This is a letter that I wrote to O2 Germany expressing the frustration I have with canceling my mobile phone contract. Discussions with their customer service department left me angry and ready to scream.

July 4, 2007

To:
O2 Germany
Kundenbetreuung
90345 Nürnberg

Re: I've been trying for two years to cancel my contract and you won't let me. This is why I will never be an O2 customer again.

Dear O2 Germany,

In April 2005 I wrote to you asking to cancel my contract. You replied that because I have an automatically renewing contract I am required to tell you three months in advance if I want to cancel, and since the contract renews in May, I had missed my chance. Tough luck, have fun paying for nothing for a year.

In June 2006 I was astonished that the contract still didn't end. After all, I had written to you to cancel in April 2005... 14 months earlier. You replied that I had to write another letter to cancel.

In March 2007 I wrote another letter trying to cancel my account. These things are hard to keep track of, you know. If I don't have one of your telephones and never make any calls using this account, the only reminder for me that you exist is the money you take from my account automatically every month. So, I missed it again. Even though I've been trying to cancel my account for three years, you now tell me that neither of my letters count because you received them in the time between February and May when no cancellation letters can possibly be valid.

You are now insisting on taking my money for nothing for yet another year and insist that you have the legal rights to do so. Your customer service agent on the telephone insists that there is nothing you can do to help me.

O2 Germany, here is my contract cancellation letter for 2008: Let me out of your fucking contract.

And now here's how I feel about it. You handled this as stupidly as I could imagine. I'm 35 years old, earn decent money, and love to buy gadgets. Whether it's a mobile, a PDA, a laptop, faster DSL, whatever... I've bought my way through multiple contracts for each, often times just to get the latest and greatest. I'm a dream customer.

You, on the other hand, are a nightmare of a service provider. I wouldn't recommend you to anyone. In fact, because of the trickery you insist on playing with my magically automatically renewing uncancelable contract, I will never be an O2 Germany customer again.

If I live another 50 years I will buy new gadgets and new communications contracts every year of my life. But not your products. After speaking with your representatives on the phone I was mad enough to want to scream.

So when 2008 rolls around, I expect that you will stop taking my money. And then I never want to deal with your company again.

Robert Douglass