HELP with Orange Mobile Phone Contract

richunited

i have been with orange for 3years now and last year when i renewed my contract ( i have always phoned orange up on the telephone to do this) i got a loyalty reward of 10 off my contract ( 12months contract was £35 but -10 loyalty reward makes it £25 per month) so i was happy and decided to stay with orange for another year. So this year April 4th i decided to go into Orange Store ( Castlepoint Bournemouth Dorset) and upgrade my phone (NOT MY CONTRACT) I decided to go for the htc touch hd phone, anyway when i asked the orange staff they said that i would be able to keep my same contract with the discount of £10 meaning my contract would stay at £25. So i signed the contract i said on there canary 35 for 12months (I asked there staff about that and they said it would be shown on your bill as £10 discount) .

Anway fastforward 14days. i getmy bill on the 18th april it said £35 for the month with no discount so i ring the orange customer service they bombarded me with you signed the contract with orange instore go speak to them and they will sort it.
So i go to the orange store and told No we are not goin to change this To witch i replyed You have miss sold me this contract and you have lied to me. they ignored this and i got annoyed and left .
So i come back home and ring orange customer service again to witch im told that orange customer service and the orange shops are a diffrent company owned by a diffrent person but trade under the name orange so they have no power to sort my contract out and i was told if i wanted to terminate my contract that i would have to pay £450 .
I told them i was going to ring ofcom and they said go for it and prove you were miss sold the contract and when i asked to speak to a manager they siad well they dont want to talk to you. I couldnt believe what he had said.
I also said i would refuse to pay the bill and they said were gonna send it to the debt collection agency. i do not want to mess my credit score up.

i do not want to be with orange anymore because the way they have lied to me. But i am willing to see out the next 12months of they will drop the price back to £25.

I just want to make clear a few things

I never once raised my voice or showed my anger.

I NEED SOME HELP i do not want to be with orange anymore because the way they have lied to me. But i am willing to see out the next 12months of the contract it they will drop the price back to £25.

What do i do Now????

Crazy_Jamie

Realistically the best you can hope for is that your price goes down to £25 for the remainder of the contract. What they said about the two different companies is actually true, and I'd be amazed if the salesperson who sold you the new contract had the authority to reduce a tariff by £10. They just don't have that power ordinarily. Which is why I somewhat knew what was coming here before you explicitly said it.

If you signed a new contract in store then you must have had a written contract. Was the £10 discount recorded on that? If not, why not? At which point did the salesperson tell you that you could keep the £10 discount? Very start, very end, several times? Do you know which salesperson it was?

Sounds to be like one bad apple of a salesperson trying to secure a deal at all costs. The fault lies with them, but establishing that is going to be tricky if nothing was one paper.

proplusplus

The problem you have here is that the £10 discount was a 12/18mth promotion relative to your old contract.

therefore technically when you went to the Orange store, you effectively remained on the same tariff as far as they were aware, you just didn't retain the £10 discount past the contract.

They would have been unaware of this promotional discount as they cannot see the systems - therefore they go on what you say (you effectively said it was a £35 contract for £25 - when in fact it was a £35 contract with 12/18mth £10 discount.)

The telesales team are correct in advising that you should return to the retail store in order to sort the mess - they will not be able to help you other than advise you how to buy-out your contract (~£450 total).

You should have read what you were signing really as it will state that you are extending your current contract for a further 12months. Your contract being a 12mth contract with a shortly-to-expire £10 discount would effectively be extended by 12mths at the £35 rate.

The problem i feel you will have is that you will find it difficult to argue with the store about returning it - and you have little recourse to return the handset to the store as the 7-day returns policy is not applicable in these situations (purchases from a retail store).

Try arguing with the store manager and remain calm whilst explaining your issues > good luck

proplusplus