02 spent 4 days sending me fake proof-of-usage letters for a lost iPhone
I lost my iPhone 16 Pro Max on 6 October. 02 pay monthly, phone bought SIM-free from Argos in November 2024 for £1,199. The insurer wants two things from 02: a proof-of-usage letter, and proof the IMEI is actually barred. Three days later I still do not have a usable pair.
After I reported it, I logged into My 02 and switched on the bar options myself: incoming and outgoing calls, data, roaming, the lot. Then I contacted them and asked them to bar the handset IMEI, and to bar the plan so calls and data could not be used. They sent emails. That was the start of it.
Without the phone, the 02 website does open a chat, but it is a bot. Most of it is menus. Ask for a person and it gives you phone numbers to call, or a barcode to scan so you can carry on in the app. I had to download the app on another iPhone, a 15 Pro Max on Three, nothing to do with 02, and that is how I have been talking to them. Calling 202 is not an option when the lost phone is the 02 number.
7 October, agent Shah. I asked for the SIM to be blocked and for proof of barring and proof of usage. He said insurance letters are a different team and I had to call 202 from another 02 number. I said I had no phone. He checked with a supervisor, then said he had emailed proof the phone was barred, and a lost-and-stolen bar email, and that I could claim with those. What arrived was an 02 email saying a Lost/Stolen bar had been added to the number ending 6734. No IMEI, no date tied to the handset, no model.
8 October, about 9pm, agent Rajdeep. I asked again for proper letters: name, address, number, IMEI, first and last use, and confirmation the IMEI is barred. He said all the bars were already on and the documents were on the way. He then asked if the number was an iPhone 15 Pro Max. It is a 16 Pro Max, Desert Titanium, used on that number for nearly two years. The email that landed had make and model “Unknown Unknown” and IMEI 999999999999994. A dummy number. He said he would fill the form manually and the real letter would take 24 hours. He also told me to get proof of purchase from Argos and that I was done.
9 October, that letter arrived from their back office. Right name, address, model and IMEI. Last use 9 September 2026. Bars Added: NA. I opened a chat again. While I was in it, a second letter arrived. Bars added: Yes, but no name or address, and the same 9 September date.
The agent, Lacno, told me the last use they can see for this phone is 9 September 2026. That is nonsense. Same phone, same number, used until 6 October, three(today 4) days ago. Calls and data do not happen on a number with no handset attached. The network registers the device every time it hits a tower. If the bill shows use after 9 September, they have a record. Saying the system cannot see the phone is an excuse, or the system is wrong. He could not see a 16 Pro Max on the account at all, only an iPhone 15 Pro Max. I was texting him from the old 15 because that is the only way into the app. My 02 itself lists the SIM as being used with an iPhone 16 Pro Max. He said the phone was not bought from 02 so they do not hold purchase details, asked me for the Argos price, and said he had expedited another request. He also said they cannot change the last-use date because it has to match the system. He raised a complaint, tried to close it on the same chat, and put a £5 credit on the account.
I checked the IMEI on a public blacklist checker the same afternoon. Clean. 02 had already told me, on three separate days, that it was blocked. At 16:43 they emailed that an IMEI bar had been added. That email still does not include the IMEI, so it cannot be matched to the phone. Lacno said the bar can take time to show on checkers, and that back office would review the usage date within another 24 hours.
One thing that might explain the 9 September date: that is the day I flew to Antalya. I turned the 02 eSIM off in the UK so I would not get charged for expensive Turkish roaming, and used a Nomad eSIM instead. I came back on 12 September, switched the 02 eSIM back on, and used the same phone in London until 6 October. I have done the same trip and the same Nomad setup before with no problem. The bills after 12 September show calls and data on that number. The handset was not off the network for a month.
Ridiculous that in 2026 a lost phone means two weeks without one. The network takes days to send a letter, the insurer takes a day or two to reject it over one wrong line, and you start again. Each pass is another 48 hours.
Still no phone, and still no letter I can actually use.
When I finish with Likewize I am done with them for sure. Now I am starting to think I am done with 02 as well.
p.s. I have screenshots of every chat, and if it is true that my call with 02 was recorded, I am thinking of going to the ombudsman once I am finished with both of them. So much stress from two companies I already pay, over things that should take five minutes. And this is 2026.