SPV Problems (again)

[Guest mcwarre]

Contents of a letter sent to Orange Correspondence Department:

Correspondence Department    

PO Box 10

Patchway

Bristol

BS32 4BQ

Fax: (0191) 5878129

Dear Sir,

I presently own an Orange SPV.  Due to various problems I have had three replacement phones since owning the phone.  The first replacement was made within 14 days of receiving the phone so Orange care was not used.  The second replacement was made after a Customer Services Representative reset the phone over the air and the GPRS facility became inactive, again Orange care was not used.  The last replacement was due to the software again; this is the first time a claim was made on Orange care.  The latest replacement has a problem in that the hands-free mike doesn’t work.  Your customer services offered to replace the phone, again under Orange care; I refused a replacement.

I am a registered software developer for the SPV with Orange and rely heavily on my phone.  I am facing a situation where I would have had five SPV’s in a relatively short time.  The phone cost me £129.99 plus an upgrade fee of £75.  I have spent in excess of £250 on accessories and software for it.  In addition, I now face a 100% increase in my Orange care costs.  I have faced several occasions where I have been without a serviceable phone which has caused severe disruptions.  Consequently, I have no confidence that any replacement phone will work.  Under the sale of goods act I am entitled to have a serviceable, working as advertised item.  Obviously if there is a problem then you have to have a chance to rectify the situation; you have had such opportunity but have consistently failed to do so.

I require you to either:

a. Provide me with a degree of confidence that a replacement phone will be more robust by replacing the SPV with an SPV E-100 and reduce my Orange care subscription back to its previous level (minimum).

or

b. Refund in full my outlay (including phone cost, upgrade fee and now defunct accessories and software) and reduce my Orange care subscription back to its previous level (minimum).

I would be extremely grateful for a reply within 24 hours.  As I have had to use a work fax please ensure that any faxed reply is appropriately covered; however, an e-mail reply to the address above is totally acceptable.

Yours,

Now before people think all I am after is a E-100, that is not true (nice, but not true). I just want a phone that works. I don't think that I have a cat in hells chance. O don't seem interested as I am on E50 and they don't make any money outa me. I am so fed up I am seriously thinking of changing network and phones...... :evil: :evil: :evil:

[Guest squall]

i tried something similar, orange got back to me basically saying i was tied to the contract, so i had to run it out then they didnt care what i did. good luck though

[Guest MECX]

Under the sale of goods act I am entitled to have a serviceable, working as advertised item. Obviously if there is a problem then you have to have a chance to rectify the situation; you have had such opportunity but have consistently failed to do so.

Go with this--if they dont give you a satisfsctory responce tell them your gonna take them to the small claims court. Just keep going 5 SPV's isnt acceptable and by taking them back they have admitted that the phones were faulty--good luck with this :roll:

[Guest fraser]

As a very very last resort, you could try flogging the phone on eBay (if it currently works!!) and telling your bank to reject any debit from Orange. When they hassle you, explain the situation and say you'd welcome them to see you in court. Mention sale of goods act and your attempts to come up with a better solution. You won't hear from them again.

I am not a lawyer, by the way. I just know that it's not worth the time, money & publicity for Orange to hassle you over this. Only worry could be if the Orange contract mentions "credit reference agencies". Then this could could give you a bad mark on your credit report.

[Guest drblow]

I just know that it's not worth the time, money & publicity for Orange to hassle you over this. Only worry could be if the Orange contract mentions "credit reference agencies". Then this could could give you a bad mark on your credit report.

That is completely correct!!

Orange will not want to waste time hassling you - if they refuse your offer, & you stop payments on your contract, they will simply send you a few letters demanding payment & then, yes they will send your account to a credit reference agency as a default on payment. You will then be contacted by a debt collection agency who will want paid in full, within 7 days. If you leave the situation like this, by the time the debt collection agency contact you, it will be too late to discuss the problems you had with the contract. If it gets to that stage, the debt collection agency has a legal right to collect the money from you regardless of any mitigating circumstances. It is up to you to either sort these problems out with the company, or as mentioned, take them to court.

