In recent months we’ve noticed what looks to be a rise in the number of O2 (Virgin Media) Mobile customers reporting that access to their account IDs have been “locked” due to unclear “security reasons“, which has in some cases taken several weeks or months for customers to get resolved. In other cases the issue may reoccur shortly after being resolved.
Firstly, it’s important to reflect the difficult balancing act that broadband and mobile providers often have to perform in today’s modern high-threat environment. On the one hand we expect telecoms operators to help keep us safe from internet security threats and fraud, while on the other hand those same operators also have a duty to protect their own network, such as when customer accounts are abused or their connections hijacked.
Suffice to say that taking proactive action against customers is not something that any network operator takes lightly, although in these cases it’s not entirely clear whether any of O2’s impacted customers have actually done anything wrong or had their devices / accounts compromised (a few also appear to have been locked by accident when Virgin Media and O2’s accounts were combined – admin errors).
In all cases the customers, who never seem to be told what triggered the action, have simply woken up one day to find a message saying their accounts have been locked. Various recent examples of this occurring can be found on social media (here, here and here), as well as on our own discussion forum (here), with some still trying to get the issue resolved after several months. Mercifully such issues are usually still rare.
Sample Customer Complaint 1
“My account has been locked for security reasons for almost 2 weeks now. Support has not been helpful. They say they’ve logged a ticket twice but I’m yet to hear anything. The latest call told me I have to add a new number to my account and that action will unlock the account. Then I can cancel the new number.”
Sample Customer Complaint 2
“I am in the same boat, but it has been going on for almost 3 months now. I’m just not getting anywhere and have been told different things each time I phone up. The shops and social media won’t help me and just direct me to call customer service. I’ve lodged an official complaint but haven’t heard anything back. I went to the ombudsman but they told me they couldn’t help with the case.”
Sample Customer Complaint 3
“I received an SMS today saying that they have locked my account and to speak to CS. The only option is to send off a form to their Accounts Team to look at. I would be fine with it, but my bill is due in 5 days and its a bank holiday.”
At this point we’re going to focus on a similar problem that one of ISPreview’s members, Sam, has recently been having (here). His account was suddenly locked on Friday 1st May 2026. Since then he’s had multiple support contacts in an effort to try and get the problem resolved. After a few days Sam eventually got through to VMO2’s security team, and they unlocked his account. But the celebration was short-lived as, without warning, his account was then locked again on 6th May.
Like most of those impacted, Sam initially didn’t know why this occurred, although he previously speculated that it could be to do with a promotion he was sent to try their new 5G+ network, or possibly some confusion over the geolocation of the fixed IP address assigned by his broadband ISP; both seemed unlikely. The issue also risked making it harder for Sam to pay his bill online (it’s not via Direct Debit), unless he can log in.
It was at this point that ISPreview became involved and asked VMO2 to look into Sam’s case. We also queried, more generally, whether O2 could clarify what sort of activity might cause accounts to be locked in this way and why it sometimes takes so long to get the matter resolved. During this period Sam’s account was unlocked and then locked again in the space of 24 hours, but O2 did respond just after that.
A VMO2 spokesperson told ISPreview:
“We take fraud extremely seriously and will occasionally temporarily lock customer accounts to protect them if we identify suspicious activity. Our teams are ready to support customers and unlock accounts after they’ve verified their identity.”
In terms of why accounts end up being locked, O2 explained how they continuously review security threats to keep their customers safe from fraudsters and cybercriminals. As part of this, they have introduced “enhanced proactive monitoring” to detect suspicious activity on customer accounts. But for security reasons they wouldn’t disclose the specifics of what they monitor, although they did broadly point to a wide range of behavioural data points being used to assess whether an account could be at risk and therefore temporarily locked.
O2 said they recognise that a temporary account lock can be frustrating for the small number of customers affected, but their analysis apparently shows these measures are effective in preventing unauthorised access and are playing an important role in keeping customers safe from fraud.
However, the issues we’re seeing often stem from the difficulty of how customers can then effectively rectify this, particularly when they are kept in the dark about the cause. In addition, O2 often make it slow and difficult to get account locks removed (see above complaints) – a more effective process is clearly required, although equally the operator does have to be careful about not providing an avenue for actual fraudsters to also abuse.
The provider has since apologised for the problems Sam had been having and informed ISPreview that his account was “now unlocked and he’s regained full access“, except at the time of that message he still hadn’t regained access (his account was still very much locked). We pointed this out to O2 and several hours later his account was unlocked again. Hopefully it will now stay that way.
O2 said that “any other customer experiencing issues should get in touch with our customer care team who can verify their identity and help unlock their account“. As a side note, Sam is the same person who we reported on last year too, when O2 hit him with an unexpected £1,000 bill after losing his mobile number (here). Hopefully the rest of 2026 goes a bit better for him.
Addendum:
Since writing this article we’ve come to understand that one of the things VMO2 look at is whether they can identify if any customer accounts or account passwords have been compromised online (plenty of databases exist to help them do this). Sam understands that some of his security details were likely exposed, resulting in an automated system repeatedly locking his account to protect it (manual attempts to undo this were later reversed by that same system).
Suffice to say, this seems to have been a bit of a learning experience for the operator and customer alike, which we hope will eventually find a quicker and more effective way of communicating to customers why accounts become locked and how to ensure they aren’t locked again after being unlocked.
Sam is now happy with the outcome, albeit not so much the hoops he had to go through to get here, and advises others to set up additional security measures, like Passkeys on their devices and backup email addresses.
Sam told ISPreview:
“As a customer of O2 – I feel very disappointed in the time and effort with Customer Care that it took to get to this point. The stonewalling unfortunately led to a week of significant stress.
Thanks to Mark & ISPReview – I was able to get an answer from the right people – This resulted in me increasing the security to my O2 account extending the Multi-Factor Authentication to include backup email and Passkeys.
I feel sorry for others who get their accounts locked. There are threads all over Reddit and the O2 Community Forum who have to go to the Ombudsman to get their issue sorted.”
