The Letter Confirms It!!!!!

[Guest joelj]

All very well and good to quote "http://shop.orange.co.uk/spv_pack_popup.html" at me (and I thank you for the collateral, it will come in useful), but the guy in the showroom who sold me the phone back in November said the T's and C's weren't available yet, and spun the eventual replacement deal as "equal or better value" not "equal or lower price".

A shafting? Maybe. Was £6, now £28. Go figure.

Caveat emptor could well apply, but I am taking legal advice on this one.

joel

[Guest Bazz]

I bet you don't! Even if you do I bet you don't get anywhere (I presume you recorded this statement and asked for permission for it to be recorded?). You got a muppet in the Orange shop and couldn't be bother checking his vague details. Deal with it.

Once again I should state it was a PROMOTION!!!!

Please list details of you legal action as you get them to prove you are not talking complete crap.

Thanks,

Barry

[Guest Bazz]

You can argue my posting above was harsh but I'm just fed up with the constant moaning over something we knew was coming. Orange GPRS prices are high (a lot higher than unlimited for £6), but no higher than most other operators.

It's the same with the Amazon price mistakes (read here for an interesting take on that http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/2872429.stm).

Fair enough give it a go if you want and good luck to you if you get something out of it, but don't even pretend you've been cheated and you can get legal about it.

Orange have been good to us SPV owners with GRPS (how many have been charged after going over the 10Mb cap? Of those how many didn't get it back? How many have been kicked of the promo? How about the fact they gave us the promo in the first place?).

[Guest Rob.P]

^ here here, them be the facts of life.

[Guest joelj]

I bet you don't! Even if you do I bet you don't get anywhere (I presume you recorded this statement and asked for permission for it to be recorded?). You got a muppet in the Orange shop and couldn't be bother checking his vague details. Deal with it.

Why should I have checked the details? What he said sounded perfectly reasonable. And I expect the Orange Shop to be fairly authoritative anway. His story was on the lines of (and this is paraphrasing):

* Orange don't know how to price this yet, so the promotion includes unlimited downloads

* after the promotional period they'll introduce a megabyte cap

* the post-promotion bundle would be equivalent or better

The T's and C's on the website weren't made available to me or brought to my attention during the sale. I'd bet the page wasn't even on their website at the time. Kind of irrelevant anyway, as I dind' t buy the phone on the web.

Once again I should state it was a PROMOTION!!!!

Which means that the "good thing" would come to an end. Which I have always accepted. The "good thing" being the "unlimited" nature of the SPV pack. However, I was assured that I would be paying no more for the £10 per month.

Please list details of you legal action as you get them to prove you are not talking complete crap.

Where the * bloody hell * do you get off talking to people like that?

I didn't say I was taking action, you agressive arse. I said I was taking advice. Which I am. The "legal advice" is to let me know where I stand legally, as oppsed to "legal action" which would simply help to make my solicitor richer.

Anway, I have no desire to prove anything to you. You can go spin on it, Mr Confrontation.

You can argue my posting above was harsh but I'm just fed up with the constant moaning over something we knew was coming. Orange GPRS prices are high (a lot higher than unlimited for £6), but no higher than most other operators.

When I was told "unlimited" actually meant "very limited indeed", I swallowed that. Even though we're talking about a phone that's designed for video and audio streaming, instant messaging, email and collaboration.

I'm sorry, I had * no idea * my monthly bill would go up from £6 to £28 for a lousy 10mb usage (and 10mb is * tiny *). I'd say even as much as a two-fold increase was greedy, but this is taking the piss.

Fair enough give it a go if you want and good luck to you if you get something out of it, but don't even pretend you've been cheated and you can get legal about it.

Thanks for the permission. I also had no idea that you were the arbiter of all things legal.

I don't think it's "pretending" when even Orange salespeople mis-interpret the "equal or lower price" as "equal or better value". Strikes me that phrase was specifically designed to mislead. And I'm happy for you that a) you saw it coming, and :lol: you're happy with the new bundles.

Are you denying I've been misled? Anyone who denies that I've been misled obviously has their head up thier big fat arse.

Orange have been good to us SPV owners with GRPS (how many have been charged after going over the 10Mb cap? Of those how many didn't get it back? How many have been kicked of the promo? How about the fact they gave us the promo in the first place?).

I have never gone over my 10mb limit. I always come within a meg of it though. I use mine for email mainly - syncing with the office MIS server twice an hour for email, contacts and appointments. The occasional MSN chat and a tiny bit of browsing.