They will definately not take you to court coz they would know they would lose (& they'll be banking on the fact that you are bluffing) - but if you just leave the account unpaid, then they can just wait it out & refer it to credit reference which will just leave you with a bill to pay, & a bad credit history! Totally unfair, I know - but that IS the way big companies operate. For them , it is a long time proven approach to ignoring customer problems. Basically, they know that 9 out of 10 people who are complaining about poor service will never actually go to court - either coz they won't go through with it, or they can't afford it.

I'm not a lawyer either - but I do have quite a deal of experience with debt collection companies ( :oops: ).

I would recommend keeping on at Orange. The fact that you have written to them means that they HAVE to respond to you. You are completely right about the sale of goods act etc. & while you have signed a contract binding you to Orange for 12 months, that contract is also dependant on them providing you with the level of service promised at the time of purchase (all of which will be contained in the small print in your contract - if you can be bothered reading it! - hell, if you're rich, get your lawyer to read it, then they'll be able to tell you if it's worth fighting over).

Good luck! :wink:

[Guest fraser]

Good advice. I did say my suggestion was a last resort!!

It is dependant on whether the contract mentions credit reference agencies though, which many are not allowed to. For example, Visa companies mention it, as well as the fact that they do a check first. If you are late on even one months payment; this gets noted. However, that couldn't happen if you were late with a gas/electric bill, the data protection act forbids them from sharing your name etc with other companies, hence the mention of it in some contracts.

[Guest drblow]

If you are late on even one months payment; this gets noted.

True!! But that doesn't really go against anyone in a credit score - any lender makes a report every month(ish) of people who have failed to pay installments/payments agreed. However, the credit reference agency will only include names on a defaulters list if you have actually failed to pay after repeated demands, and the account is sent to a collection agency for recovery.

The whole system is a very dubious method of intimidation from companies to the general public. So few people actually understand what their legal rights are, & those of the debtor (company). Any lawyer will tell you, it's all a very grey area!!

I had a situation a few years back where several debt collection agencies were all wanting payments of at least 20 quid per month from me - I was unemployed & on about 50 quid a week!! They all told me that if I didn't pay the stated amount I would be in court within a fortnight. After speaking to a lawyer (who then wrote to each company explaining my situation) they all agree to payments of ... shall we say less than 5 quid per month!!

These kind of companies will threaten people with all sorts of things they have no intention of ever doing!!

P.S. :oops: sorry if we are getting WAY off topic here!!

[Guest TANKERx]

I hate it when big organisations don't give a damn about the people from whom they take their money. I've not yet had a problem, but stories like this make my blood boil.

Where do they get off treating their customers like fools, ripping them off all they can? Arghhhhhh!

My mate went through dozens of phones from different manufacturers because Orange couldn't get their act together and once his contract ended, he wasted no time before leaving and getting a contract with another network.

Is it any wonder that people set up web sites like this!?.

And in case anybody is wondering, this little micro-rant is not aimed at the Customer Service Representatives, it's aimed at the useless, self-seeking suits who just sit around all day drinking coffee and talking about golf in their board meetings!

If your problems falls outside of a process remit, it looks like you're done for!

[Guest fraser]

(drblow) But that doesn't really go against anyone in a credit score - any lender makes a report every month(ish) of people who have failed to pay installments/payments agreed. However, the credit reference agency will only include names on a defaulters list if you have actually failed to pay after repeated demands, and the account is sent to a collection agency for recovery.

Nah, doesn't work quite like that. On the credit report, every piece of credit you have had is listed. Every. It shocked me how much was on mine. For each lender, you have repaiment statistics, which include sections like

1-2 4


3-5 1


6+  0


D   0

These indicate how many times you have been late for a payment, the above example showing that bills have been paid 1-2 months late on 4 occassions and so on. The D indicates a default, where they have gone to a collection agency.

