Orange - Multimedia Sub £3.40?

balletshoes

thanks for posting this - my OH has had this traffic tv charge on his orange bill for the last 3 or 4 months, no idea where it came from or what it was. he has now unsubcribed, wouldn't have known how to if it wasn't for this thread.

Tiggers_Mum

I spotted a multimedia sub charge (£3.396 + VAT) on my bill this morning and immediately queried it with Orange. The first lady said it would be for Traffic TV and then changed her mind and said it wasn't saying what the charge was for, but it had existed since 2008! She agreed to refund that months charge immediately and to ask her supervisor how many of the previous months charges they could refund. I was also unsubscribed immediately. I felt this was fair as it HAD been appearing on my bills for all that time but i hadn't spotted it - my fault...my bills aren't huge...

However, after reading this forum, I got back in contact with Orange and spoke to one of their supervisors who I must say, was really helpful...it turns out that my subscription was to do with a dating website (which I had used) and I had obviously not read the small print carefully when filling out my registration.

HOWEVER! The supervisor did state that Orange want ANYONE who has one of these multimedia subs appear on their bill to contact them and they will sort it - they appreciate that often people subscribe by mistake because small print isn't clear (as in my case) or it's inbuilt into the handset (as in Traffic TV), so if any of you are having trouble with this, it seems that Orange will try and sort it asap.

Just thought I would post this, as we hear a lot of negativity and this was a very positive response that I received.:j

Moral of this tale is - READ YOUR BILLS PROPERLY I've been paying this for 2 years needlessly.

Metarie

I had this issue last month with Orange. Luckily I scrutinise my bill and so it only happened for 1 month - the Orange customer service person I had was really helpful as well and got me unsubscribed. Annoying as I never signed up in the first place though.

If Orange tell you its a third party issue (as they initially tried to with me) check whether it comes pre-installed on your phone - it did on mine (HTC Desire) and I had no notification that it would start charging. If it did come with your phone, kick up a fuss.

jmosscrop

After reading your forum I rang them back again and they then did unsubscribe me and offer to refund 4 months worth.

I have proof that I did not subscribe as I do rarely use this phone (using my work one for all calls).

This is absolutely disgusting of Orange and very much a cynical ploy by them to extract cash through customers complacency.

As soon as possible I will cancelling my contract not because of the money but just that I cannot be confident my bill will be right.

An hour wasted to get a refund on something I never wanted.

thanks to all who took them time to post - this helped me sort it.

mikejones99

I have also been victim to this scam. I have spoken to an Orange agent tonight who also used the same excuses as detailed in the threads. I insisted that this was incorrect and that we had never signed up or used this service, let alone know what this is for.

She offered me £15 gesture of good will, I insisted that I wanted 9 x £3.40 which was the start of my new contract. She then said that she would do this with her managers approval and the subscription would be ended.

It was quite coincidental that this subscription started at the same time as my contract renewal in January 2010.

My advice is stand your ground and insist that you get the full refund back from Orange.

boliston

This all makes me grateful I left orange and have gone onto a basic payg service (data/voice/text only) with none of these ridiculous "subscription" options!

emeraldbugle

Does this work? I read it somewhere else...


To unsubscribe go to the Orange World off your mobile, go to My Account, go to Subscriptions and Traffic TV is there - and you click unsubscribe.

kelephonica

I just discovered 3 months worth of this on my bill charged at £3.40 + VAT I phoned Orange and told them nicely that I'd like a refund. The customer services person I got was very helpful, refunded me £4 for each straight away and basically said he hopes Orange sort this Traffic TV issue out because they are getting more and more people ringing to say they have not subscribed and have never heard of it. He said it's a mystery to him how it happens as it's not the kind of app you can accidently subsrcibe to by clicking a single button - you have to answer questions and choose options etc. However, the app appears to be pre-loaded on to HTC phones and is free for the 1st month then charged for every month after that. So maybe not such a big mystery after all - just a bit of cynical money grabbing.

The moral of the story is, if you purchase a new HTC phone, delete the Traffic TV app straight away. And if you have been charged for it just get a refund from the mobile provider.

kelephonica

just to add to my previous post, i thought I had removed the Traffic TV app just by dragging and dropping it to 'Remove' but it turns out that doesn't work because it is installed on the phones original ROM. So it's impossible to uninstall. The only way to ensure you don't continue to be charged for your monthly subscription is to open the app, go through the Menu options to 'My account' and unsubscribe from there. All the best!

julesb7929

As well as Traffic TV (which I have not come across), you also get this charge from the Traffic-i service, which was a mobile traffic information service based on TrafficMaster. I have been trying since 2008 to get this service cancelled, including emails and letters to the company and phone calls to Orange. I have never heard from Traffic-i (Integrated Mobile Technologies Limited) and Orange have never seen it fit to explain where the charge comes from (Multimedia Sub is not very helpful) or how to cancel it. It took a visit to this forum to discover that I can cancel the service via my phone, which I have now done. I cannot believe that Orange could not have cancelled it when I called them.

Next I will see how much of the last few years of charges I can get back from Orange/Traffic-i. I am not optimistic!