Oook!

I got another reaction to my complaint. I was notified my email that they delivered the bills to me. But no word about my other complains. No call back as I wanted to.

Maybe they hope by fulfilling one of my requests that I will be happy enough to forget about the rest.

This does not seem as if they are interested in retaining me as a customer.

After I got three bills earlier today for Mai, June and July, I also received the bill for August. And since I did not use my O2 sim card during that time, it helped a little to understand the bill structure, but added confusion somewhere else.

First of all, I have contract where I am not required to pay a monthly basic fee. Apparently they still charge a fee but credit the same amount on one bill. I suppose this is for bookkeeping purposes. Also I do get a student discount off 15%.

So, on my last bill for August:

Monthly fixed costs before tax:
- Genion S: 0.0084 Euro
- O2 Genion: 8.3949 Euro
(I still need to find out why there are actually two contracts listed).

Credits and discounts before tax:
- 15% discount: -1.2605 Euro
- Credit O2 Genion: -7.1428

So what happened here?

Discount = (0.0084+8.3949)*15% = 1.2605
Discount + 7.1428 = 8.4033 < 8.3949 + 0.0084

So basically first the discount of fee that I actually do not need to pay is deducted and then I receive credit for the remainder of the fee that I do not have to pay.

Confusing. But in all the bills, the remainder is constant at 7.14 Euro, which means in return that on all bills the discount on the monthly fee is 1.26 Euro. Let's remember that for now.

My bill from July:

Monthly fixed costs before tax:
- O2 Genion: 8.3949 Euro
- Genion S: 0.0084 Euro

Credits and discounts before tax:
- 15% discount: -4.9598 Euro
- Credit O2 Genion: -7.1428 Euro
- Connections / Talks: 28.3676 Euro

So my discount should be 1.26 + (28.3676 * 15%) = 5.5151 Euro. But my bill says only 4.9598 Euro. How can this be?

The solution is a always in the fineprint. The 15% discount does not apply for calls to hotline which charge special rates, just like the hotline of my bank. After deducting the money of that one call from 28.3676, the calculation fits.

Yes... it is complicated. No wonder there a special department in the call center that deals with inquiries about bills...

It can be quite troublesome to pay bills. Especially if you want to pay them, but the company cannot tell you how much you owe them. My phone service provider O2 seems to have such a problem. I have not received any bills for the last two months. After several calls to the hotline and being transferred from department to department, they seem to have/had some technical error and are now working on this issue as well as catching up with sending out the bills. No one has been able to explain the issue to me nor been able to tell me when I can expect my bill. And I would really hate to pay a bill for 3 months (or more) while I am in Taiwan and have no income on my German account.

So of course I call the hotline and try to settle it in advance or to find an alternative solution. The billing department seemed to be especially inflexible and unwilling to negotiate anything. No can do and have to wait till the bill is ready and it is my problem if I am abroad for three months. At least then I got transferred back to the customer service and the lady there was a more helpful. I was not the first customer who called about the problem. After she made some internal calls, it seems that I am ranking higher in priority now and should be expecting my bill before I fly off. If I haven't gotten anything in the next two weeks, I should call again. Not too sure, but maybe this is just a stalling technique... oh well, wait and see.