Orange Billing Cock up Your Opinions Please!!

[Guest karmapolice]

Hi,

I need some input please people.

On the 27th Feb i upgraded to an SPV and my March Bill came in at £130.00 quid because they cocked up my £6.00 gprs...so i phoned Orange and they said "i can pay the bill now and the'll credit me £35.00 next month or pay nothing now and pay extra on my April bill"...i decided to pay nothing and wait till April...for it to be sorted out.

April's bill came in and it was for £202.00..what!!...phoned Orange and they said "sorry but we forgot to credit your account..you can pay £202.00 now and we can credit you £78.00 next month or pay nothing and wait till May...i waited till May...and Mays bill came in today for £149.00...and they cut my phone off...C**TS...phoned orange and they said"Pay now..its your fault"

What would you say or do..are they in breach of their contract..can i get out of my contract due to this cock up?

Your help is needed.

thanks in advance

Karmapolice

[Guest madu]

What contract did you go on? Tariff, options etc... And do you have that signed bit of paper?? How much are you supposed to pay per month?

[Guest karmapolice]

Hi,

Talk 30 £15.00

Gprs £ 6.00

Insurance £ 4.00

My bill should be £25.00 per month but i signed on for the Video trial so its £19.00 at the moment.

I got my original nokia from the internet so i never saw a contract but when i got the SPV upgrade..i went to the O shop and signed a form but i still never got a copy of the terms and conditions...oh and i had to pay a £50.00 upgrade fee.

thanks

Karmapolice

[Guest karmapolice]

Any chance a Mod could move this Topic please to the main forum....sorry my mistake.

Kp

[Guest one.ear]

"IF" the charges are incorrect, then call 178 (07973100178) Collections dept, explain what has happened, and request a review be put on your account. Then get transferred to CS (07973100150) and get them to put the credit on your account there and then (if not done so already) and then pay next invoice as normal.

Ben

[Guest Big Ron - No Longer a Mem]

Back when the SPV launched, something like 25% of the calls to 156 and 152 were about "registrations" having failed to put the right stuff on the account. Getting it sorted should be straighforwards - they've had plenty of practice at sorting this problem out already! Note that Tech Support (who supposedly know about things like GPRS) and "registration" (who supposedly know about entering details into a computer) not only aren't in the same building, they're at opposite ends of the country! Nobody saw (or apparently sees even now!) ANY reason why the data-entry types up north "should be paid to learn stuff that they really don't NEED to know about" So, they're quite capable of entering complete rubbish, because none of it means anything to them anyway. It's "just data". For years they happily signed people up fopr TALK plans, then Orange moved into the business of charging people to move DATA around too. Registrations were seemingly expected to "pick it up as they went along". It's not helped that the billing computer flatly refuses to accept that some phones (originally, that included the SPV!) were MMS-compliant. SIgn a customer up to the MMS package, and you got an error message telling you that the package was "inappropriate for this handset". You had to over-ride the message and tell it to apply it anyway. You might expect 156 to know that the software was wrong... but why would registrations?!

[Guest john.sw]

I've been with Orange since they were a very small network wearing nappies.

I have only onece had reason to complain about a bill in all those years, until now.

My last two months' bills were wrong - both charging me for GPRS traffic that was included in my £6 a month deal.

Both times they refunded the amount overcharged - but I shall scrutinise my bills more closely in the future.

[Guest foxy11]

dont suppose u happen to be on a talkshare plan do u?, my dad had this problem, as him and my mum had a talkshare = sharing mins etc etc, orange put him on the £6 gprs package failing to tell him it wasnt allowed on talk share, so he was getting charged the £6 plus whateva gprs usage at some ridiculously high rate.

[Guest Monolithix [MVP]]

Another tip, for experience, is whenever you speak to a CSR about any modifications/problems with an account (this goes for any business, not just Orange) or order ensure they note on your account ~exactly~ what they have done/said, and that their name goes with that. Unfortunately in todays world of CS for you to get anywhere with complains a CSR has to be accountable for any actions/promises made on your behalf.

[Guest idavid]

i always find that asking for the persons full name helps. it makes them wake up from their deskbound reverie and take some notice of you. they also tend to be much more helpful. odd.... 8)

[Guest karmapolice]

I must have spoken to at least seven different people there names are littered over 3 Orange bills...Its a question of the "right hand doesn't know what the left hands doing".After speaking with them on Friday 9th May one guy did say "Sorry it is our fault that this has happened" but he still could not switch my phone on unless i paid £149.43 then and there.

He also said"That he will find out WHY this has happened" and that he'll call me back...He hasn't...I want some compensation out of them...

But to be honest...ive had enough of banging my head against the wall...I can't be arsed with it anymore...They can sue me for the cash.

