Orange Customer Care Nightmare

Morrero

Hi all - I'm a newbie! Apologies if this should be in the consumer rights thread, I thought it would possibly get more relevant attention here.

I changed to the Dolphin plan to avail of the 300 free texts once you top up by £10 a month. The T&Cs I could find were a bit vague, so once I'd switched plans a couple of days after already topping up by £10 and was still being charged for the texts, I toppped up by a further £10 just in case. After that, I was still being charged for texts.

I've had problems before with their telephone customer service so sent an email asking if they could direct me to the T&Cs for the plan as I was still being charged for texts, despite topping up by a total of £20, £10 of which was after I made the change. I got a phone call from someone who said that he would add the texts to my account (should they not be there automatically if I change to a plan that specifically includes them?) and they would be 'live' within 72 hours tops. Here I am a week later, still being charged 10p per text, and my credit has dwindled to about 40p.

I called this morning and spoke to a lady who once again said she would add the free texts to my account. Great stuff, and can I have back the amount I've been charged since they should have been 'live' on my account after my last phonecall? She said sure and then hung up. Undeterred (though getting a bit annoyed!) I called back, spoke to someone else, explained the situation and was told I can't have the money back. Why? Because they don't have the facility to add any credit to customer accounts - ever. I thought she was bluffing as O2 have done it for me before so I asked to speak to a supervisor.

According to the supervisor I have to top up within 24 hours of changing the plan for it to be active. I asked him where it said this in the T&Cs - he said it isn't written down anywhere but that's just 'the way it is'. I said ok if that's the case fine (though a little underhanded?), but when I called last week and was told they were added and they clearly haven't been, then I'm entitled to a refund of the money taken since then surely? Again an abrupt no, followed by lots of telling me that's 'the way it is' end of story.

I really am at my wits end with Orange. I've already made arrangements to switch to Virgin, and have tried emailing them but to no avail. I've been with them on and off for ten years and their service just gets worse and worse. Any ideas on who to write to to get the money back? Or will the vanity of my efforts mean I should just cut my losses?

Thanks in advance, M