Orange Horror Story

[Guest mackina]

I'm the not-so proud owner of an Orange SPV M3100 and I thought I'd share with you my Orange Horror Story.

I considered myself pretty au-fait with Telecoms and in particular the beastly data charges...but recently the networks seem to have been loosening up, and I thought I'd give Orange a call to see what bundles they had. I went for the Free Evening and Weekend data access - as I use my M3100 to check my hotmail and the like - and was somewhat suprised to be told that I could use it on my laptop.

So much so that I asked the gentleman twice: "I can use it on my laptop?"

"Oh yes" he said (twice). "Would you like me to activate it". "Yes", I said very VERY clearly.

Roll forward five days and a quick call to Orange confirmed my worst nightmares. I wasn't supposed to be using it on my laptop. Worse still, the CS rep that I spoke to originally didn't apply the bundle. At that point my bill stood at £500 (normally £80).

The CS guys were incredibly unhelpful (where do Orange find these people?), so I figured out that if you hit the billing department then you at least speak to someone in the UK. They seemed to take pity on me, and after stating that "all our calls are recorded" I figured it would only be a matter of time before someone over there listened to the recording and confirmed that I had been well and truly shafted.

"We'll review your account before your billing date and then you'll receive a text message". Why aye like, what a result!

Of course no text message came, so I rang back. "Sorry sir, we don't have any record of your bundle...and we have no record of an account review being arranged". And could they listen to the voice recording of my original call? "Sorry sir no, we don't record all calls and it's only for training purposes only".

Worst was still to come: "Im looking at your bill and there's no record of your original call to Orange to add the data bundle". When I pointed out that CS/Billing calls don't appear on bills, the phone went silent. "Ill see what I can do" said the only supervisor in Orange who wasn't aware that 150 calls aren't listed. "I do have it here on my phone, in my last calls dialed...it was at 7:10pm and the call was for 8 minutes and six seconds". "Well sir, we dont have any record of it". "But im telling you I made the call.". "Yes sir but we dont have a record of it". I got that funny feeling in my stomach...the kind you get when you can't pay your rent because some moron halfway around the world didn't add your data bundle.

"We'll review your account before your billing date and then you'll receive a text message", said the Billing Rep. Reminds me of a Bill Murray film that I used to like.

The crux of this is that after ten loyal years with Orange (and around £15,000 of my hard earned money) I'm offski. I remember the days when you got points for every call you made (easily redeemable for bottles of wine, towels and Orange memorabilia). I remember when problems were solved by ringing 150 and you didn't have to get proof when you added bundles to your account (Do you mind awfully if I get this in writing..in blood...witnessed by three co-workers...and the ghost of Hans Snook). Even the IVR has changed to an awful mockney accent..what happened to the plummy lady? I bet she's got a job somewhere else.

If anyone else has experienced anything like this, and can suggest anything that I can do to solve this then I would be forever indepted. I do have an address to write to, but after the experience above I doubt it would make any difference.

[Guest Neil5459]

No help to you now I'm afraid, but I suggest that any changes to bundles/add-ons should be done via your online account pages- you can select check boxes/radio buttons for bundles; at least once saved, you can go back later to check the saves have registered, and do a screenshot as evidence if there's any comeback.

[Guest rickyburke]

I'm the not-so proud owner of an Orange SPV M3100 and I thought I'd share with you my Orange Horror Story.

I considered myself pretty au-fait with Telecoms and in particular the beastly data charges...but recently the networks seem to have been loosening up, and I thought I'd give Orange a call to see what bundles they had. I went for the Free Evening and Weekend data access - as I use my M3100 to check my hotmail and the like - and was somewhat suprised to be told that I could use it on my laptop.

So much so that I asked the gentleman twice: "I can use it on my laptop?"

"Oh yes" he said (twice). "Would you like me to activate it". "Yes", I said very VERY clearly.

Roll forward five days and a quick call to Orange confirmed my worst nightmares. I wasn't supposed to be using it on my laptop. Worse still, the CS rep that I spoke to originally didn't apply the bundle. At that point my bill stood at £500 (normally £80).

The CS guys were incredibly unhelpful (where do Orange find these people?), so I figured out that if you hit the billing department then you at least speak to someone in the UK. They seemed to take pity on me, and after stating that "all our calls are recorded" I figured it would only be a matter of time before someone over there listened to the recording and confirmed that I had been well and truly shafted.

"We'll review your account before your billing date and then you'll receive a text message". Why aye like, what a result!

Of course no text message came, so I rang back. "Sorry sir, we don't have any record of your bundle...and we have no record of an account review being arranged". And could they listen to the voice recording of my original call? "Sorry sir no, we don't record all calls and it's only for training purposes only".

Worst was still to come: "Im looking at your bill and there's no record of your original call to Orange to add the data bundle". When I pointed out that CS/Billing calls don't appear on bills, the phone went silent. "Ill see what I can do" said the only supervisor in Orange who wasn't aware that 150 calls aren't listed. "I do have it here on my phone, in my last calls dialed...it was at 7:10pm and the call was for 8 minutes and six seconds". "Well sir, we dont have any record of it". "But im telling you I made the call.". "Yes sir but we dont have a record of it". I got that funny feeling in my stomach...the kind you get when you can't pay your rent because some moron halfway around the world didn't add your data bundle.

"We'll review your account before your billing date and then you'll receive a text message", said the Billing Rep. Reminds me of a Bill Murray film that I used to like.

The crux of this is that after ten loyal years with Orange (and around £15,000 of my hard earned money) I'm offski. I remember the days when you got points for every call you made (easily redeemable for bottles of wine, towels and Orange memorabilia). I remember when problems were solved by ringing 150 and you didn't have to get proof when you added bundles to your account (Do you mind awfully if I get this in writing..in blood...witnessed by three co-workers...and the ghost of Hans Snook). Even the IVR has changed to an awful mockney accent..what happened to the plummy lady? I bet she's got a job somewhere else.

If anyone else has experienced anything like this, and can suggest anything that I can do to solve this then I would be forever indepted. I do have an address to write to, but after the experience above I doubt it would make any difference.

Thats horrendous, have you cancelled now? as I'm sure if you tell them this is the reason for leaving they'd do something about it.

I too am thinking of leaving Orange, to go to T-Mobile for their Unlimited Data Packages.

I too remember the days of the O points and the brochure each month to buy stuff with them.

But charging £8 for 30mb of data when a rival is doing £7.50 for 1gb is just amateurish.

[Guest Helix]

I also experienced this problem, I spoke to retentions to upgrade a couple of business handsets and organised £25p/m for 500 anytime minutes (A special offer they use to do, think if you ask retentions they can do it for you) on both the handsets. I found out, luckily, a couple of weeks after that only one of the handsets had the package on it, the other was totally blank! I rang back retentions and explained that why oh why would I want a blank contract.

They soon had me sorted and refunded my next bill.

[Guest Tech]

im sure you can get OfCom on this?

[Guest ayazaali]

im sure you can get OfCom on this?

This is a common issue and pretty easily dealt with.

One of my friends is on T-Mobile and went for a limited MB data bundle but, after spending the weekend downloading some emails to her laptop, she not only went over her limit but found that her bill was over a hundred pounds more than her usual monthly invoice.

I helped her write a letter (non-complaint) to say that she had been ill-advised by T-mobile sales, because she explained her requirements to sales, but the applied bundle had been wholly inappropriate for her needs and, therefore, T-Mobile's advice had resulted n the disproportionate bill.

Anyway, while they didn't apply a retrospective upgrade to the data bundle, they did write off the whole amount.

If you want a copy of the letter used, drop me a line.