O2 most mobile in pursuing unpaid bills

MOBILE phone giant O2 has taken three times as many people to court for unpaid bills than its nearest rival, court records have revealed.

O2, which is Ireland’s second-biggest mobile phone firm, has brought 2,400 bad payers to court since 2001.

Ireland’s biggest mobile phone operator Vodafone has brought around 800 defaulters to court over unpaid debts since 2000 - despite the company having 2 million customers to O2’s 1.5 million.

Since Meteor started operating, it has taken 216 people to court for sums ranging from €310 to €4,080, according to court judgements obtained by Dublin-based BusinessPro.

The judgements also reveal that people were taken to court by the three big mobile phone companies for unpaid bills as small as €147 and as big as €5,370.

O2 Ireland defended its record, saying the company did all it could to help customers in difficulty before taking legal action.

Spokeswoman Emma Hynes said: “We do examine each situation on a case by case basis.

“We make every effort to contact these customers over a number of weeks. If they talk to us, we will discuss the variety of ways and options available to them to pay their bill.”

Ms Hynes said O2 offers struggling customers a payment plan so they could pay off their debt while continuing to use the phones.

Vodafone said taking non-payers to court was the last resort.

Spokeswoman Davina Sexton said: “We always try to help customers pay their bill and if they are willing to pay we would always accommodate that. We always try to deal with the matter in-house and there are lots of stages we go through before going to court.”

BusinessPro, which provides information on financial matters such as bad debtors, said that around 15% of the cases were registered court judgements.

Traditionally, registered judgements were more serious because the debtor’s details are widely available so more lenders can find out about the debt problem.