I've been a "good little customer" up to now. I upgraded from my old phone to the SPV within 2 hours of it hitting the shelves at the local Orange Shop. I paid £129 for that.

I've bought software from the Orange Co-Brand Website.

I've kept within the 10 mb fair use policy.

I bought accessories like the flexi-keyboard.

Yes, I feel cheated. Just a bit. However you use your XDA, I'd wager that 10meg/month is kind of a good usage figure for most of us. Without this kind of data transfer, the device is pretty pointless. Let's face it, it's not a great PDA, and it's a pretty poor phone. However, mediocre PDA + poor phone + permanent fastish internet connection = something pretty special. That's why we put up with the bugs, isn't it?

I guess what you're saying is either "pay the £28 a month a shut up" or "use it less and shut up". Well, I will do neither. I can always stick to my XDA (O2 are charging us a flat £1/meg). For voice calls, I can move network, change phone and take my number with me (and the same goes for my missus' phone, which is on talkshare).

Anyway, why the * bloody hell * am I arguing the point with _you_?

It's not as if you work for Orange Customer Relations or anything.

Or do you?

Anyway if you're "yawn, bored of all this now" please desist from reading this thread.

Apologies to all bystanders reading this, but that kind of agressive flaming really gets on my pecks.

j

[Guest]

Now now children, play nicely! :wink:

As I see it there seems to be two main camps on this topic:

The majority (judging by the poll on the other GPRS thread) feel that they have either been misled or cheated by Orange's handling of the GPRS £6 deal.

The minority (myself and Bazz included) don't feel cheated and feel that Orange have handled this fairly.

Lets just agree to disagree, before this all gets petty and personal.

Debating is good, arguing is bad, m'kay?

[Guest Bazz]

Love posts like this! :lol: :D :lol: :D :lol: :lol:

Yeah I agree with mattkirby, since neither side appears willing to be persuaded by the others side's arguments (I'm including myself in that), let's just agree to disagree.

Still laughing though.... :lol:

[Guest mattat]

There's probably a third stance as well, " I don't feel misled or cheated, but I'm not overly happy with the high prices, and so will try to put some consumer pressure on orange to bring the price down".

That's probably where I stand on this.

[Guest adam]

I think you're right mattat. It's not that Orange have really misled anyone, it's just frustrating for the actual price to be immensly different from the promotional price. It makes you wonder how much money Orange lost by putting on the promotion, that's assuming they did lose money.

If thats the only price orange can afford to charge for GPRS then the phone has been sold with features that aren't economically viable after June. The money lost by orange on the promotional period would be immense, but I doubt this is the case. I believe Orange could offer GPRS cheaper, but it needs to see that it is in its interest to do this. Thats why i'll be using the PAYG GPRS after my June billing date, and that will only be for using Planus SMS. If Orange were to improve their prices, I would probably change.

[Guest cybercamel]

I feel I have to stick my two penneth in here! I bought the phone for its contact and calender functions mainly, everything else was a bonus, including GPRS. Not being the most technical of people, I have really enjoyed adding extra ringtones, changing the homescreen etc etc, but first and foremost it is a phone, and as a phone it still fails to function 100% of the time, and I think if I hadn't been a member of this forum I would have changed it a long time ago! Which brings me to my main point, (eventually :lol: ) The reason I finally ended up buying the phone were all the extras, including GPRS, which after having it explained, including the promotion, persuaded me to get it. Like everyone else I was told of the "equal or lower priced GPRS bundle " and took it at face value, why shouldn't I? If the salesperson didn't have all the facts or didn't know thier stuff, how would I know? This comes down to trust, and I personally feel that Orange have let us all down by using a term that has misled the majority of us!

Lets face it, Orange have released a phone that has lots of faults and bugs that rely's on forums such as this to keep them from being returned, hasn't trained it's technical staff in it's use at all and we wonder why it hasn't been promoted!!!!!!! And then people wonder at the upset caused by the GPRS bundle, Orange have cocked up big time and we are paying the price!!!

Phew, sorry about that, I'll get off my soapbox, have a nice day :D

[Guest Rob.P]

This comes down to trust...

No offence intended but if you wanna go round trusting salespersons then you are asking for trouble. Trust goes out the window when you are trying to reach your targets and get comission, money is a very powerful motivator, look what it did to G.W Bush, he invaded a country :lol:

Salespeople don't care what they tell you, unless they know you can prove word for word what they said.

