orange mobile phone contract trouble...

[leeds chimp]

My partner took out a contract for 18 months. It was due for renewal in August 10. She rang up in July to advise that will not be renewing. Recieved a letter to confirm that will end on the 9th August.

 

She then went to Tesco and wanted to port her number over. Asked Orange for a PAC code on the 15th August which they sent her.

 

Looked at the bank statements at the end og August and they have taken £35 (monthly bill) in August. I rang up end and they advised would get £24 back as cancel on the 24th August?? Recieved bank statement this month and they have taken £29.16 in September. Rang up and they have said that since we asked for the PAC code we get charged for 30 days cover hence the debit. Said have taken it against our wishes and we were out of contract...

At no point did they advise this even when she was in the retail store on the phone.

 

I put a complaint in and its the same team/person that deals with it and they are not willing to give any money back. As far as i am concerned the contract ended on the 9th August and to take the money without her permission is against the direct debit guarantee. Rather not go through the banks as it means they will chase her for the money.

Any advise from PW on how best to deal with this when I ring them back???

[Billy.]

Off the Orange site:

 

 

 

There is no charge to get your PAC code. Simply call customer services and they will help organise this for you.

 

*

 

Pay Monthly customers dial 150 on your mobile or 07973 100 150

*

 

Pay as you Go customers dial 145 on your mobile or 07973 100 145

 

 

Please note: If you are a Pay monthly customer there is no charge for a PAC code but if you are still in contract then charges may be applied and any disconnection requires a 30 day notice period.

 

 

-------

 

 

I think they've done you on the 30 day thing.

Edited October 6, 2010 by Billy.

[leeds chimp]

We already gave them the 30 days cancel policy in July tho and have a letter to confirm it would be cancelled from the 9th August..rang them for the PAC code on the 15th AFTER the cantract had finshed

[Billy.]

We already gave them the 30 days cancel policy in July tho and have a letter to confirm it would be cancelled from the 9th August..rang them for the PAC code on the 15th AFTER the cantract had finshed

 

Well point customer service this way

[Heilan Coo]

Can't give you any advice I'm sorry to say but on a similar note, I had a hell of a time when I tried to end my contract with them years ago.

Informed them a month before my renewal was due and thought that was that. A month after I paid my final bill I received another for well over £100

even though I wasn't even using the phone. Same happened the following month! Even after talking to them about it I then got the debt recovery letters

coming in the post! Finally managed to speak to someone with a bit of common sense who could see that none of the calls made after I had cancelled matced

any of the numbers I had dialled! Took me near on a year to get it sorted out but not before I discovered I'd been blacklisted! Only got that cleared after I threatened to take them to court. Would never take a contract out with them again!

[KPV4]

I have just had the same problem with T-Mobile (now the same company as Orange). I've been with them for years and in my opinion the company went down hill since the merged with Orange, hence the reason for leaving the company. Along with being sick of speaking to operators in lands afar with no idea of customer service and who can't think out of the box let along away from the questions on the computer screens in front of them, but don't get me started on that one.

 

I cancelled my service, and T-Mobile owed me around £3, but then the final bill came saying I owed money another £17. When I enquired what the charge was for I was told it was because I requested a PAC code to take my number I originally took the number to them I argued the case and won after they couldn't prove to me that this was written into the terms and conditions of the contract. I had a copy to hand during the conversation and the customer services operators were completely lost (they need to get out of bed earlier than that to catch me out ) They then tried to say the charge was for something else but to be honest they were on a looser and didn't win They then gave in and refunded the £3 they owed me, Result

 

Don't give in keep fighting

[Jay]

Can't give you any advice I'm sorry to say but on a similar note, I had a hell of a time when I tried to end my contract with them years ago.

Informed them a month before my renewal was due and thought that was that. A month after I paid my final bill I received another for well over £100

even though I wasn't even using the phone. Same happened the following month! Even after talking to them about it I then got the debt recovery letters

coming in the post! Finally managed to speak to someone with a bit of common sense who could see that none of the calls made after I had cancelled matced

any of the numbers I had dialled! Took me near on a year to get it sorted out but not before I discovered I'd been blacklisted! Only got that cleared after I threatened to take them to court. Would never take a contract out with them again!

