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eco21

2ax: You are completely correct, it is imperative that any one with an Orange contract knows this.

ORANGE WILL NOT PHONE YOU TO UPGRADE YOU

This is because the longer you take to upgrade the more money they get from you , so its not in the best interest of them, similar to any phone company. I have an Orange contract as I work for them and I get phone calls randomly asking for an upgrade, tariff change etc. There maybe a 1% chance if your orange business customer that you may get cintacted but unless your spending £1000's year, then we'll not be contacting you, so please be wary of people saying they are Orange.

Thanks 2ax

eco21

spatchcock: You are slightly too fast for teh SPV 1500, not out yet but should be within the month, but hold on, as in the lead up to christmas, everything will be slowed doen, as they extra work to do. So when your contract comes up for renewal, I would maybe wait a few weeks, until the phone is more general circulation, than that very day.

By any chance are you a business customer, seen as you were quoting minus the vat, I think you maybe but if not I will post an idea for both what to do as a business and personal user.

BUSINESS:
Two things you can do; if you phone your wife alot and if you dont phone your wife alot.

Phone Wife Alot:
Merge both phones onto the Business Plus 200 Tariff. This gives you and the wife unlimited phone calls between each other, free voicemail, insurance etc. 200mins are for the two of you's to ring other people. Just used 200 as example.

Dont phone wife alot:
You want to create a single Business Plus Account, on say 120 mins as, this will double up for first 6 months to 240mins, or if thats too many mins, you may want to go low as 60mins and that will double up to 120mins still with your free stuff above

Now that is good, but it means your a new Business Customer, as Business Plus hasnt been around for long, meaning that you arent going to get any type of loyalty bonuses. It could be better, even if you are using phone for business, to use a personal account, ill tell you why

PERSONAL:
Just now on Orange your paying, close to £33 inc vat on your phone, which does work out as a fair whack across the year, as your wife is giving us money as well.

Now, I believe you will have a bit of bartering, as Orange love customers who buy 'Extras' you have purchased 2, the GPRS and the texts. I would try to be giving you teh same deal for around £25 as you can say along the lines of, i looked up internet and your going 120 mins and 500 texts for £25, why can you give me something liek that but give me a gprs bundle instead of all those texts? You should be ablet o barter abit, and I would phone up before upgrading, even this week, and see whaht type of thing you get offered, now, if someone says, you could get this etc, get his name and extension number and ring him back when the time is right. So part one is get your bill for cheaper, try and get a text bundle free or say, give me 120 and 500 texts and ill buy a gprs bundle, £29 and still your getting a better deal, as youve increased texts by 700%, excessive, yes but I dont know if thwy will give you a better gors rate, more chance of getting more texts/minutes.

Now once you ahve gotten that done, when you ahve your new tariff, you want to phone up and put on Family, what this basically means is, pay from same account, and youll be rewarded with 50% extra mins, so you'll get 180mins you wife, if on 60mins, will get 90mins.

I dont know if youll be able to do this as I dont know how you pay for it, but do that if you can, and rememebr that point when bartering, after getting a deal, just check, can I do family on that account...?

Best of luck and hope i havent confused you, I would go with the personal opton to be honest but depends what suits you.

Keep me posted of the progress

researcher

2 months ago I got a call on my mobile from "Orange". Theysaid they were from Orange, knew all my contract details and offered me some better deals for my next years contract which was coming up soon.

Has this happened to anyone else?

What can I do?

Kengrino - A similar thing happened to me - but after I put down the phone I thought something was odd and called Orange - only to find it was nothing to do with them. They gave me the name of the company and their address and telephone number (the details were already on their system. I rang and threatened to go to trading standards and the police. They cancelled the contact immediately.

I did speak to trading standards and my local police - who would have taken the matter further - as the company are breaking the law.

Good luck

spatchcock

eco21 wrote:

spatchcock: You are slightly too fast for teh SPV 1500, not out yet but should be within the month

Yeah, it's not on the website yet, but when I phoned a couple of weeks ago I was told I could order one there and then (albeit with an extra fee for early upgrade). I guess they do this so they can keep the geeks happy with new releases before they start encouraging 'normal' people to get them.

eco21 wrote:

By any chance are you a business customer, seen as you were quoting minus the vat, I think you maybe but if not I will post an idea for both what to do as a business and personal user.

