Problems With Orange Customer Service Help Me!!

mumler

Hi

I feel like i am going insane, I contacted orange in August and asked to cancel my contract on one of my mobiles (which my husband uses) they asked why and i ezplained that he didnt use it enough to make £30 a month worth it, the lady offered me a payg sim card for him to use if he didnt use his phone much, I accepted and assumed all was well. being very busy and doing all my orange stuff online i didnt realise until the other day that I was still being charged for this phone i contacted orange who told me that as we hadnt registered the payg sim we were still being charged for the contract, i explained to them that i was not informed of this that i had been explicit in giving my 30 day notice and cancellation request. NO JOY I have even suggested they listen to their recordings so that they are able to see that it was not explicit and I was not told that my contract would not end if i did not register this payg sim. NO JOY!! I have albeit been accused of lying, oh and its my fault for not realising earlier and no you cant speak to anyone in Head Office either and it is totally unreasonable to ask someone to contact you by 10am on monday morning to discuss it and there is no point anyway because we are not changing our position. I am absolutely incensed by their behaviour especially after being a loyal customer am seriously thinking about cancelling my phone too and just moving companies. Any thoughts or advice would be gratefully appreciated.

thanks:rotfl:

Jon_01

Ok, your both right !
Orange will not cancel a contract IF you've requested a payg sim to transfer your number to. The act of registering the new payg will end the paym contract and generate the last bill. So, in that respect their right.

In this case you made it clear that you did not want the contract to continue, so the agent on CS should have told you that registering the sim was a critical part of the process.

You need to call back (the best time is between 9 and 5 on a weekday, there are more prople in) and escalate up the chain until you get to a team leader or a manager. Explain coolly and calmly what's gone wrong and they should be able to sort something out for you. Who ever you get to in to end take their name and their job title. (weekends, in some call centres there are only one or two team leaders/manager which is why it's better to call in the week).
Good luck...

mumler

thanks jon

Have just had an interesting coversation with an employee who has told me off the record that this happens to lots of people as the cs people dont have to tell you the importance of registering the payg sim its the luck of the draw if they do.

Jon_01

Depends on the employee... When I worked the on the front line I made a point of making sure the customer knew.
As they're suppoed to be recording more calls these days I don't know how the agent can get away with it, unless there are JUST recording them and no one's listening to them !!!

mumler

think you may have a point there as when i asked them to listen to the recording of the telephone conversation so that i could prove I had been mislead they mysteriouslysaid they would not be able to find it!!:T

proplusplus

As Jon has mentioned above, registering your PAYG ends your contract. The best thing to do is to register this now to automatically end the contract and stop future charges. This limits the amount you have to pay.

Next step is to argue your case. Advise the billing department or disconnections department that the usage on your line clearly indicates that you assumed the line was terminated (provided you've made no calls.) If you've made calls/received calls on this line it is less likely to be an effective argument.

the best thing to do is to remain polite, yet request an escalation of the matter. In call centres as they are 'inbound', 'callbacks' are often avoided. As cal centres operate on statistics to remain within legal service level agreeements here is your best course of action.

1) call at a time when you have plenty of time to remain on the phone.
2) requests the agents name (unlikely to give you their surname) and extension number. Note this down and the time/date of the call.
3) remain calm and put your call across in a professional and courteous manner (even though you may be frustrated)
4) ask to be put through to a manager if youdo not get a resolution to you query whilst remaining polite.

You must remember that call-centre jobs are typically low-paid. If the agents feel you're undermining or belittling them, there's little incentive as with most low-paid jobs, to provide a good service. If you're friendly in general, you get a better response.

5) as the call-centres operate on Service Level Agreements, if you're offered a call-back, don't take it. say you're happy to stay on the line - or on hold - until the manager is available. (you can put your phone on loudspeaker and do other things whilst on hold.) - if you do accept a call-back ask for a specific time and confirm the name of the manager who you will be speaking to. (at this point make sure you have the agents name and extension - repeat this back to them as it shows you#'re serious with recording the details of the call.)

6) if there's no resolution through the manager, request the correspondence address for complaints. As companies try to reduce complaints and want them resolved through 'front-line' (i.e customer service) you may have a better response. Note the manager's name and their 'extension' or department.

Final points to remember:

Make sure you call to the correct department and confirm where you're being transferred to if you are - ask for a direct number as you can always be cut off 'accidentally'. There's no point complaining to the broadband department about a mobile-phone bill. No amount of complaining will give them access to the correct systems to refund you and no-one will get anywhere!!

