Police issue warning to O2 customers over online refund prank

O2 CUSTOMERS in Northern Ireland have been warned about an online prank which reroutes refund requests to the emergency services number 999.

On Thursday millions of customers in the UK and internationally were hit by disruptions to O2’s data services.

Users in Northern Ireland were unable to use their mobile phone data for almost all of Thursday, with the service only resuming yesterday morning.

The company confirmed yesterday that it would compensate users affected by the fault.

However, police have issued a warning about a post on social media post urging individuals to contact a number to access refunds.

“Apparently there is somebroadband thing circulating on social media advising O2 customers to ring 141999 to get a refund after the data issues yesterday,” a tweet from the PSNI reads.

“This is a prank and will put you through to the emergency operator, please don’t ring it.”

Dialling 141 before a number in the UK withholds the caller’s number on a call-by-call basis.

As services returned to normal, O2 said it would be giving its pay monthly, small and medium business and mobile broadband customers credit for two days of monthly airtime subscription charges, to be issued by the end of January.

Pay-as-you-go customers, meanwhile, are to be given 10% credit on a top-up in the new year, O2 said, adding it will let customers know when this is available.

O2 said pay-as-you-go mobile customers would receive a 10% discount on bolt-on purchases, which are additional call, text or data bundles that can be purchased at any time.

Sky Mobile — which uses O2 services — has announced plans to give its customers a day’s free unlimited data today.

On Thursday, O2 issued a joint apology with telecoms company Ericsson over the mobile data incident.

O2 UK chief executive Mark Evans said: “I want to let our customers know how sorry I am for the impact our network data issue has had on them.

“We fully appreciate it’s been a poor experience and we are really sorry.”

Marielle Lindgren, chief executive of Ericsson UK and Ireland, said: “The faulty software that has caused these issues is being decommissioned.”