Phone / bill problems

[Guest barrybryce]

Has anyone else had problems with their phone and bill?

I'd been using my original SPV as a modem for my PC (moved house and had to wait weeks to get a BT line put in). I'm still on everyday 50 and only used it in the evening anyway, so I was much better off putting up with 9k and paying 1p a minute rather than getting half decent speeds for a massive GPRS bill.

For about the last month I've been constantly complaining about different strange problems with my handset (original SPV).

Frequently it was refusing to make a call (Error: unable to place call). To get round this I had to switch the phone off and on again. Sometimes (perhaps about one in three times) when I switched it back on again it would do a strange sort of half-reset. Some settings (for example things like sounds, colours and the homescreen) were reset to the default. Things like contacts and diary entries were left alone. However the programs menu (I had mine heavily customised) was sort of merged with with the default one. If I had left something in the same place, it left it alone. However if I had moved or deleted something, it added a new (default) one as well as any customised one.

There was also something funny on the go with the alarm that didn't happen enough times for me to quite suss out. I think it was remembering the time I had before the phone was reset, as well as going off at any time I changed it to afterwards. (I get up at 0630 weekdays and 0900 weekends. For a while it was going off at 0900 during the week, and I complained when it woke me up at 0630 both days of a weekend as well as going off at the right time. PS I checked - no calendar items with reminders!)

There had also been qutie a few times where the phone disconnected while I was using it as a modem, and I had to go through the switching off / on carry on before it would reconnect. This happened a few of times where I was almost ready to go offline anyway, so I just left it. As far as I was concerned the data call had ended. It wasn't showing the wee arrows, I couldn't use the phone for data, and I couldn't get it to make another call.

When my phone bill came through it showed a 07h15m data call starting at 2330 one night (six days after my first call to complain) a 05h56m data call starting at 23:45 another evening, and a 10h33 min call starting at 23:03 a third. (There was also a 3 hour call I was pretty certain I didn't make, but I couldn't say for certain so I didn't complain about it.)

At first O customer services were extremely curt and dismissive, they insisted I was liable for the calls and demanded "Can I ask you, if you are telling me that your phone wasn't working - why didn't you switch it off and on again? They wouldn't accept the fact that either it was their left hand (billing) or right hand (giving me a faulty handset) that was to blame, and either way I shouldn't be paying for the calls. I found myself speaking to a lovely gentleman who kept on interupting me, and who then complained when I raised my voice to carry on speaking and being heard...

The particularly infuriating moment was when they demanded why hadn't I complained about the problem before (and listed the dates and times I'd complained. The handset had been diagnosed as faulty at this stage but I hadn't paid the £15 admin fee to replace it as I was thinking of upgrading to the C500 anyway). For what could only count as a proper black joke they informed me "Yes, you phoned on that day, but we refused to speak to you because we didn't believe that you were the account holder" (I remember it well. I listened to an hour of crap music interspersed with irritating messages. And THEN they refused to speak to me and wouldn't give a reason. Anger factor 110%)

Only after persisting for a long time, and threatening to cancel my contract while pointing them to the length of time I've been an Orange customer (length of time I've had a mobile) and my average phone bill (over £130 a month) did they agree (but while still being rude to me) to put a credit on my account for £10 (not even the full cost of the calls).

Even though it's not much I've been had for, it's left a bad taste in my mouth (particularly as I only got anything at all because I spend way too much on the phone).

Though I fear probably not (can't imagine there are many original SPV users using a handset which happened to have a mad type of fault as a 9k modem), I wondered if anyone else has ever had the some problem with Orange

[Guest squall]

Regarding the alarm issue, anytime your phone does a partial reset (it happens a couple of times a year to most people) you should really hard reset, as the information left on your phone is fragmented and all messed up.

you could stop the alarm from going off by setting the alarm to the time its currently ringing (the phantom alarm) switching it on and saving, then switch it off again.

[Guest barrybryce]

Thanks for that - didn't know! Orange might have told me, but there you go...