Can they block my phone from PAYG like they can a stolen one if the bill is in disripute ??

Great Phone the Spv....But Orange Suck at Customer Service.

[Guest helmetshine]

My bills all to f***** as well.bought the phone off the web...HAD to have the £6 pack...activated it when phone arrived(15/4)...phoned 150 later to check everything was ok...told it was......just got a bill with over £30 for data charges.....seems they didn't activate the promo pack until yesterday :) ..said they are GOING TO LOOK INTO IT....they better do more than that.I'll let you know later if they're gonna drop the £30 or i stop my d/d and let em sue me

PS they did admit it was their fault that the pack wasn't activated....very big of em

[Guest karmapolice]

Helmetshine..what the'll do is take the whole lot and credit you back the next month or you can call them up and pay nothing this month and wait for it to be sorted...But next month will be double line rental etc...This is what i did and its been going on for 3 months and its still not sorted...so i would just pay the £30.00+ and get a credit to save an even bigger mess.

Karmapolice

[Guest helmetshine]

Well next months line rental is on the bill i've just received anyway...so i'm paying that in advance now...don't mind that as long as i don't have to pay for data charges i shouldn't have had in the first place

I've also noticed that there's a couple of calls i've been charged for to their 177 number...and i've never called it :shock: .Guess i'll have to sort that out as well....not a good start from Orange...which is a shame cos i love my phone

[Guest karmapolice]

Yesterday i finaly got this whole mess sorted out and managed to get some compensation from them...a months free line rental.

If you want anything sorted out from Orange you have to speak to a supervisor and keep battling...dont give up.

Karmpolice

[Guest Yu_]

Actualy that’s not the case. Let me run through a few things about Orange for you, just off the things I have read in this thread:

1: asking for a persons full name isn’t going to get you any place, for a start they are not obliged to give it to you for security reasons, secondly it’s not as effective as asking for there extension number, THIS is the information used to track any Orange rep you are likely to talk to.

2: Registrations are based in the same places Orange run something called a “virtual call center” what this means is simple, while they may have 6 major sites in the UK the people you talk to deal with (there are some departments that are exceptions) many different issues, the guy you talk to about your bill is 9 times out if 10 the same guy who runs the diagnostics on the phones with faults, he may also do registrations, and many other tasks. It works from a switch that decided which calls each person will take. Most people take more than one type of call, most people in fact take about 6 or 7 different types of call.

3: Billing: Your Orange bill works like this, you pay your line rental one moth in advance and your call charges one month behind, for obvious reasons, IF you are having your bill recalculated then pay your line rental AT LEAST, other wise problems can and most of the time will happen. You owe the line rental regardless of what ever else happens so you are safe paying that. The problems start when you get your bill recalculated, what SHOULD happen is this, the CSR who sends the recalculation action off to the billing recalc team SHOULD request that collections be informed, that way they can stop any impending action against you like barring your phone. In effect collections are given a list of out standing bills by the computer that they chase, (this is one of the departments that doesn’t deal with anything else just collections action) they don’t know why you owe it and in truth they don’t care, why would they, they are not customer services and the majority of there time is spent chasing dead beats, who simply don’t pay. Not people who have a biling problem, keep that in mind when you talk to them.

There are a lot less collections Ops than customer services Ops and they tend to know the score a lot more. If you are concerned that your bill is being re-calced but the billing guy you talked to is a moron and hasn’t told them about it, then call them, they can’t and wont talk to you about your bill but they can check and see if it’s being looked at and stop you from getting a bar on the phone. Which is helpful.

4: Orange will not sue you, (unless you really rack up a bill and they can find you) as a rule Orange don’t enter into litigation against it’s customers, they are a lot smarter than that, they simply blacklist your credit. Want a mortgage? Pay your bill. Want to take them to court for registering late payments on your credit file? Good luck by LAW Orange is obliged to reflect a correct representation of your payment history, if you pay your bills late it’s going to show up and when you go to get anything else on credit you will be flagged for it. If it’s an Orange error then no they don’t do this, but if you simply don’t pay because your pissed off with them, well hey your going to be the loser in the end of that one. Something to keep in mind. Hence paying your line rental while in dispute, Because at least that way if anything goes wrong you have PROOF that you made attempts to keep up with your billing.

Generally Orange Op’s are helpful, but because of the work they do very few of them are specialist, they know a little about a lot and not a lot about anything, all that said they do have a very good record with customer services, and they are one of the best in the country, so you could be a lot worse off. If your not getting anyplace then put it in writing and send it recorded delivery, then you have proof of what’s been going on and they will respond to you.

Oh and one.ear’s point is incorrect, don’t phone collections first, they will not touch you unless the problem is being looked into by another department first. Call them sure, but not first, call them after all the others.