 

 

 

similar story here wouldnt touch orange with a barge pole, be WARNED.

[mel b3]

ive been with orange for years and theyve ripped me off left right and center , the last fiasco was when they took payment (around £75) for the same bill three times , i spent several hours trying to get my money back but the best i could get was the money credited to my account , once the money was credited to my account they just seemed to dip into it as and when they want , they really are a disgrace but i tried virgin as my home phone and broadband is with them and they were even worse !

[death from below]

OFCOM mate and if you can bve bothered, register this is happening with your bank.

[leeds chimp]

spoke to them again and they have just washed their hands of it and say i have to write in to complain...load of balls

[Billy.]

spoke to them again and they have just washed their hands of it and say i have to write in to complain...load of balls

 

Complain via email, not letter. Much faster response and it does not get lost in the post :blink:

[Son Of Potter]

Email the CEO and complain, you will get sorted then

 

Tom.Alexander@orange.co.uk

[fortune82]

Email the CEO and complain, you will get sorted then

 

Tom.Alexander@orange.co.uk

 

Do you honestly think the CEO of Orange is going to care about this? Really?

[Billy.]

Do you honestly think the CEO of Orange is going to care about this? Really?

 

You'd be surprised:

 

A letter of complaint sent to Richard Branson:

 

Dear Mr Branson

 

REF: Mumbai to Heathrow 7th December 2008

 

I love the Virgin brand, I really do which is why I continue to use it despite a series of unfortunate incidents over the last few years. This latest incident takes the biscuit.

 

Ironically, by the end of the flight I would have gladly paid over a thousand rupees for a single biscuit following the culinary journey of hell I was subjected to at thehands of your corporation.

 

Look at this Richard. Just look at it:

 

 

I imagine the same questions are racing through your brilliant mind as were racing through mine on that fateful day. What is this? Why have I been given it? What have I done to deserve this? And, which one is the starter, which one is the desert?

 

You don’t get to a position like yours Richard with anything less than a generous sprinkling of observational power so I KNOW you will have spotted the tomato next to the two yellow shafts of sponge on the left. Yes, it’s next to the sponge shaft without the green paste. That’s got to be the clue hasn’t it. No sane person would serve a desert with a tomato would they. Well answer me this Richard, what sort of animal would serve a desert with peas in:

 

I know it looks like a baaji but it’s in custard Richard, custard. It must be the pudding. Well you’ll be fascinated to hear that it wasn't custard. It was a sour gel with a clear oil on top. It’s only redeeming feature was that it managed to be so alien to my palette that it took away the taste of the curry emanating from our miscellaneous central cuboid of beige matter. Perhaps the meal on the left might be the desert after all.

 

Anyway, this is all irrelevant at the moment. I was raised strictly but neatly by my parents and if they knew I had started desert before the main course, a sponge shaft would be the least of my worries. So lets peel back the tin-foil on the main dish and see what’s on offer.

 

I’ll try and explain how this felt. Imagine being a twelve year old boy Richard. Now imagine it’s Christmas morning and you’re sat their with your final present to open. It’s a big one, and you know what it is. It’s that Goodmans stereo you picked out the catalogue and wrote to Santa about.

 

Only you open the present and it’s not in there. It’s your hamster Richard. It’s your hamster in the box and it’s not breathing. That’s how I felt when I peeled back the foil and saw this:

 

 

Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking it’s more of that Baaji custard. I admit I thought the same too, but no. It’s mustard Richard. MUSTARD. More mustard than any man could consume in a month. On the left we have a piece of broccoli and some peppers in a brown glue-like oil and on the right the chef had prepared some mashed potato. The potato masher had obviously broken and so it was decided the next best thing would be to pass the potatoes through the digestive tract of a bird.

 

Once it was regurgitated it was clearly then blended and mixed with a bit of mustard. Everybody likes a bit of mustard Richard.