[Guest joelj]

Love posts like this! :lol:  :D  :lol:  :D  :lol:  :lol:

Yeah I agree with mattkirby, since neither side appears willing to be persuaded by the others side's arguments (I'm including myself in that), let's just agree to disagree.

Still laughing though....  :lol:

Hey, you flamed me, dude. You must have wanted the response you got from me, and I'm glad I (obviously) didn't disappoint.

Did you expect me to take some kind of moral high ground, or do you get your kicks from winding people up?

Actually, I guess neither, judging by the immediate follow up posting you made justifying to yourself what you'd just done.

It hurt, nonetheless.

Update, folks:

I've spoken to "Carrie Millions" from the Customer Relations Department (David Taylor's office) today at 3:30. She agrees with me that the wording is "at best misleading" and said (anongst other things) that the wording was "appaling".

However, she states her legal department contend that they are covered with their wording.

She also rang the Orange Shop I bought the SPV from. The Orange Shop staff admitted to her that they thought the text "lesser or equal price" meant "greater or equal value", and that "greater or equal value" was what they were telling customers. They also admitted that they did not have the T's and C's to show me when I bought the phone.

It's worth noting that the website did not exist at the time I bought the phone (November 2002).

I have currently been presented with the option of a free upgrade to the phone (more-or-less) of my choice, or a cancellation of my account(s) with them. The latter means returning both my wife's Nokie 3510 (or whatever it is) and the SPV (which I paid £129 for). At least I can take my numbers with me.

I will ring tomorrow to sort something out, and possibly speak to someone who has some degree of control over the tarifs, and preferably with the same common-sense outlook as Carrie.

I'll keep you all posted on any progress I make.

j

[Guest Matt Kirby]

The Orange Shop staff admitted to her that they thought the text "lesser or equal price" meant "greater or equal value", and that "greater or equal value" was what they were telling customers. They also admitted that they did not have the T's and C's to show me when I bought the phone.

-------STOP PRESS---------

URGENT NEWS RELEASE

We are receiving unconfirmed reports that staff at Orange shops are indeed (as suspected) complete muppets that don't understand information supplied to them by Orange, and don’t understand simple concepts like “time-limited promotion” and “there’s no such thing as a free lunch”.

According to our sources, not only do Orange shop staff misinterpret this information, but they then pass this (mis)information onto unwitting consumers just to ensure that they make that sale and achieve their sales targets.

Apparently one member of staff was overheard saying to another “Tell ‘em anything. When the promotion ends they won’t remember anyway!”.

We will bring you further information as and when we receive it.

NEWS RELEASE ENDS

P.S. – Before the flames begin this is meant to inject a little humour into a thread that was in danger of it’s participants throwing all of their toys out of their pram. :wink:

[Guest mattat]

To be honest I'm amazed that you got that admission from Carrie Millions - it doesn't exactly help their position does it.

It's interesting that they didn't have the terms and conditions when you signed up for the deal. Strictly that makes them non-binding upon you (if you want a case to cite then Thornton v Shoe Lane Parking, should do it) because terms of a contract must be agreed before the agreement takes place. Then everything depends on what the terms were before you signed up - probably only that it would end in May, and so they would not be in any worse position because they would not be bound by the terms either, so would not have to provide a lower or equal priced service.

Everyone can wake up now - legal rambling over...

[Guest superkingdave]

carrie millions??? sounds like a joke name to me! are you sure she wasnt taking the p*ss?

who can lift the most people- arnie or ms millions? well arnie is hard but she can carrie millions!

ps Marie Clare not Cosmo?

[Guest davy]

:lol: :D

[Guest cybercamel]

I know this is slightly off topic, and I'm not a newshound, but this story confirms everything people think about customer service!!! Plus a few other bits and pieces.

Try here

[Guest fozzie]

I have currently been presented with the option of a free upgrade to the phone (more-or-less) of my choice, or a cancellation of my account(s) with them. The latter means returning both my wife's Nokie 3510 (or whatever it is) and the SPV (which I paid £129 for). At least I can take my numbers with me.

So, you can either take a different phone and continue to pay the same GPRS charges should you choose, or you can bugger off to a different network - result :?: :?

