£6 SPV GPRS Pack

[Guest Anonymous]

Just got my first invoice and have been charged £6 PLUS VAT = £7.05 for the GPRS pack. I phoned Orange and was told by 156 (Wirefree information line) that it should be £6 INCLUDING VAT. I then phoned 152 (Billing) and was told that their "menu system" showed it as £6 EXCLUDING VAT. They are allegedly calling me back when they have investigated.

Mike.

[Guest lycrawearer]

Yep - me too !

Have spoken to 152 billing who say they show it as £6 + vat. Also spoke to 156 (data Support) and they state it's shown on their system also as £6 + vat !

Has anybody got a definative answer yet ? Orange are supposed to be calling me back later ....

Maybe a unified approach would work ?

What do other members think ?

lycrawearer

[Guest Anonymous]

They are supposed to be calling me back too but I'm not holding my breath. Doubt I will hear anything now - the SPV went back under the 14-day return scheme.

Mike.

[Guest Mark]

I thought it was supposed to be £6 inc VAT. I'll try and find out though...

[Guest Fulkrum]

I dont know billing but 152 are more than qualified than 156 (data support) to answer you.

[Guest Rob_Quads]

If they try and claim the prices were + vat then just inform them that in the Orange shop they said that the GPRS package was "£6 a month" .

As the Oranges shops main customer base is the public thier advertised prices must include VAT to adhere to trading standards. If they are not they are breaking the rules. I can ring out the exact law if people need me to.

You are only allowed to advertise a price without VAT if your primary customer base is corperate (as they can claim back VAT)

[Guest dj simonz]

their new gprs users must be hogging the bandwidth so much that prop orange has to go about doing this to their customers to get more money!

[Guest Rob_Quads]

Well looks like i have been done on this one - just been on the phone to them and it seems like there has been a cockup in the billing. The price should be £6 inc VAT - the adjustment will be made to bills and we will see a refund for the extra VAT paid on next months bill.

[Guest Treadsoftly]

Thanks for the info Rob_Quads

[Guest lycrawearer]

Update :D

Just had a phone call from the Orange Executive Office ... having emailed them this morning.

They are aware of the problems and have issued a briefing to Oramge Customer Services at 10.30am, detailing the problem.

The guy I spoke to assured me it was £6 inc. vat, and we will all being getting refunds on our next invoice !

Success is sweet !!

lycrawearer

[Guest keffordt]

Well I'm still not happy that the 'unlimited' GPRS is actually capped at 10Mb a month! I certainly don't remember reading that anywhere let alone an Orange sales person telling me!

We need to get them to stick to what is advertised. How can unlimited be capped :evil:

[Guest Flopsy]

Regarding the "cap". Has anyone any idea if this is a hard and fast cap, above which you pay per Mb charges, or if it is a Fair Usage cap - i.e. go over it once and they won't mind, but consistently thrash it and they are in their rights to tell you to stop or pay?

All the terms and conditions at the moment refer to it being subject to a "Fair Use Policy", which isn't quite as bad as a cap.

I still agree that they shouldn't use words like Unlimited to describe it though - that could be one for the Ombudsman to come down on I would have thought.

Ralph.

[Guest spacemonkey]

Regarding the "cap". Has anyone any idea if this is a hard and fast cap, above which you pay per Mb charges, or if it is a Fair Usage cap

All the literature I've seen is talking about the fact that the GPRS package is not for business use. The 10Mb figure is fair use and the idea that if you are goind over 10Mb/month you must be using the phone for business or abusing your privileges in some other way.

At the end of the day, if people's personal usage is high across the board they are unlikely to do much, but if there are a few extremely high users I would imagine that they will go after them.

But considering the wording of the package (unlimited etc) I imagine that charging for excess use wouldbe pretty hard unless they could prove you were using it for business so the most likely punishment would be revoking the £6/month package from your account and then you can use it as much as you like for £2.50/0.5Mb

[Guest dj simonz]

check this page of th e forum out.

http://www.modaco.com/viewtopic.php?t=580

I am totally shocked after doing a calculation of using a normal GPRS tariff when the 3 months free unlimted use is over...

[Guest Wlodek]

check this page of th e forum out.

http://www.modaco.com/viewtopic.php?t=580

I am totally shocked after doing a calculation of using a normal GPRS tariff when the 3 months free unlimted use is over...

Hmm, and why did you think they were giving the phone away for free? Distract with a toy and get more money - this phone just sells their service, being so much dependent on the GPRS.

I'll cancel the GPRS bundle when the intro is over and use connection through my laptop at work and at home and WAP at other times, but that's just the stingy me.

:-)

Wlodek

[Guest xanadu]

As as far as I am aware, Orange currently have no way of monitoring individual GPRS subscriber useage.

So just go for it !!!

This has also been mentioned in magazine articles on Orange SPV.

This is unofficial of course !!

[Guest Bazz]

I've also read this elsewhere but I wouldn't be too sure about this - how do you think they're gonna monitor it after the promo ends?

Barry

[Guest xanadu]

Maybe this isn't really a promo..........

But just of a way of saying, look sorry but we haven't got a clue how much you have used your GPRS.......Maybe by the time this promotion ends, we might have some software that will let us know how much each subscriber has used. ??

[Guest sbsdegb1]

I for one intend to use it as much as possible whilst unlimited ????

Hopefully by the time they want me to re-mortgage my house to pay for GPRS usage I will have had my fun and be bored by it all.

If Orange had their heads screwed on they would bin this charging per MB and introduce a one off fee like we currenly have because once people have it for a while they will get bored of it and just use it for the essentials and usage will go down, but they will still be getting a monthly subscription fee. A bit like SKY TV...

Of course there will be people who surf on their phone all day, battery permitting but thats a minority..

[Guest xanadu]

GPRS uses capacity on the network that is shared with voice traffic.

Predictions are that GPRS / Data traffic will overtake voice traffic, and become more cost effective.

Voice traffic currently has priority over data traffic.

I can only imagine that Orange and other mobile operators will cash in on future demands for data traffic, just like the cost of sending an SMS message hase increased.

The problem for mobile networks is increasing capacity.

And this is a problem, because everyone wants better coverage, but nobody wants a BTS mast near where they live !!

There is no evidence that mobile phone masts cause any health problems.

The radiation emitted from them is extremely low, compared with the thousands of other people that use radio transmitters, like radio hams, taxi firms, BBC, ITV, Police, etc, etc,....