Orange Nightmare - who is correct?

cjs1892

To cut a long story short:

- decided to leave Orange in june 05 to take up a contract with o2. (better rate and samsung D500 with bluetooth headset)
- when put to retention department (as you do) and they agreed to match the offer if I signed up for another 12 months. I thought fair enough.
- Phone arrived soon after, no sign of headset. Chased up headset in August and twice in september to be told "supply problems - should only be another 7-10 days"
- Then on 10th Oct (my 5th call to chase up) spoke to someone who told me it was actually posted on Aug 30th and returned as not signed for (!). Why this information was not available to whoever i spoke to throughout september is anyone's guess.
- They resend the headset and it arrives on 13th Oct (3 months late). However when I come to test it with my D500 it pairs up no problem - but when I come to use it, I can hear what is being said but the person on the other end cannot hear me.
- to verify where the problem lies, I pair the headset to my wife's Nokia 6600 and it does exactly the same thing.

Now this is where the REAL problem starts:

- I call orange. They say "Accessories come directly from Nokia - so you need to speak to them". I say "you sent it to me - why can't you send me a replacement". They say "call nokia".
- I call Nokia. The only way through is an 0906 number at 75p a min. Fantastic! Nokia says "you have only had the headset 24 hours - the retailer should replace it".
- I call back Orange. They stick to their original line that it is nothing to do with them. They refuse to put me through to the Accessory department. They refuse to put me through to someone more senior. They just tell me to ring Nokia back and tell them they are wrong. They also say that an accessory is not subject to the sale of goods act! Which seems odd again.
- Go back to Nokia (this time free of charge by virtue of registering for club nokia through my wife's phone). They are amazed but say they would give the number of their service centres where I could go to have it "repaired" as per the guarantee.

Now what I want to know is:

- Is it really true that Orange can refuse to replace a fault item they supplied to me 24 hours previously on the grounds that they don't supply it?
- Irrespective of what the case is - i think the customer service has been appalling. Who can I complain to with any chance of a decent resolution? Or would I be wasting my time?
- Or does anyone know what is wrong with the headset!?

To put it in context, I have been an orange customer for 5 years with an average bill of about £60 a month. Not when this contract runs out though. Nor when my wife's runs out in November.

Any help gratefully received (and may stop me going insane)

smcicr

have a search through here for orange complaint letters etc - there was one a while back where someone dug out a high end orange bod's email address and it's on the thread - basically write a letter stating the problems in a concise manner (be as polite as possible and on no account be rude), note as much detail as you can about who you spoke to, how many times, what time and costs were incurred (generally speaking) and make it clear you are a longstanding customer (indicate time with orange, account number(s) etc) and that you are deeply disappointed with the service you have received and that unless X is done you will be cancelling your contract(s) at the earliest possible opportunity.

X - the thing they can do (or try to do) to make it right - you need to give them something to aim at - be it a free upgrade, reduced tariff and so on.

send the letter to as many high end bods (CEO etc) as possible and make sure you copy everyone in so they can all see where it's gone to.

it may work, it may not but it will be infinitely better use of your time than trying to resolve it with CS directly.

(nb: have a look on here for orange deals to see what it's possible for them to offer other people just on an upgrade basis - should give you an idea what to set the bar at for your requirements)

all the best with it.

charlie12

Here's one thread to get you started.