Faceless Companies-Expose Them

[Final Whistle]

The Northern Ireland widow of a soldier killed in Afghanistan has spoken of her disbelief after receiving a letter from O2 demanding his phone be returned.

Amanda Binnie said she received the letter from the mobile phone company just two days after she buried her husband, Sean.

Mrs Binnie said the letter said she would have to pay £100 unless the handset was returned within 14 days.

"I can't explain how I feel about this I'm very, very annoyed," she said.

Cpl Binnie, 22, who served with the Black Watch 3rd battalion, was killed on a patrol in Helmand province last month.

Mrs Binnie said she had bought the phone contract for her husband as a gift on Valentine's Day so he could stay in contact with her when he was in Afghanistan.

"The phone is very valuable to me because it has the last messages I sent to him and the last messages he had sent to me," she said.



Cpl Binnie was buried at Roselawn Cemetary with full military honours
"There are pictures from our honeymoon and our wedding on the phone, so it is very valuable to me.

"It's not the fact that I don't want to pay the £100, it's just that I think it is very cold and selfish of them to do this two days after his funeral."

"I don't even have the phone, I don't have any of his belongings they are in Afghanistan.

"It takes a while for them to be brought back and there is not a chance I could have the phone for them in 14 days."

Mrs Binnie said that in the days after Cpl Binnie's death, her brother had contacted O2 on her behalf to explain that he had been killed in action.

She said the company agreed to freeze the contract until a death certificate could be produced to verify his death.

"My brother wrote letters to them explaining what had happened," she said.

"He attached a newspaper headline telling them what he had done, but it wasn't good enough for them, they still said they wanted the phone back."

When contacted by the BBC, O2 issued a statement saying they wanted to apologise to Mrs Binnie.

"On hearing of her case, and due to the tragic circumstances involved, we can assure her that the phone contract will be cancelled and any outstanding charges will be waived," it said.

02 are bastards, Banks are Worse.

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[stew]

There was a contract involved and it is standard that if someone dies that is responsible for a contract you have to produce a death certificate to end the contract. It is poor form back form that they demanded the phone. 02 are obviously a classy company that values it's customers.

The Beeb contacted them, they get horrible press out of this and they then decide to let the dead customers family keep the used equipment, maybe they should have thought of that before they cost themselves thousands of customers.