An interesting problem with Orange

sagat

I have been with Orange for some time, and had my fair share of problems with them (changing my contract without my permission, double charging for texts and roaming charges- the usual stuff) but had a great one this week.

I have a Blackberry 8120 Pearl on contract with them. Over the last week the keypad has stopped working properly. Inputs are misread and it is now impossible to answer the phone if it rings. I rang customer services and was told that Orange only offer a 6 month warranty on the phone as I have bought it from Blackberry (technically).

The phone can be sent back to Blackberry for repair for free, but this may take some time (2-3 weeks the guy on the phone suggested). The nice people at Orange explained they could offer insurance on the phone for £6 a month for 4 months which would give me a brand new handset instore tomorrow. Usually there is also a £15 admin fee, but they kindly offered to waive that.

I asked if this was an insurance policy or a protection plan, and was assured it was an insurance policy. I asked who regulated them selling these, and the kind fellow wandered off to ask someone before eventually revealing it was the Financial Services Authority. I asked a bit more about the plan and asked whether they did advised or non-advised insurance selling there, and he didnt know what I meant. I asked again if he recommended Orange's policy over Blackberry doing a replacement, and he said that was what he would do.

So I am guessing that this constitutes mis-selling under FSA guidelines, cos he sure as hell didnt seem trained well enough to do advised selling. Has anyone else had dealings with this and got any advice?

Jon_01

The agent are given no training (or they've didn't have any when I worked on the front line there). Also he'd made a fairly basic error, you can't take out insurance after the fact, that was one of the few things we were told...

elljay20

you can take out insurance after the fact now. Orange has really good insurance. If they are going to waive the admin fee then i'd take it over a repair as it's next day delivery of a new phone so you don't have to be without the handset whilst bb repair it.

sagat

i was more referring to the fact that he was misselling insurance than anything else.

Also, can they only offer a 6 month warranty when i got hte phon efrom them?

elljay20

sagat wrote: »

i was more referring to the fact that he was misselling insurance than anything else.

Also, can they only offer a 6 month warranty when i got hte phon efrom them?

they don't give the warrenty, blackberry do. I'm not quite sure why you think he's misselling the insurance?

taff007

sagat wrote: »

I have a Blackberry 8120 Pearl on contract with them. Over the last week the keypad has stopped working properly. Inputs are misread and it is now impossible to answer the phone if it rings.

I had the same problem with a Blackberry which was due to moisture getting to it (from a damp environment rather than dropped directly in water). If this is the case the warranty won't cover it anyway. Try taking the battery out and putting the phone in a sealed container filled with rice for a day or so.

sagat

elljay20 wrote: »

they don't give the warrenty, blackberry do. I'm not quite sure why you think he's misselling the insurance?

he is misselling by giving advice on whether to buy the imsurance policy. There are two types of sales of insurance, advised and non-advised. I asked him which one he was trained in and he didnt know, so im guessing no-advised as advised training is a LOT of work.

I dont understand why the warrenty is with blackberry if i got the phone from orange.