Orange barred my calls

itgirlinuk

I recently took out a new contract with Orange, after being with T-Mobile for a number of years. I took the contract out in my husband's name and I have had the phone for 3 weeks.Now, Orange has barred all call from my phone.

On Friday, we were going away for the weekend and I went to pick up my husband from a train station nearby. Trains were late as and I didnt know that my husband couldn't reach me. I tried to call and it said "All calls from this number are barred". I was stuck late in the evening, on my own, with no access to phone and not sure where my husband. And I panicked. Eventually, train and husband appeared.

When I eventually managed to call a family member and ask them to reach Orange for me, they called me on my husband's number and said that they were not able to verify his identity, so they barred all calls. I wasn't even allowed to call Customer Services to understand what the problem was. They said unless we faxed over a proof of address, they wouldn't lift the bar. And it still can take 24 hours to lift the bar. I was very mad and upset with them. On top of it, the customer services guy wouldn't put me through to his manager to discuss it.

I spoke on the phone for about an hour and said it was not O2, TMobile or Vodafone have done in the past and I have never had this problem before and never have I been treated like this before. They were extremely rude in a very polite sort of way (you know what I mean) and kept repeating this. We said we don't travel on weekends with a proof of ID on us. The whole weekend I was without a phone and struggled....It is my lifeline to everything....

Has this happened to anyone? Will it be worth it to complain to Orange via a letter? I need to do something about this....I am very MAD AND FRUSTRATED :mad: :mad: :mad:

OneADay

Think they are justified to ask for proof with the Mr and Mrs confusion being obvious cause for concern. If you bought it in store in your husband's name without him being there, they would want some sort of proof. At least they should, otherwise anyone could use someone's details for fraud.
Why didn't you get it in your name?

itgirlinuk

My husband bought it online in his name. All the details are in his name, except the direct debit bank account details which is in my name.

and they put a bar because they couldn't verify him electronically. So rather than ask for proof of address when you get a contract out, they decided to bar my number altogether with no notice.

and they have made mistakes along the way to make it worse. They told me I needed to send it 1 proof of address to them by fax and gave out a fax number. My husband did this with a letter attached and it still didnt lift the bar.

I called them again and now they say they want 2 different IDs and they always wanted 2 and they won't lift it till they get 2 IDs. They are extremely rude on the phone and very difficult to deal with.

I asked them for a compromise for 24 hours to fax across the proof and lift the bar based on the 1 ID I sent...But no....they are rude and hearless and competely don't know how to handle a customer......I wish I could punch something :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

Wallhart

Seems pretty obvious to me. You don't know it but they are actually protecting you from doing this. Not this exact instance but as a whole.

Otherwise anyone could take a contract name out online and use someones elses debit details. They don't knw you are using the phone or calling legitamately.

Understand it is fustrating

Jon_01

The guys on the frontline in CS can't lift fraud dept bars.

If the dept can't verify a customer they'll bar the acc and ask for proofs, only when those proofs are received will the dept unbar the acc.

They won't compromise on lifting a bar. Look at it like this, if your info was used to take out an acc in your name (by someone else) and then Orange let someone run up a huge bill and mess up your credit file you wouldn't to happy, would you?
If they call the customer and tell them they'll just run the bill up faster before the is barred.

itgirlinuk

i understand that and accept it....but why the bad customer service. And why complicate the issue by giving me wrong information.

Most of all, why didnt they ask for the proof of address / identity before they activated the account?

jatos

Personally, my feeling is thats orange for ya. I hate the damn network.

I can remember buying a £20 top up voucher (gennuine) and going through all hell for them to first of all recognise.

By this time, there had also been a mess up with some extra features that I had added to my phone which mean't that £20 would only give me 16 minutes call time!

And trying to get billed correctly was so much of any issue that I was eventually like 'sod this' and switched back to my previous favourite O2, though I am now with Vodafone, but still thinking of going back to O2 once my two year contract is over, as O2 have been by far the best network I have used, and I have tried all the networks at some point bar Three.

Virgin and T-mobile where ok, just didn't like there pricing structures.

Jon_01

itgirlinuk wrote: »

i understand that and accept it....but why the bad customer service. And why complicate the issue by giving me wrong information.

Most of all, why didnt they ask for the proof of address / identity before they activated the account?

There shouldn't be an issue with what the dept want. The info is clearly stated on the notepad, which is the first thing the CS agent sees. You could complain to a team leader in CS if your not given the right info.

Proofs at the point of sale aren't kept (data protection act).

And some stores will accepted documents that are not technically acceptable (and documents can be forged). If an acc flags up the dept has to verify the customer. If that process fails the dept has to ask for verifiable proofs (the number asked for depends on why the acc flagged up).
One the proofs have been received and checked the bar's taken off.

Hope that helps ?