No, I'm a personal user. Was only quoting without VAT as that's how it's presented on the bill I was referring to (not good at remembering figures off the top of my head!) I moved my contract from a business account a couple of years ago when I changed jobs - unfortunately this seems to have meant that I'm only counted as having been a customer for 2 years rather than 5.

eco21 wrote:

Just now on Orange your paying, close to £33 inc vat on your phone, which does work out as a fair whack across the year, as your wife is giving us money as well.

Glad I wasn't just being paranoid about paying over the odds. I think she's on a YP120 right now, which I think is similar to mine except more free texts.

eco21 wrote:

Now, I believe you will have a bit of bartering, as Orange love customers who buy 'Extras' you have purchased 2, the GPRS and the texts. I would try to be giving you teh same deal for around £25 as you can say along the lines of, i looked up internet and your going 120 mins and 500 texts for £25, why can you give me something liek that but give me a gprs bundle instead of all those texts? You should be ablet o barter abit, and I would phone up before upgrading, even this week, and see whaht type of thing you get offered, now, if someone says, you could get this etc, get his name and extension number and ring him back when the time is right. So part one is get your bill for cheaper, try and get a text bundle free or say, give me 120 and 500 texts and ill buy a gprs bundle, £29 and still your getting a better deal, as youve increased texts by 700%, excessive, yes but I dont know if thwy will give you a better gors rate, more chance of getting more texts/minutes.

Thanks for the clear advice - I'll definately try that. Whatever deal I get, I was planning on adding one of the 'Our Customers First' deals, like half-price line rental for 6 months.

eco21 wrote:

Now once you ahve gotten that done, when you ahve your new tariff, you want to phone up and put on Family, what this basically means is, pay from same account, and youll be rewarded with 50% extra mins, so you'll get 180mins you wife, if on 60mins, will get 90mins.

That's not something I'm familiar with, but it does sound worthwhile. Both contracts are already on the same account, but I was never offered any discount (I'm pretty sure I asked specifically too). What is it exactly I have to ask for? Does it matter that her contract has another 6 months to run?

Thanks again for the advice - much appreciated. Funny that such a technological sector is one of the few left where personal customers are expected to barter, isn't it?

wotnoshoeseh

Hi eco21,
If I sign up to a contract with Orange for YP120, is there any way of checking how much usage you have had on your phone at any time during the month?
Can you ring up to check?
I'd like to be able to check how many free minutes I have left during the month.

Cheers,
wotnoshoeseh.

karendoyle

Any better deals out there?

---

Has any one seen any better deals than the one I currently have as my contract is up for renewal in a couple of weeks. I am currently with Orange and pay £27 per month. For that I get 60 minutes any time any network and 120 texts per month. Is there anything out there to save my some much needed money? I would like to stay with Orange but would change to save some cash. Karen

ToneToni

wotnoshoeseh wrote:

Hi eco21,
If I sign up to a contract with Orange for YP120, is there any way of checking how much usage you have had on your phone at any time during the month?
Can you ring up to check?
I'd like to be able to check how many free minutes I have left during the month.

Cheers,
wotnoshoeseh.

Indeed you can. Just dial 150 on your mobile and itll tell you how many you have left. You can also sign up on their website where you can access all your account details such as extras and remaining minutes on your plan.

alf

karendoyle wrote:

Any better deals out there?

---

Has any one seen any better deals than the one I currently have as my contract is up for renewal in a couple of weeks. I am currently with Orange and pay £27 per month. For that I get 60 minutes any time any network and 120 texts per month. Is there anything out there to save my some much needed money? I would like to stay with Orange but would change to save some cash. Karen

On orange pay as you go ...you can get 60 anytime/anynetwork minutes for £5 a week.

http://www.orange.co.uk/service_plans/payasyougo/extra_costs.html

iceburn

actually question about the orange family? Can orange Everyday 50 be added to this or no cause the tariff is now "Discountinued."

bryan

Any advice?

I asked Orange to unlock my fone 9 days ago - I had previously tried every other (cheaper) route including retail shops and car boot stalls!!

STILL no joy!

Seems SO hard to get through to speak to someone on the mobile helpline.