Is Orange scamming us?

Monsoon

***** EDIT: Keep'em coming folks - this is good stuff. Dial 150 and tell us if your minutes are upto date. It sounds like a lot of us have been fobbed off with this pityful service! *****

Orange allow their customers to dial 150 and get a balance of how many minutes they have available.

The trouble is this service is often out of date or not working.

As a consequence, a customer has no idea how many inclusive minutes are left and all too easily exceeds their limit.

So my question is:- Why cant orange maintain the service? Is there anything in their T&C's which stipulate a minimum level of service?

I'm getting really hacked off with this 'convienient' outage (for orange) :mad: . Anyone else had the problem and thought the same as me?

Monsoon

desiman

Yep, the remaining minutes service is pretty much useless.
i've told them many times but they always seem to say the onus is on the customer to keep track of the minutes and that its an 'additional service' as opposed to being critical as such.
have you registered for their service online? I've found that even when the remaining minutes doesnt work, the online service does, if you register your phone and click remaining minutes, it'll give you a live update on the minutes. Though it will only do it once in any 24-hour period.

nao_3

I've noticed that a lot too. I sent an email to Orange asking about it today. if i get a reply I'll let you know.

nao

desiman

Just out of interest, are your numbers ported? mines ported from o2, want to know if that might be something to do with it?

oranabana

Monsoon wrote:

Orange allow their customers to dial 150 and get a balance of how many minutes they have available.

The trouble is this service is often out of date or not working.

totally agree! Its generally working for me (ported my number from Vodafone 26 months ago), however when it coms to within three days of my billing date (14th of the month), it will jut say that this service is currently not available.... I mean, come on! I work in IT, its not rocket science to have a live database!

Plus, why can we not have itemised list of calls online, before the bill comes?!
the future could be a lot brighter!!!

Monsoon

My number is ported from Tmobile

desiman wrote:

I've found that even when the remaining minutes doesnt work, the online service does, if you register your phone and click remaining minutes, it'll give you a live update on the minutes. Though it will only do it once in any 24-hour period.

Havent tried the online service, although it's interesting you have found this more reliable when you would think it was using the same database.

It's also interesting over december leading upto and beyond xmas the service was almost non-exsistent. Conveniently this is also a busy period for people calling friends and family to wish them seasonal greeting .... coincidence?

oranabana wrote:

totally agree! Its generally working for me (ported my number from Vodafone 26 months ago), however when it coms to within three days of my billing date (14th of the month), it will jut say that this service is currently not available.... I mean, come on! I work in IT, its not rocket science to have a live database!

Plus, why can we not have itemised list of calls online, before the bill comes?!
the future could be a lot brighter!!!

Agreed. How comes they my bill is always sent out on time? Seems their IT teams have managed to get their act together when it comes to BILLING customers for the number of minutes used.

I smell a rat

JeanieM

have you registered for their service online? I've found that even when the remaining minutes doesnt work, the online service does, if you register your phone and click remaining minutes, it'll give you a live update on the minutes. Though it will only do it once in any 24-hour period.[/QUOTE]


Mine just gives the same info as when I go through 150.
Today it is 'helpfully' giving me the balance at the end of January!!!.

The contrast with the system on 3 is staggering.

FriendofDorothy

Mine is giving me a balance from eight days ago, even though my new month started on Sunday

FriendofDorothy

Ha ha just noticed my Sons is showing 100 mins & 11 seconds remaining,how does this work when he only gets 100 mins a month.

Anon

This issue is also being discussed about o2:
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=146569

The PAYG must be on a different system as that never seems to have a problem keeping up to date...!

Anon

desiman

Hmm it seems to be a general problem. what miffs me off is that as far as im concerned it should be classed as an important service that should be working 24/7. but whenever you complain to orange about it, they always say its something that they provide as an extra. i wonder if ofcom will be interested?