It's up to the person that buys the report from them to actually determine whether these things affect their decision to you. They provide a forumla that results in a number indicating your credit worthyness. The formula varies by the company doing the check, which is why there is no such thing as a "credit score". The companies hide the formula from customers, because if it were known publicly, it would make fraud & abuse easier.

I know a fair bit about it because both Expirion and Equifax (the two UK biggies) both completely messed mine up, to the point I was getting refused credit. I got quite involved in sorting this out due to my anger at their screwup and the amount of information they were keeping on me. And not only me, MY report also included everything my parents had done, even long after me moving out. Every single hire-purchase, credit card, mortgage. That seriously pissed me off, because that's their private business that I should not be told (I was more pissed off than my parents, they didn't really care much). Others can probably get access to mine in similar ways, e.g. all of the flatmates I have had. You get tied to the address you live in, and are assumed to be financially related to anyone that has stayed with you. There is also the likelyhood that previous and future tenants/owners at your addresses are also mentioned on your report. It's seriously messed up if you have any respect for privacy. I'd prefer not to have one at all, but I'll need to pay the mortgage off before I could give up my ability to get credit!!

The data protection act is the only thing that protects you. An organisation can store any data on you they want. They only have to declare this to the Data Protection Registrar, which is available online. This leads to some interesting entries, such as the Countryside alliance which stores data on their enemies "Sexual Life", "Political Opinions", "Social Circumstances". Here is their entry, scroll down to "PURPOSE 8 - Journalism and Media" to see the juicy stuff.

You can ask any company for a copy of all info on you, which was funny as hell when Mark Thomas did it, as many of the companies he had previously campaigned against had to send him copies of any internal memos/e-mail that had his name on them. Most said stuff like "do not talk to this man"!!

I take pleasure in spreading the word about this stuff!! :wink: I really don't like them at all!! Due to their cockup I lost the use of a car when I sold mine and tried to buy a new one. The finance fell through at the last minute, so I had to rent/borrow one to get to my out-of-town office. I also lost the deposit on the car I was supposed to get. I had to repeat the whole car buying (and waiting) after spending over a month fixing the report. I didn't get a penny back.

But in the end, I did get a much better deal on the car I finally got, plus I learned that dealer finance was a big lie in the process and avoided it this time. Another nasty scam, they never quote the APR unless you specifically ask for it, which is generally 2 times the interest rate they actually quote you. Most folk don't notice and take out 10 grand loans at 20% APR and the like. You'd be cheaper sticking it on a credit card!!

[Guest amo]

Is it any wonder that people set up web sites like this!?.

Well how ridiculous is that Website, hardly any of that site holds any truth whatsoever. Absolute rubish. How people can waste their time to write utter crap like that is beyond me. Out of all the points the person makes, I can guarantee and find faults with almost all of them. And as for bitching about orange, the companys so bad that it decided to dontate 16 e100 handsets to giveaway on MoDaCo. jeez, what a bunch of ba*tards!

[Guest TANKERx]

Out of all the points the person makes, I can guarantee and find faults with almost all of them.

Since that web site gives only one side of the story, I'd love to hear another opinion to help me form a more balanced opinion so please, give me some examples. I'm not being funny here or trying to catch you out in any way, but if you really can address some of the points he makes, then it could only be a good thing.

For the record, I've not had trouble with Orange and when I left Orange to go to Vodafone last year, the chappie I spoke to on the phone was more than helpful and when I came back, the woman in the shop was great.

But I know what one of me best mates went through with Orange and so I would like to hear why the comments on that chap's Hate Orange site are wrong.

And as for bitching about orange, the companys so bad that it decided to dontate 16 e100 handsets to giveaway on MoDaCo. jeez, what a bunch of ba*tards!

As for this comment, however, I think it a little naive to believe that anybody is good because they give stuff away.