The 'Calls may be recorded and monitored for staff training and security purposes' message does not necessarily mean that your call is recorded and stored. It is often kept for a brief amont of time to assess the quality of calls. The 'recorded' aspect could simply be that your call is being listened to in real-time and 'recorded' by noting operator techniques without phyically being recorded onto tape.

These calls are often not intended to be used to compliment or deny an argument. Under Data Protection Act you have the right to, for a fee of usually £10, a copy of every document the company holds which makes reference to you as a person. This could be one way of obtaining a recorded copy of your conversation if indeed a copy exists. For this, typically you have to help them find it by specifying which number you called, what time and what date also. Plus if you got transferred to different departments, where you were transferred to and who you spoke with.

Other than that, the best i can say is good luck, you should be able to get a goodwill credit adjustment if the line was never used during the period you thought you'd cancelled.

proplusplus

sporedude

As said above, when requesting an agents name, Mostly they dont give out surnames, As they dont have to.

justpaper

you should as for their id numbers ,. its called a pin number over at the AA and this would have to be given out as a ref to link the staff member to the call

orange is tight, kinda the same thing happened to me, i to was told i could port the number to pay as u go sim, i got the pay as u go sim but never reg/ed it, for 2 weeks ..i didnt know the contract sim was still live as i turned it off after that call to orange to cancel it, when i turn the contract sim back on , i was confused to why it was still active, they said i would have to call in with when i got the pay as u go sim and do the whole porting the number over, which just is a bag of bs, orange can port a number over to another sim ?

any ways i explained i thought every thing was done, but they wont have it, even talked to a team manager (might of been a supa/ idk) didnt get any thing out of them at all, what happened to the cust/ always right ?? lol

it is really just a way to get some more money out of users,

diamonds

Under Data Protection Act 1984 ( & subsequent changes ) write to Orange asking for all records & recordings held by them for yourself:

Dear Sir/Madam,

Orange Personal Communications Services Ltd is the data controller as defined in section 1(1) of the Data Protection Act 1998, in respect of the processing of personal data carried on myself " insert a/c name, a/c & mobile number " by Orange Personal Communications Services Ltd and is referred to in this Undertaking as the “data controller”. Section 4(4) of the Act provides that, subject to section 27(1) of the Act, it is the duty of a data controller to comply with the data protection principles in relation to all personal data in respect of which it is a data controller. I " insert name " under the above regulations require Orange PCS Ltd to provide this mailing of such as a data information request & have attached payment in regards to processing such request as per DPA 1998 regulatory guidelines. Please find enclosed copies of my identification as for OPCS to ascertain the request is carried out by OPCS in accordance with DPA 1998 towards releasing such data correctly towards the named account holder/individual, being myself " insert name ". Given the data requested is of a highly personal & sensitive nature I request such delivery to my Orange PCS registered account address be done through a secure delivery method where I " insert name " have to sign for delivery solely myself, I would regard any attempt by Orange PCS to send this via any non-secure delivery method as a breach of DPA 1998 by allowing unsecure open access to such data & as such would take all legal & regulatory action against Orange Personal Communications Services Ltd, Registered UK Company No. 03110666, as appropriate for failing to provide data security & protection in compliance with DPA 1998.

Thankyou for your time & attention, I look forward to hearing from yourselves.


Yours thankfully,



" insert name "

also include photocopied ID

1 proof of name ( passport, driving licence, birth cert... )

2 proof of address ( utility, council tax book/statement etc... )

cheque for £10 payable to Orange PCS

Send recorded/registered post to Orange's legal Registered Head Office

St James Court, Great Park Road ,Almondsbury Park, Bradley Stoke, Bristol BS32 4QJ

Ashers01

I have just come off the phone having had a barney with Orange. Exactly the same thing happened to me ie cancelled monthly contract, casually asked if I would like a PAYG sim- nothing mentioned about the need to register it straight away and the bills kept coming even though the pay monthly sim had been removed. They tell me documents sent with the sim made it clear but I can't find anything.
I HATE phoning Orange as they always wind me up and they now have about £120 of my money that I want back. I had forgotten my frustation when they took over Wanadoo broadband and left them after a few months of awful service.
Does anyone have an address as I would prefer to use snail mail rather than run the gauntlet again with that bunch of robbing baffoons?:mad:

Jon_01

Best bets is the Exec office (sorry the formattings all over the place for some reason for the last 2 day the forum won't read 'return' when I use it so all the text comes out in a big block !!). Orange Executive, Office 50 George Street, LONDON, W1U 7DZ Email: [EMAIL="executive.office@orange.co.uk"]executive.office@orange.co.uk[/EMAIL]