Hmmm, also wondering - is it possible to 'upgrade' from the SPV? :lol:

[Guest Big Ron - No Longer a Mem]

FWIW, the first major review of the SPV I saw was in December Personal Computer World reviewed the SPV and Sendo Z100 "head to head" (between the review being written and the mag hitting the newsstands, Sendo withdrew the Z100) Their conclusion was kind of interesting - the Sendo, for all its bugs, was the better handset, but the inclusion of Orange's "GPRS bundle" made the SPV the better purchase overall. In short, they commended purchase of the SPV BECAUSE of the GPRS offer. Without it, the rival phone would have won.

[Guest mattbrown]

i bought the phone because of that review - i was tempted by the sendo

[Guest adam]

Hmm, equal or lower priced bundle. If someone were to let just use 3mb on the 2mb bundle (£7) a month after using 3 mb on the unlimited bundle (£6), the price would not be equal or lower. The £6 bundle cannot cost you more than £6, so unless orange blocked usuage of more than 2 and 2/3 mb they would be breaking their promise.

Also, which is the lower price - 5 objects for £1 or 15 objects for £2? Isn't price a measure of value? A new Ferrari for £50,000 is a good price yet a Ford Ka for £10000 is a bad price.

[Guest Matt Kirby]

Hmm, equal or lower priced bundle.

Yes. BUNDLE. Orange do not say how many megabytes are in that bundle. That's the gotcha that people have either missed or not understood.

When I read the "equal or lower priced bundle" I took that to mean that after the £6 deal ended I would be put on a bundle that wouldn't cost more than £6, and would have a limited megabyte allocation applied to it.

Did anyone seriously expect Orange to say "OK, the 'unlimited' package actually had a (non enforced) 10 mb limit. We are now moving you to a fixed package costing £6 for the first 10 mb, and £3 per meg after". In other words, to extend the deal indefinitely?

If someone were to let just use 3mb on the 2mb bundle (£7) a month after using 3 mb on the unlimited bundle (£6), the price would not be equal or lower.

The 2 mb bundle costs £4. 1 mb outside of this costs £3. Yes, the cost per megabyte is not equal or lower than the cost per megabyte of the Unlimited bundle (although how can you work out cost per megabyte on unlimited megabytes?).

But, the cost of the Bundle itself (which is the only thing that Orange have referred to) is only £4. This bundle does have a limit, and there are further costs if you exceed this limit. Moving someone onto this package fits exactly what Orange said would happen at the end of the promotion. It costs less than £6, and there is a limit on the megabytes included.

Don’t forget that the £6 deal was never about cost per megabyte.

Am I repeating myself again? :wink:

[Guest Bazz]

Totally agree.

Lets say, for the sake of argument, they did make it £6 for 10Mb and a pound a meg after (which I think most people would be happy with). It could be argued that if you used 11Mb it would cost you £7 - which isn't equal or lower priced. Yes there's a 10Mb fair use poilicy on the unlimited bundle but it was never strictly enforced so again Orange are the bad guys.

By removing the unlimited aspect of course you are going to be able to run up costs of more than £6! But as long as the bundle doesn't cost more than £6 then Orange are sticking to what they said.

The only way Orange can live by the other definition of equal or lower priced would be by offering an unlimited bundle for £6 or less. And to me that means it wasn't a promotional bundle!

Now I agree the costs are high and would love for them to be lower but I don't think attacking Orange for giving us a really good deal up until now is the way to go about it. If anything it's just more likely to stop Orange offering promos like this in the future.

I have no doubt GPRS costs will come down in time and, if you can use consumer power to bring them down quicker, then fair play to you. But I don't think ranting and raving at Orange, badgering a PA or nit-picking one phrase in the Orange's T&Cs is the way to go about it. I'm not sure what is the way to go about it but I know that isn't it.

Also people should look at how much they use and choose a bundle to suit them - the same with talk time. If you are going to use 10Mb then you can get it for £19.50 (not £28!) by choosing the right bundle. Granted it's more than £6 but that's the price you're gonna have to pay if you want it off Orange at the minute.

[Guest mantrac]

Erm, all that is nice and lovely... But Orange haven't bothered providing us with a free (and essential) GPRS usage counter... They're not expecting us to pay for it, now are they?? Every other network is offering counters for free whenever one is not included in the device (see XDA on O2).

[Guest Bazz]

Yup agreed. They should have a automated line like for inclusive minutes used. Probably wouldn't use it myself (never use the inclusive minutes line and don't actually use that much GPRS anyway), but I'd still like the ability to check how much I've used.