 

By now I was actually starting to feel a little hypoglycaemic. I needed a sugar hit. Luckily there was a small cookie provided. It had caught my eye earlier due to it’s baffling presentation:

 

 

It appears to be in an evidence bag from the scene of a crime. A CRIME AGAINST BLOODY COOKING. Either that or some sort of back-street underground cookie, purchased off a gun-toting maniac high on his own supply of yeast. You certainly wouldn’t want to be caught carrying one of these through customs. Imagine biting into a piece of brass Richard. That would be softer on the teeth than the specimen above.

 

I was exhausted. All I wanted to do was relax but obviously I had to sit with that mess in front of me for half an hour. I swear the sponge shafts moved at one point.

 

Once cleared, I decided to relax with a bit of your world-famous onboard entertainment. I switched it on:

 

 

I apologise for the quality of the photo, it’s just it was incredibly hard to capture Boris Johnson’s face through the flickering white lines running up and down the screen. Perhaps it would be better on another channel:

 

 

Is that Ray Liotta? A question I found myself asking over and over again throughout the gruelling half-hour I attempted to watch the film like this. After that I switched off. I’d had enough. I was the hungriest I’d been in my adult life and I had a splitting headache from squinting at a crackling screen.

 

My only option was to simply stare at the seat in front and wait for either food, or sleep. Neither came for an incredibly long time. But when it did it surpassed my wildest expectations:

 

 

Yes! It’s another crime-scene cookie. Only this time you dunk it in the white stuff.

 

Richard…. What is that white stuff? It looked like it was going to be yoghurt. It finally dawned on me what it was after staring at it. It was a mixture between the Baaji custard and the Mustard sauce. It reminded me of my first week at university. I had overheard that you could make a drink by mixing vodka and refreshers. I lied to my new friends and told them I’d done it loads of times. When I attempted to make the drink in a big bowl it formed a cheese Richard, a cheese. That cheese looked a lot like your baaji-mustard.

 

So that was that Richard. I didn’t eat a bloody thing. My only question is: How can you live like this? I can’t imagine what dinner round your house is like, it must be like something out of a nature documentary.

 

As I said at the start I love your brand, I really do. It’s just a shame such a simple thing could bring it crashing to it’s knees and begging for sustenance.

 

Yours Sincerely

 

XXXX

 

* Paul Charles, Virgin’s Director of Corporate Communications, confirmed that Sir Richard Branson had telephoned the author of the letter and had thanked him for his “constructive if tongue-in-cheek” email. Mr Charles said that Virgin was sorry the passenger had not liked the in-flight meals which he said was “award-winning food which is very popular on our Indian routes.”

 

Edited October 13, 2010 by Billy.

[leeds chimp]

Done the letter finally as got chance..

 

 

 

Dear Sir,

In July I gave the 30 days notice to cancel the mobile phone contract for which I recieved a letter to confirm this. I asked for my PAC code to be sent so I could post my number to my new network (Tesco).

After a few calls advising it had been sent out, I ended up going into the retail branch on the 15th August and it was requested again by the sales advisor.

I then checked my bank statement at the end of August and I notice that a payment has gone out for the contract even though it had ended. I spoke to a very helpful man who advised the contract had been cancelled from the 24th August?? not the 11th August which is the end date and I would be refunded £24.00 due to the line rental being billed a month in front.

 

I then checked my bank statement in September and again a debit has been made for Orange. which was not authorised by me. When I spoke to the adviser, he advised that since I had requested my PAC code on the 15th August it starts a 30 day contract which you are charged 30 days line rental for and you need to give 30 days notice to cancel the mobile phone contract. I gave 30 days notice in July to cancel the contract and I was waiting for my PAC code which was not forecoming.

 

I was never advised that when I requested my PAC code that I would be charged for this. The contract ended on the 11th August and I had already given the 30 days notice to cancel.

 

The money that was taken in September was not authorised which is against the Direct Debit Guarantee and I was out of contract since it ended on the 11th August which I have written confirmation from Orange.

 

I would like a refund of this money taken plus the orginal £24.00 which I was advised in August.

 

Yours faithfully

[Son Of Potter]

Do you honestly think the CEO of Orange is going to care about this? Really?

 

 

Yes!! All companies like this have to have a complaints procedure, The ceo wont deal with it directly but will pass it on to his team who will sort it out!!