 by debit card.

But a full six weeks later, your husband received a call from debt collector Fredrickson International while in a hospital bed having blood tests prior to being taken to the operating theatre for angioplasty surgery.

This call was also exactly one month after you had written to O2 explaining very clearly that no money was owed because you had paid by debit card.

O2 should at this stage have investigated its records carefully to trace your payment.

Instead, it sent another debt collection letter, and when you wrote again, sent a pettifogging letter refusing to deal with you because your husband was first named on the account. In fact, your husband is registered blind, so you deal with his correspondence.

O2 now says it received payment on July 9. In fact, this is when it registered the payment against your accounts. Goodness knows where they put the money for the previous five-and-a-half weeks.

Finally, they have called off the debt collectors and made sure their credit records are correct. I didn’t think this response went far enough, and asked them to pay some compensation.

O2’s spokesman apologised again and persuaded the high-level complaints team to authorise a payment of £150, which I feel you fully deserve.