Damned Orange, and the leaping GPRS bill

[Guest blowdart]

So after 8 weeks I get a phone call saying "We've examined your traffic and it's right, give us 5 times your normal bill".

So I asked "What checks were done? How can you prove it?". The customer service bod said "We've checked it, it's right." "What proof do I have?" "We've checked it".

Great :roll:

Apparently they may be able to produce an itemised usage log, but I have to request it in writing. So they can ring me to demand money, but I can't use the same communications method to ask for proof? This is pathetic.

[Guest chucky.egg]

Eh? Is there some history here?

Don't you have a GPRS monitor to track your usage? That way you could at least offer them a figure for what you thought you'd used.

Short of keeping a diary (or using a GPRS monitor) you've got no evidence to counter what they tell you, and GPRS usage is not obvious so it'd be easy to miss something.

[Guest Confucious]

This is one thing that does annoy me about Orange (but none of the other operators are any better) that they can't tell you your GPRS ussage until they bill you and their is no way of tracking your usage without buying a 3rd party utility which, even then, is not foolproof (well, it might be foolproof but it's not Confucious proof....)

[Guest chucky.egg]

...well, it might be foolproof but it's not Confucious proof...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

:D

I know what you mean though - I've had to do a Hard Reset part way through the month before now, and I never remember to note the amount I've used, so I end up going over my "allowance" but never knowing by how much until I get the bill

[Guest Confused Stu]

I hate to admit this, but my Nokia 7210 used to have a built in GPRS counter at the push of an option over eighteen months ago. Why can't Orange/HTC put one on a brand new, top of the line phone?

(Why did I have a Nokia? I was young, the SPV hadn't come out, Orange offered me the phone to replace my sixteenth unusable T68i - I didn't know any better!!!! :oops: )

[Guest blowdart]

Eh?  Is there some history here?

Don't you have a GPRS monitor to track your usage?  That way you could at least offer them a figure for what you thought you'd used.

Short of keeping a diary (or using a GPRS monitor) you've got no evidence to counter what they tell you, and GPRS usage is not obvious so it'd be easy to miss something.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

GPRS monitor programs don't monitor using the phone as a modem (well the ones I've tried don't anyway).

At the moment I've got just as much evidence as they do, my own word against theirs. Oh, and the account history where I rarely go over my bundle in the months before, and the months after

[Guest jfran]

This is one thing that does annoy me about Orange (but none of the other operators are any better) that they can't tell you your GPRS ussage until they bill you and their is no way of tracking your usage without buying a 3rd party utility which, even then, is not foolproof (well, it might be foolproof but it's not Confucious proof....)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

On T-mobile you can call up anytime and they can inform you of your usage since your last bill

HTH

jim

[Guest Confucious]

Do you use your C500 with T-Mob? I acn only find PAYG prices for data or email prices for the Blackberry or GPRS vcharges for the data card. Do they have full internet access on the C500 - if so do you know their oprices?

When I had my Blackberry I had 100Mb/month free until Dec 2003 then they were supposed to reduce it to 10Mb. When I phoned up in dec 2003 to ask how much data I was using they couldn't tell me but said not to worry because the 100Mb limit was extended indefinately! and all for £10/month - I wish i'd kept that contract to try it in my C500 :D

[Guest Will]

fax them, then follow up immediately with a phone call.

Will

[Guest slider]

K guys, let me try to clear this one up for you...

Customer Services

----------------------

Orange CS, DO Have access to a trial bill system, BUT.. (And here's the problem) they have to get supervisor access to read it.. A lot of the time (Especially since they only are allowed approx 2 mins per call) they cannot escalte to an SCA in that time, and a lot of front line CS reps won't actually do this for you anyway, beacuse the less calls they handle at a lengthy time the lower there bounus payments are. That said, if you call at a quiet time (Such as when the night shift teams come in, after about 8pm) you may get through to a help desk rep who is willing to help. :-) If you really want to push for an answer, then the only realistic thing you can do is demand that your call be escalted to an SCA, as these are the only guys that have access to the in period billing info.

Support Services

--------------------

If you get no where with the front line CS staff, you can insist that this issue be taken up with the second line technical support staff, these guys have absolute access to ALL the billing systems, including past and present. The bad news is that you may need to lodge a fault report (H/S fault) to get this looked at. The technical support teams WILL NOT deal directly with subscribers (No matter what front line CS tell you) they will not give call backs, or status updates of any kind, and normally only contact subscribers IF THEY need to know somthing specific about the issue in question, if you can't answer questions specific to a reported fault directly, then they'll basicly not deal. You'll also find that the call does not get looked at will any urgency esp if your PAYG as things like wanting to know your bill for month XXX is not classed as a fault.

Above all, if your polite and do your best to help them help you, they will try to help as best as is possible, but due to organizational structure, you will find that it's not beacuse they don't want to help, it's just very difficult to do in the time scales they have aloted.

Hope there's some pointers that are of use here.

[Guest amo]

Slider - where do you get this information from regarding OCS escalation and call time allowance from?

[Guest zarquon]

You could try the data services people, I have always found them helpful and understand 'data' questions... 156 from your handset