Orange Price changes ?

Thank you for everyones comments on this post, I have just cancelled my contract with a bit of a fight.

There was no mention of the text message, but he did say that I didn't go over my minutes, to which I asked him to look closer as all my bills since January have been at least £30 over. He offered me 100 minutes as a safety net and suggested I monitor my minutes more closely to prevent going over them so then the charges wouldn't affect me To which I asked if he could guarantee whether I would not go over my minutes with an extra 100, which he couldn't.

After admitting that I do go over my minutes he said but you still don't call 0845 numbers etc because thats the only numbers that the changes apply to, so I read him section 4.3 and he put me on hold then said he I would be disconnected after midnight tonight. No offer of the porting code but I didn't want it anyway.

Thanks so much I was stuck in a contract with a phone that has a fault so I often didn't receive text messages for days but orange would not replace it and there is little signal in this area.

Now to sort out my mums phone!

As I can't talk to Ofcom till Monday, I called in a favour and spoke to a friend's hubby, who happens to be a barrister. All unofficial and all (not like I could afford him! ), but he brought up something that I don't see anyone has mentioned yet.

We know orange is claiming that their 4.3.1 prevents any cancellation unless you've made the calls in the last 3 months, and that Ofcom GC9 says we should have a right to cancel, but he said both those would hang on the definition of "material detriment", which isn't clear-cut. He thinks that's where Orange's lawyers have made up their 3-month-calls thing from, by trying to measure if the detriment is material or not, and that it could possibly be legal for them to take that approach.

He then said "you do know about the Universal Service Directive?"... :rolleyes:

Serious Googling later:

Directive 2002/22/EC, which is part of UK law through the Communications Act 2003, says in article 20:

END-USER INTERESTS AND RIGHTS
Article 20
Contracts
4. Subscribers shall have a right to withdraw from their contracts without penalty upon notice of proposed modifications in the contractual conditions. Subscribers shall be given adequate notice, not shorter than one month, ahead of any such modifications and shall be informed at the same time of their right to withdraw, without penalty, from such contracts, if they do not accept the new conditions.

The entire text of the directive is online - just Google for it, but I can't post the link.

Critically, Article 20 has no mention of detriment - it simply has to be a change in the contract that the user doesn't want to accept - it can even be a REDUCTION in charges, and because it's part of legislation there's nothing Orange can say in their contract which prevents it from applying.

I doubt anyone in the call centre will listen if you read it to them, but Orange's lawyers will have to.

mumps wrote: »

I have had the text but been told that I can't leave as I don't go over my bundled minutes. Asked about 08xx numbers and was told they are not changing. Went to have a look at the web address given in the text and can't find it so I am not sure what the changes are. Thanks for any help

It's unfortunate that Orange CSRs are telling lies about this.

If you look at the Orange price guide on the O website www.orange.co.uk/guidetopaymonthly the "calls to premium rate and other special numbers" section it says "From 24 August 2009 phone calls to numbers beginning with 070 will be charged at 75p/minute and also subject to a minimum call charge of 75p per call. All calls are subject to a minimum call charge of 5p unless stated otherwise. From 14th September the minimum call charge will be 15p."

jen110 wrote: »

The Bitter Wallet site states that those who took out their contract from June 2009 will not be affected by the new terms and conditions. However this could be wrong.

Yeh I was the one who told them that, but after speaking to another advisor and receiving a text (contract taken out 24th June), it seems like everyone is affected by the minimum call charge